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http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...005961,00.html
Swiss banker charged with tax fraud
From correspondents in Washington
August 21, 2009 04:49am
US authorities have charged a Swiss private banker and a lawyer with helping wealthy Americans hide assets in Switzerland, a day after a landmark tax-evasion case settlement with UBS bank.
Hansruedi Schumacher, executive manager at Swiss private bank Neue Zuercher Bank, and Matthias Rickenbach, a lawyer who provided legal advice and services to American clients, were indicted for conspiring to defraud the US, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service announced.
According to the indictment, Mr Schumacher and Mr Rickenbach established "sham and nominee offshore en ies to hide their US clients' assets and income while allowing these clients to still control the assets and make investment decisions".
The indictment alleges Mr Schumacher and Mr Rickenbach concealed the business purpose of their regular trips to the US and would sometimes bring cash for their clients.
According to court do ents, the authorities said Mr Schumacher and Mr Rickenbach helped their American clients obtain offshore credit cards and created sham loan do ents.
Both allegedly falsified bank do ents to generate the appearance that assets of their US clients belonged to Swiss citizens, and they falsified do ents to disguise their US clients' repatriation of offshore funds as inheritances from foreign citizens.
The indictment came after UBS agreed yesterday to reveal the iden ies of about 4450 American clients in a landmark out-of-court settlement of a tax-evasion case that challenged Switzerland's sacrosanct banking secrecy.
UBS and the US and Swiss governments signed agreements capping months of diplomatically sensitive negotiations over the US inquiry into tax evaders with secret accounts at the world's largest wealth manager.
American authorities accused Mr Schumacher and Mr Rickenback of trying to profit from the troubles of UBS, which in February already had pleaded guilty to a US criminal complaint in the government tax-evasion case and paid a $US780 million ($940.8 million) fine.
"This is another step in our ongoing effort to pursue hidden offshore assets - no matter where they are located," Internal Revenue Service commissioner Doug Shulman said of the indictment today. "We're in the early stages of our work to crack down on offshore tax evasion."
The IRS has set up a temporary voluntary disclosure program for citizens to declare their offshore hidden taxable assets, which ends on September 23.
Good.
The I.R.S. plays no games!
There are 10s of 1000s of Americans with accounts in Switzerland UBS, but only a 4 or 5K accounts will be given by UBS to IRS.
Amnesty is over 23 Sep.
If the account holders turn themselves in before then, they have to pay up, but no jail.
If they get indicted at any point, they have to pay up, and are liable for jail.
The game during amnesty is that an account holder doesn't know if his name was one of the few 1000 handed by UBS to IRS (out of the 10s of 1000s of names UBS has).
After Phil Gramm killed Glass-Steagall (opening the door for retail banks to play in the investment bank casino and usher in the current financial disaster) and made regulation of derivatives illegal, he retired from Congress and joined UBS. I'm sure he knew nothing of UBS illegal activities.
If would be great if Gramm and his wife were indicted for accounts in Switzerland.
You know the Kennedy clan has millions pocketed away through their luscious loopholes.
I'll be curious to see if there are any prominent Democrats caught up in this or, if the IRS was able to craft an Obama-friendly demand.
Just put it in the Caymans instead---many probably already have
It's safer to be a drug dealer, than trying to avoid the IRS. When it comes to getting your money, the govt is extremely efficient and ruthless.
Old Al Capone could be a murderer, theif, etc...but, his downfall was not greasing the IRS's pockets. Govt's are all about money and power. No govt has ever been for anything else. Don't screw with your...er "their" money.
and so it goes...
I'd be surprised if there weren't people of all stripes nabbed.
So, would I but, this is, after all, the Obama administration...where Black Panthers go free, terrorists get cons utional rights, and our protectors gets investigated.
We'll see.
Fixed it for you.
Why is the Right so against Habeas Corpus? When we're paying huge bounties for terrorists, you know third world country people are going to end up rounding some innocent people up (intentionally or unintentionally).
Yeah it will be interesting to see I think I heard the Kennedy's got their wealth stashed in Fiji. This Administration is so full of scandals and corruption already exposing tax evading prominent liberals may be a bit too much, although Obama may throw a few of the smaller fish under the wheels of the bus in order to mend fences with an America that sees him as to fouled with par isanship and cronisim.
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