Swiss and U.S. government reach agreement in UBS tax case
August 19th, 2009 - 10:43 pm ICT by adminWASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — The Swiss and U.S. government have reached an agreement which will direct the Swiss UBS bank to hand over information on thousands of Americans who are suspected of evading U.S. taxes, officials said on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s agreement will result in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) receiving the information on all of the accounts that were held by Americans when the case was initiated.
Under the agreement, the IRS will submit a treaty request to the Swiss government describing the accounts for which it is requesting information. The Swiss government will then direct UBS to initiate procedures to turn over information on thousands of accounts to the IRS. The agreement will apply to a total of 4,450 accounts.
The IRS will receive information on accounts of various amounts and types, including bank-only accounts, custody accounts in which securities or other investment assests were held and offshore company nominee accounts through which an individual indrectly held beneficial ownership in the accounts.
The agreement also retains the U.S. goverment’s right, if the results are significantly lower than expected and other measures fail, to seek “appropriate” judicial remedies, including resuming actions to enforce the “Joe Doe summons” matter.
The Swiss government will direct UBS, when receiving the request, to notify the account holders that their information is included in the IRS treaty request. These notices are expected to be sent on a rolling basis over the coming months.
In addition to the UBS case, the Swiss government agreed to review and process additional requests for information for other banks regarding their account holders to the extent that such a request is based on a pattern of facts and circumstances equivalent to those of the UBS case.
The IRS will soon begin to process the information it received from UBS and explore any potential civil and criminal tax violations.
Before the agreement, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Justice have already successfully prosecuted four U.S. customers of UBS whose information was provided to the IRS by UBS as part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement.
Individuals whose information is obtained by the IRS through this agreement will not be eligible for the voluntary disclosure program.
- U.S. government seeks names of U.S. residents with HSBC India bank accounts to avoid taxes - Apr 08, 2011
- Black money row: Govt. has nothing to hide, says Mukherjee - Jan 25, 2011
- CBDT denies summons issued to MPs on funds abroad - Nov 01, 2011
- Switzerland says it is 'not tax haven' - Feb 16, 2012
- 'Black money should be brought back': Rahul Gandhi - Jan 29, 2011
- Indian American indicted for concealing bank accounts in India - Jan 27, 2011
- US files for disclosure of 4,500 Swiss accounts - Sep 01, 2009
- Why hide names of foreign account holders, asks apex court (Lead) - Jan 14, 2011
- US wants HSBC to reveal American tax dodgers in India - Apr 08, 2011
- Can share Indians' Swiss bank account details: Envoy - Feb 13, 2011
- Name those who have money in foreign banks, says BJP - Jan 18, 2011
- India yet to send request for secret bank data: Swiss Ambassador - Oct 27, 2010
- Government has no data on Swiss bank money: RTI activist told - Sep 16, 2010
- Indian-American pleads guilty to hiding Indian bank accounts - Apr 12, 2011
- India to join new convention to fight black money - Nov 04, 2011
Tags: assests, banks, beneficial ownership, bno, circumstances, custody accounts, extent, goverment, internal revenue service, irs, joe doe, judicial remedies, offshore company, summons, swiss government, tax case, ubs, ubs bank, washington d c, will receive information