Court Authorizes IRS to Issue Summonses for Records Relating to U.S. Taxpayers with Offshore Bank Ac

[UpInArms]

Source: Department of Justice Press Release

U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood of the Southern District of New York entered an order on Nov. 7, 2013, authorizing the IRS to issue summonses requiring Bank of New York Mellon (Mellon) and Citibank NA (Citibank) to produce information about U.S. taxpayers who may be evading or have evaded federal taxes by holding interests in undisclosed accounts at Zurcher Kantonalbank and its affiliates (collectively, ZKB) in Switzerland; and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman of the Southern District of New York entered an order today authorizing the IRS to issue summonses requiring Mellon, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA (JPMorgan), HSBC Bank USA NA (HSBC), and Bank of America NA (Bank of America) to produce similar information in connection with undisclosed accounts at The Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited and its affiliates (collectively, Butterfield) in the Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Malta, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division Kathryn Keneally, and Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Danny Werfel made the announcement today.

In these actions, the Court granted the IRS permission to serve what are known as “John Doe” summonses on Mellon, Citibank, JPMorgan, HSBC, and Bank of America. The IRS uses John Doe summonses to obtain information about possible tax fraud by individuals whose identities are unknown. The John Doe summonses approved today direct these five banks to produce records identifying U.S. taxpayers with accounts at ZKB, Butterfield and their affiliates, including other foreign banks that used ZKB and Butterfield’s U.S. correspondent accounts at Mellon, Citibank, JPMorgan, HSBC, and Bank of America to service U.S. clients.

“These cases once again demonstrate the department’s resolve to uncover and identify taxpayers who tried to hide money overseas as a way to avoid federal taxes,” said Assistant Attorney General Keneally. “These John Doe summonses will provide information about individuals using financial institutions from Switzerland to the Cayman Islands to Hong Kong to avoid their U.S. tax obligations. U.S. taxpayers still holding accounts who have not come clean should come forward and do the right thing before it’s too late.”

“Today’s action show that the use of foreign banks for tax evasion remains a high investigative priority of this office and U.S. citizens should understand that loud and clear,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara. “By issuing these John Doe summonses, we continue our joint efforts with the IRS to identify and hold accountable those who try to evade their legal responsibility to pay taxes.”

Read more: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/November/13-tax-1210.html

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Hoping this works - remembering that the only thing they could get Al Capone for was tax evasion - so for me - there's hope that these scumbags in the .01% will be taken out

http://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/capone-tax-evasion.htm

[russspeakeasy]

1. It's a good first step...

[Veilex]

2. This sounds like a publicity stunt...

I fear this may be all bark and no bite.

I hope I'm wrong on this one.

[daggahead]

3. Let's see what happens.

Will the 1% push back and sue the Justice department?

Will we find out who has been skipping out on paying taxes?

Will we never see anything about this again?

[Rain Mcloud]

4. Mitt will shit gold bricks

and probably congress critters too.
Which is not to say that Mitt will shit congress,though he probably eats it.
Congress i mean.

Either way,about time!

[Chaco Dundee]

16. I. wish.

This early in the game they have their lawyers on it and do not give a sh...if it comes tu fruition they will shit the proverbial golden brick while mammy holds the puke bucket.the next thing is therapy.

[Left Coast2020]

17. Damn. I was just going to mention him.

Nonetheless, he has to be making arrangments to move his stash elsewhere. What an embarrasment to the GOP if Mr. 47% gets nailed.

But yes, we'll see what happens.

[freshwest]

5. It's a continuation of Obama's policy since 2009. The offshorers squealed like stuck pigs then:

Two further steps to the end of the Swiss banking secrecy

...The economic and financial crisis of 2008 imposed on the world’s largest economies, particularly those of the United States and the European Union, recovery programs such as to make it necessary to search for new financial resources to resolve the crisis of sovereign debts. Attention was also paid to the recovery of funds lost due to occurrence of tax evasion, with specific interest to those not declared and held abroad. Switzerland, the queen of the strongholds of banking secrecy – located in the heart of geographical, economic and political Europe – began to be under strong international pressure, until the G20 put it, together with other countries not yet complying with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the exchange of tax information, on the grey list of anti-laundering countries.

On March 13, 2009, in order to avoid ending up in the black list, bearing the onerous conditions that would follow – which would be added to the existing difficulties of its financial industry, such as the ever increasing restrictions on Swiss banks to operate in foreign countries – the Swiss government threw in the towel announcing the signing of the OECD model on the mutual administrative assistance in tax matters, communicating to be willing to grant to the states, in which the Convention is in force, an exchange of information on request, regarding, not only the cases of tax fraud (criminal offense), for instance the tax evasion through the production of documentation and false accounting, but also the simple cases of tax evasion (administrative offense), such as the omission, whether intentional or not, of the tax return for which the Swiss authorities had never granted administrative assistance.

The international community – in the form of OECD, the G20, the United States and the European Union – continued to press on the Swiss Confederation to extend the administrative assistance to the cases of tax evasion on the model of the OECD standard, for an introduction of a generalized exchange of tax information, according to which banks provide data automatically of any client to the tax authorities of the countries concerned. Criminal proceedings launched by the U.S. on the violations that Swiss banks operated against the U.S. tax authorities with unfair and deceptive practices, helping wealthy Americans to evade taxes by moving its income from Swiss bank accounts, made it clear to the Swiss administration which risks would their banks run, if these operations continued to be practiced. On October 9, 2013, the Swiss Federal Council decided to sign the Convention – of course, not to acquiesce to foreign authorities, but to limit the risks of new criminal proceedings...

The disclosures published earlier this year by the international press, on the basis of offshore leaks, allowed in part to shed light on the activities of the trust, as well as banks, asset managers and lawyers assisted by Swiss tax consultants. To force the trust to apply the new rules of transparency, public registers, which contains the names of the beneficiaries, without which any exchange of financial information will be of little use, would be enough...

http://zhurich.com/2013/11/08/switzerland-commits-other-two-steps-towards-the-end-of-banking-secrecy/

Prosecution of tax evaders isn't unilateral. This was something Obama likely got when the G20 met in Russia.

The media focus was Syria, where Obama caught Putin failing to live up to the CWC which Russia signed onto, and recieved many millions of US$ to safely decommission their nuclear program.

Some people Obama kept on staff that everyone hates, know these players better than any of us. This is what PBO ran on in 2008, but he's not the anti-christ or world dictator the right makes him to be.

But he might as well be, by breaching the wall of secrecy from the system of Anglo-Saxon trusts. Guess that was the bond Romney was worried about him breaking, since he took advantage of it to hide his ill-gotten gains in the Caymans.

I'm thinking of the Russian involvement in the Greece and Cyprus bank failures months ago. It's all going to come out. This is good.

It is happening faster than I thought, and I wasn't even sure it was ever going to happen. These are big players in the world, not easily moved. Their castle walls will be breached.

The rich are right, taxes are class warfare by elected governments to redistribute the wealth. We should not be afraid to say those words. Because the wealth was redistributed upward.

A government that taxes the rich is how the people of the world regain part of the wealth they worked for. They didn't mind the rich holding the money and using it for the good of all since capital is required for innocation to benefit the world.

Money is the expression of the energies of many. It goes to one place or to another, to be affected by the talents and intelligence of those holding it. It loses value by not being passed around.

But along the way the rich did the wrong thing with the money and the people through their government are standing at the gates.

I'm not claiming by any means to be an expert, this is just what I figured was going on as a trend.

[ReRe]

7. Wow, just Wow, freshwest...

You need to make an OP out of this... Great reply!

[freshwest]

9. What part? Just additional info... Do you mean my opinion there?

[ReRe]

11. The whole nine yards! n/t

[DFW]

15. The Swiss bent so far backwards to accommodate the USA, they sometimes went too far

We maintain a small office in Switzerland with a Swiss employee. Just a one-man representative office. When all this blew up, we were told to clear out our bank account and go away. We said, but we have to pay our Swiss employee!! They said no, we don't want any Americans any more, you are more trouble than you are worth. Go away. So now we closed our account and have to pay our employee there with monthly wires ordered from our bank in the USA, which make our bank rich and cost our poor Swiss guy an extra few hours a month to keep his personal taxes in order.

As usual, the big guys can always find somewhere to hide their stash (set up trusts in the name of Liechtenstein citizens, what do I know?). However, when the Swiss banks can make a lot of noise and headlines by saying "we tossed the Americans out, see how tough we are!" and the American government can say, "look how we forced the Swiss banks into compliance!" THEN everyone's happy. But beware, there is a lot of window dressing going on, and probably far less compliance than either government would like to admit.

If you have money stashed away somewhere offshore "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt Romney Style," chances are you still do, and always will.

[JudyM]

6. Ok, now let's go harder on those corporate overseas tax breaks. nt

[ReRe]

8. K&R

[Brigid]

10. Now let's see the IRS go after these fuckers . . .

With the same zeal they're going after me for a measly $500. Actually, it isn't even that much. And I can't even get a decent explanation out of them about it. I just tried again, and got nothing but phone trees and hold music!

[avaistheone1]

12. I thought something like this would have been done long ago.

[marble falls]

13. About time.

[Scurrilous]

14. Good news!

K & R