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Settlement with UBS in Hand, Justice Department Gears Up for Push to Find Assets in Asia
By Brian Monroe
printThe U.S. Justice Department settlement with one of Switzerland's largest banks that requires the bank to divulge the names of thousands of suspected tax evaders could provide just one more trail leading investigators to financial institutions in Asia, say tax analysts. Even as the Justice Department announced the agreement last Wednesday with UBS AG, several wealthy Americans with UBS accounts pleaded guilty to violating U.S. tax laws, most recently UBS client John McCarthy, who admitted Friday that he had used a Hong Kong-based company to evade taxes. McCarthy's case is unlikely to be the only link U.S. investigators find to...
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Former UBS AG employee Stephanie Gibaud in 2008 was faced with the choice of whether to comply with her employer's request that she destroy records potentially indicating that the bank had courted tax-evading clients. When she refused, the bank psychologically bullied her until she departed in 2012.
If the acquittal of Raoul Weil earlier this week was for Swiss bankers a sign of hope and for American prosecutors a signal disappointment, it was both for a single reason. The verdict reflected the limits to U.S. ambitions to punish foreign bankers.
In his 12-year career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Daniel W. Levy has investigated and prosecuted several banks, bankers, and financial services advisors that facilitated the evasion of U.S. taxes through the use of complicit offshore financial institutions.
An expected plan to resolve a U.S.-Swiss tax dispute will likely prompt a wave of disclosures by American taxpayers and clear the way for banks to turn over data on their employees.
Switzerland's oldest financial institution may be compelled to share data on its American clients after pleading guilty Thursday to helping customers hide revenue from the IRS, say attorneys.
After over a year of negotiations with UBS AG, U.S. officials will have more leverage to reach a settlement with another Swiss bank that may have helped American citizens hide taxable assets.
Switzerland will begin disclosing account data on nearly 4,000 UBS AG clients within a week after Swiss lawmakers Thursday approved the handover, marking an unprecedented exception to the country's bank secrecy laws.
A Swiss proposal of how to circumvent a court ruling that blocked an August data exchange agreement may leave U.S. investigators with fewer names of suspected tax cheats than expected.
As many as a dozen countries are expected to press UBS AG for information on tax evaders following the bank's settlement last week with the United States, say tax analysts.
The United States and UBS AG said Wednesday that they had reached an agreement over whether U.S. investigators could access data on the bank's tax evading American clients.
The United States and UBS AG asked a Miami judge Friday to again delay a tax evasion hearing so the parties could hash out the details of a preliminary settlement.
The United States has reached a tentative agreement with UBS AG and Switzerland over a bank program that allowed U.S. tax payers to avoid reporting billions of dollars in revenue.
A Miami judge Monday granted a two-week stay of a hearing on whether the United States can force UBS AG to turn over data on 52,000 suspected U.S. tax evaders.
Switzerland's largest bank will pay $780 million to the United States for helping 17,000 U.S. citizens evade paying taxes on offshore revenue, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.
A federal judge in Miami has granted a U.S. Justice Department request to obtain the bank account information of wealthy investors who may be hiding as much as $20 billion in undeclared assets through Swiss bank giant UBS AG.