UBS and other ? offshore bank accounts
by Linda Beale
UBS and other ? offshore bank accounts
crossposted with Ataxingmatter
The government’s dismissal of a criminal information against UBS filed in Florida– United States v. UBS AG, No. 09-600333-CR-COHN, Dismissal of Information, Oct 22, 2010– leaves the tax cognoscienti wondering what the next step in its fight against secret offshore bank accounts will be. Bryan Skarlatos of Kostelanetz & Fink says that “the UBS case was the beginning of the end of Swiss bank secrecy. We don’t know whether it’s the beginning of the end of IRS activity, or only the beginning.” BNA Daily Tax RealTime, (Oct. 25, 2010).
It is questionable whether the UBS case and Swiss changes to information releases are sufficient to call it the “beginning of the end of Swiss bank secrecy.” But it is likely that the government isn’t finished with the topic, and that the information received through the reporting process will be tapped to target other banks and jurisdictions on the issue. As Skarlatos noted, “the real question is whether another shoe is going to drop” or whether there will be “different strategies” going forward. BNA Daily Tax RealTime, Oct. 25, 2010.
Switzerland and the UK have agreed to negotiated a new tax agreement requiring withholding on behalf of the UK on assets of UK nationals in Swiss banks and supposedly also a better provision for cooperation in tax evasion cases. It will be interesting to see where this is five years from now–will wealthy Americans still be able to hide their assets in Swiss banks because the IRS can’t get the information unless it already has enough information? My colleage Mike McIntyre has written about the inadequacies of information exchange provisions when the government doesn’t already know considerable particular information about tax evasion in progress. See McIntyre, How to End the Charade of Information Exchange, Tax Notes (Nov. 9, 2009) (noting that banking secrecy is “not over yet”).
Why don’t we just require everyone to wear a transmitter so we can track their every move and all banking transmissions must be processed through the transmitter.
Better yet, we’ll just embed them.
Welcome to truck weigh stations at the human level. Hope everyone is thrilled with the government jerking you around a few times a day, with or without your knowledge.
I find it hard to understand what’s wrong with preventing people from using national boundaries to commit tax fraud.
The 1040 instructions the IRS mails me states that I must report any foreign bank accounts I have and any income from these accounts is taxable. Otherwise I’m in BIG trouble.
Bowery Bum,
It is easy to see why you are a bum, you just don’t get it. Without offshore banking there would be no place for crooks to hide their money. This would make it difficult for them to bribe public officials. And alas, corrupt politicians need a place to hide their money also, do you expect them to push their assets around in a shopping cart?
And without corruption do you actually think that the system could work. Have you given any thought to how many people might vote, if they thought that their choices were to make a difference. You do of course realize that we have trouble counting the votes as things are, with only about half of those who are eligible to vote, actually voting, and most of them mostly confused about the issues.
Do you have any notion of just how much ‘more’ complicated the issues would be, if politics were not mostly about money.
And what chance of winning would low-integrity candidates have? What else could these people do? Not everyone can be an ‘actual’ bum. Surely you must recognize that different people are endowed with different gifts. So if your answer to corruption in our society lacks a viable alternative to placing all of these clever people in some other suitable roles, then think again, its not as if we need to add a few more percentage points to our unemployment rate.
And what of the despots in the developing nations? They absolutely must have offshore accounts for when they are deposed by a successor! This form of government would be impossible if we left things up to you! Can you imagine how dauntingly impossible fair elections would be, in all of the little crappy nations around the world, if in the big nations, that are far less crappy, it is almost impossible to solve much simpler election problems. Most of the voters in these filthy little, resource depleted, rat-holes can’t even read. So would you also infringe on the rights of these people and force them to go to school. Paid for I suppose with the money saved by closing down the offshore banks. Sure it seems simple on the surface, but that is another example of why you are a bum, you don’t understand how complex things are. But you see, you’ve thought your self into a corner where there’s no way out. You in fact created a paradox because that is what bums do. In other words, if you shut down the offshore banks to provide money for education you also eliminate the same banks that are integral to the corruption that is indispensable in the advanced nations. Remember, I explained all of that, the crooks, the corrupt officials, and how they can’t push their assets around in shopping carts. Well, see what mean, it’s complicated, and were only talking about the easy stuff. Wait till explain all of the ways that corporations rely on offshore accounts, that is big-time complicated. But we should do that some other time, it is late, and you’re probably drunk.