UBS Agreement – The End of Secret Swiss Bank Accounts

As we all heard this week UBS entered into a settlement with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was an upsetting blow for banking confidentiality. The issue on everyone’s mind was would UBS be in breach of Swiss banking confidentiality legislation if it were to meet the United States’ demands to hand over the names of 52,000 account holders. The Swiss Bankers Association said it expects the final agreement will be consistent with Swiss law but will it?

A day or two after the settlement it set off a worldwide fire storm to wit, a Swiss banking executive and a lawyer were charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. and echoed a warning that the IRS is now looking beyond UBS in its international tax enforcement efforts. The banker, is Hansruedi Schumacher, and was a former regional market manager for UBS’s North America international business who later headed UBS’s cross-border business. At some point in 2002, Mr. Schumacher left UBS to conduct private banking with Zurich-based Neue Zuercher Bank, or NZB. Also, Swiss lawyer Matthias Rickenbach of the firm Rickenbach and Partners traveled regularly to the U.S. to conduct banking and investment activities (seminars) with U.S. clients.

Schumacher and Rickenbach supposedly helped their clients obtain offshore credit cards and created sham loan documents and used other nominee tactics. In addition, they purportedly falsified bank documents to generate the appearance that the assets of their U.S. clients belonged to Swiss citizens, and they falsified documents to disguise their U.S. clients’ repatriation of offshore funds as inheritances from foreign citizens; a huge no-no. One of the clients named is Jeffrey Chernick, who pleaded guilty last month to charges of evading taxes on $8 million in assets. See article here:  Jeffrey Chernick

It appears there is a worldwide currency hunt as this set off an inferno as other countries revenue authorities started their hunt for unreported monies. For instance, in the UK the Tax Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal has ordered over 300 banks to give details to the UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), about their customers who hold offshore accounts.

HMRC’s launched an amnesty theme recently which is along the lines of the IRS and reportedly netted some 60,000 individuals who were said to have come forward. About GBP400m in additional tax was raised, but a more ambitious revenue target of GBP2bn has been set.

In Ireland all is not shamrocks and pots of gold as the Revenue Commission set its sights on any undisclosed assets and. The Revenue Commission stated in a brief that taxpayers have until September 1, 2009, to deliver a Notice of Disclosure to the Revenue regarding trusts and offshore structures. Any follow-up disclosure and payment of tax due must then be made by October 31, 2009.

Then in Italy, in a television interview, the General Manager of Italy’s Revenue Agency, Attilio Befera, disclosed that there were 170,000 cases singled out within the Agency’s investigation of undeclared funds held abroad by Italians. In particular, he mentioned that the Agency has obtained 500 foreign bank account holder names from a Swiss lawyer recently arrested in Milan.

What is going on and can we invest outside of the United States without feeling like we are up to something illegal? Will they make investing abroad illegal or create so much difficulty it is not worth it, only time will tell but it feels like the land of the free is not free unless you flee.

Under IRC Section 7623 or the proverbial “Whistleblower Rewards” code, we are wondering if UBS qualifies not, despite involuntary disclosure of accounts. This code rewards 30% of the delinquent tax and if the 4,450 accounts are estimated to be worth $15 billion, then UBS could get $450 million approximately which would offset the settlement payment they have to make. What if someone made a career as a whistleblower? Wow, a couple $100 million for being the wealthiest rat on the planet.

Let us know how you feel about this assault on foreign accounts and if you have one and need assistance on making it compliant please contact my offices.

James Burns, Esq.