This week’s "Asset Search News Roundup" is about bank secrecy laws which can be exploited by tax cheats or other individuals fraudulently concealing their assets. As the OECD explained at page 19, ¶¶ 29 & 30 of "Improving Access To Bank Information For Tax Purposes", bank secrecy laws play a critically important role in a country’s banking system. Without these laws, few bank customers would likely entrust their private financial affairs to a bank.
Meanwhile, the case by U.S. authorities to compel UBS to disclose all of its bank customers who are suspected U.S. tax cheats, continues in Miami federal court. Although UBS has already made some disclosure, it must undoubtedly consider Swiss bank secrecy laws, (a.k.a. professional secrecy laws).
As I mentioned in "Financial Discovery & Foreign Bank Secrecy Laws ", using a domestic court to elicit evidence from a bank witness like UBS, can involve the foreign bank secrecy laws of an offshore tax haven. News reports which mention the Miami litigation against UBS and / or Swiss bank secrecy laws, include:
- "U.S. Wants More Client Names From UBS"
- "UBS Revealed Far Less Than U.S. Sought in Tax Case"
- "IRS unlocks UBS vault hiding Americans evading taxes"
- "Bank secrecy faces coordinated global assault"
- "Swiss franc weaker vs dollar on bank secrecy woes"
- "UBS Forced to Lift Secrecy Skirt for Peek by IRS"
Copyright 2009 Fred L. Abrams