UBS exec admits bank's sham tax shelters broke U.S. law

[antigop]

http://financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/REG/749563333

UBS admitted it broke U.S. law in setting up sham offshore tax shelters for wealthy Americans and agreed to work with U.S. authorities in reviewing 19,000 accounts to identify clients who may have committed tax fraud.

“Our compliance system had failures, and misconduct appears to have occurred,” Mark Branson, chief financial officer of UBS’s global wealth management unit, told a Senate panel today. “It is apparent now that our controls and supervision were inadequate.”

Mr. Branson also said UBS will discontinue offering offshore banking and securities services to American clients through branches that aren’t licensed in the U.S. The firm allowed its Swiss bankers to market securities and banking services on U.S. soil without a proper license from 2000 to 2007, according to a report released today by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Mr. Branson made the disclosures in testimony before the panel after the panel reported UBS hid about $18 billion for 19,000 Americans who didn’t declare the assets. Switzerland’s largest bank is under investigation by the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In his testimony, Mr. Branson didn’t explicitly say that UBS violated the law, and after his testimony, he refused to answer questions on that subject. However, UBS spokesman Mark Arena said after the hearing that Mr. Branson’s statement intended to convey that the firm breached U.S. law.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Someone is going to jail,

Someone is going to jail,
Someone is going to jail.
Neener, neener, neener.:evilgrin:

[bbinacan]

2. Yes, and some from

Fannie and Freddie need to go too.

[mia]

3. Coincidence that $18 billion also went missing in Iraq.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3XLwAEIk-Y

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

4. Will this exposure actually put a damper on tax evasion?

Conviction or no conviction, will this exposure of tax evasion have any benefit in the end? Or will it be back to "(crooked) business as usual" by tomorrow morning?

[CanonRay]

5. I wonder how much Phil Gramm has in there

since he works for them.