Switzerland Reportedly Ready To Help U.S. Crack Down On Tax Cheats

[ProSense]

Switzerland Reportedly Ready To Help U.S. Crack Down On Tax Cheats

By Alan Pyke

Switzerland is close to striking a deal with the United States to resolve ongoing investigations into its banks regarding their role in tax evasion by wealthy Americans, but reports conflict on the details. According to the New York Times’ Dealbook blog, the agreement would include disclosure of the names of the tax evading bank clients to U.S. authorities. A Reuters story disputes that claim, saying the Swiss government will allow banks to disclose information about their own employees’ activities in aiding clients, “but not identities of clients except under conditions already authorized by bilateral agreements.”

Both outlets report that the agreement includes a one-time fine, perhaps as high as $10 billion, to be paid to the U.S. Treasury by the Swiss government (which would likely in turn penalize the banks in question to raise the funds). Investigations of Swiss banks have yielded both fines and client name disclosures in recent years, and the reported effort at a blanket settlement comes after the largest private bank in the country shut down after pleading guilty to charges in the U.S.

But the reported $10 billion blanket fine is less a drop in the bucket than a water molecule inside that drop. Tax evasion, in its various forms, cost the U.S. over $3 trillion from 2001-2010, according to a report by Demos (click to enlarge):



85 percent of that lost revenue, or $2.6 trillion, comes from individual tax evasion rather than corporate cheating. Demos adds that most of those individual tax evaders are in the highest income brackets, and typically underreport business income.

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/29/2071721/switzerland-reportedly-ready-to-help-us-crack-down-on-tax-cheats/

Switzerland Weighs Deal in Tax Cases
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/switzerland-weighs-deal-in-tax-cases/

Switzerland frees banks to settle U.S. tax evasion cases
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/29/us-swiss-usa-banks-idUSBRE94S0CF20130529

[kelliekat44]

1. That's what I'm talking about! No place to hide. Every country needs to get on board. nt

[ProSense]

2. IRS eyes U.S. accounts at Caribbean bank

IRS eyes U.S. accounts at Caribbean bank

By Nanette Byrnes

Tue Apr 30, 2013

(Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal court had authorized the Internal Revenue Service to seek information on U.S. taxpayers who may have accounts at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).

In a move resembling a recent IRS inquiry into Americans with Swiss bank accounts, the Justice Department said a court order would let the IRS serve a 'John Doe' summons seeking records of FCIB's U.S. correspondent account at Wells Fargo & Co. A correspondent account is a bank deposit account maintained by one bank for another bank.

The order would allow the IRS to identify U.S. taxpayers with "interests in financial accounts at FCIB and other financial institutions that used FCIB's Wells Fargo correspondent account," the Justice Department said in a statement.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/30/us-usa-tax-caribbean-idUSBRE93T17U20130430

More confirmation about my suspicion related to the GOP's IRS scamdal-mongering.

Leaked Data Could Result in Biggest Tax Evasion Investigation Into Offshore Accounts in History
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022837051