Under pressure from the authorities, UBS is considering whether to divulge the names of 20,000 of its well-heeled U.S. clients, according to people close to the probe, a step that would have once been unthinkable to Swiss bankers, whose practice of secrecy dates back to the Middle Ages.(emphasis mine)
U.S. investigators believe some of these clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to illegally hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge $300 million or more in U.S. taxes, according to a government official connected with the investigation.
....
New revelations are likely to come Monday, when a former UBS banker is expected to testify in a Florida court about how he helped Olenicoff and other clients evade taxes. .....
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive at UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment-banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in soured investments, many of them linked to risky U.S. subprime mortgages.
...
As the authorities zeroed in on UBS last January, the bank abruptly shut its three Swiss offices that sold undeclared offshore banking services to U.S. clients. Those offices catered to thousands of wealthy Americans, some of whom may now have their tax secrets put on public display.
They are guilty as hell, and 90% of Americans know what it means to have a, "Swiss Bank Account", and if Obama's people don't use this for Phil "Offshore Account" Gramm, John McCain's economic guru, they are idiots.
0 comments :
Post a Comment