UBS Swiss Bank to give USA Gov their USA client list! OMFG!

Dizzity.. Damn...

do we sill need to trust doing offshore bank with swiss....

Interresting read for sure.

The lesson here is if you have a Swiss account that you want to keep secret from the US government you had better make damn sure that the bank the account is with does not have a presence in the US...

I am assuming UBS had some part of it based in USA otherwise they wouldn't have been able to do this.

If you look at all the money the govt is spending on stimulus etc they need to claw revenue back somewhere.

Most likely the US is using the Patriot act to get the info. With that the feds can automatically suspend trade and set up embargoes against any country that refuses to work with the US on information that they say could be terrorist related. So all they have to say is...

uh oh....

that will affect quite a few..

that is dirty

so far for the swiss bank secrect...

All the real money is hidden in Dubai and HongKong these days...

yes, because cyprus has an amazing military force...

if the US wants something, it will get it...

Why can Cyprus can stand up to US government bullying better than Switzerland?

Dubai for the win!

that's fucked up

People just can't seem to grasp that when you are suspected of financial crimes in the US or are a US Citizen... you have zero privacy... no matter where your money is. Your money is not safe anywhere, in any bank. banks can't move US dollars and deal in US Dollars around the world without complying with the US Treasury Depts rules. Period.

Try moving millions of dollars around the world through a network of companies and see your bank be put of the Treasury Depts list of money laundering banks and see how fast they give all your shit up in spite of all the bullshit about privacy, not having information sharing agreements etc that you were told by countless professionals in the beginning.

been there. done that.

In post 9/11 world.. you have no banking privacy if you are moving real money around. there is just no such thing. There are simply those who have been tested / prosecuted and those who haven't.

still sounds illegal to force another company to give up their international client list

fuck! I'm transfering all my found to my ecrap account

Yeah heard it this morning.

It's pretty fucking bad.


You mean kinda like invading other countries and stealing their oil?

Exactly.

You can thank obama for that one. It started in 2007 when he pushed through the tax haven act.

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=72942



Weeeeeeee!!!!






.

"Overview Of Obama's Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act

The STHAA would restrict the use of offshore financial centers by US persons by (i) imposing a rebuttable presumption that certain transactions between US persons and entities located in certain offshore jurisdictions are taxable, (ii) raising reporting and withholding requirements on financial institutions and fiduciaries dealing with offshore jurisdictions, and (iii) increasing penalties for tax avoidance through offshore jurisdictions.

It has been estimated that the Proposal would generate up to $50 billion of additional tax revenue annually. This anticipated tax revenue could be used to offset the costs of proposed tax breaks for middle-income Americans and a wide array of new spending programs, which Obama has promised to champion over the first few months of his presidency.

Guilty until proven innocent

The centrepiece of the STHAA is a provision that would force taxpayers to prove that they do not have control over any offshore entities with which they contract. Under this 'guilty until proven innocent' approach, the STHAA presumes that a US person has control of an entity (which includes trusts, corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships) created or domiciled in a so-called Offshore Secrecy Jurisdiction if the US person directly or indirectly formed, transferred, received assets or is a beneficiary of that entity.

The STHAA also creates a presumption of taxable income for any transfer from an offshore entity to a US person, and a presumption of unreported taxable income for any transfer from a US person to an offshore jurisdiction. Taxpayers could only rebut these presumptions by providing direct evidence that all tax owed on such amounts had been paid.

Tax havens???

The initial list of 34 'Offshore Secrecy Jurisdictions' is surprisingly broad and includes Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Switzerland, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hong Kong, Costa Rica and Belize. Designation as a 'tax haven' would result if the Treasury Department determines that the jurisdiction has rules in place that "unreasonably restrict the ability of the US to obtain information relevant to the enforcement" of its tax laws.

Many practitioners have expressed concern that the initial list of jurisdictions fails to separate those jurisdictions operating in conformity with widely accepted international standards from other 'rogue' jurisdictions. For example, several listed jurisdictions have signed Tax Information Exchange Agreements with the US (some very recently) and are nevertheless included on the list. Should this legislation be enacted, it is uncertain which jurisdictions ultimately may be targeted, but it appears that additional consideration should be given to what triggers inclusion on the STHAA blacklist.

Heightened reporting requirements

In an effort to ferret out potential tax abuses, the STHAA would create a presumption that any account with a financial institution formed, domiciled or operating in an Offshore Secrecy Jurisdiction has sufficient funds to trigger reporting to the IRS. The STHAA also would require financial institutions that open accounts for US persons or create nonpublicly- traded entities in Offshore Secrecy Jurisdictions to report such transactions to the IRS.

The reporting of such transactions is already required of the individual taxpayers involved, but the Proposal would place this burden on intermediaries as well and would apply to US and foreign financial institutions, fiduciaries and corporate directors.

Grantor trust rules

The STHAA expressly targets offshore trusts. The Proposal would further expand the already broad rules setting out when a US person establishing an 'offshore' trust is treated as the tax owner of the trust's income and gains. This would be accomplished by amending Section 672 of the Internal Revenue Code (the 'Code') by attributing to the grantor of a trust any power held by a trust protector and amending Section 679 of the Code to treat any US person receiving cash or other property from a foreign trust as a beneficiary of such trust.

Personal use property and loans

With respect to personal use property, the Proposal would amend Section 643(i) of the Code to treat cash, marketable securities, artwork, jewellery or other personal property loaned by a foreign trust to a US person as a taxable distribution. Such a loan would be deemed taxable on the value of the use of such property, although it is unclear how the amount of these taxes would be calculated.

Penalties and deterrents

The STHAA is clearly not intended to be a paper tiger, as evidenced by several provisions that give this tiger teeth. Senator Carl Levin, the principal sponsor of the STHAA, announced when introducing the legislation that some of the current penalties for tax evasion are "like a jaywalking ticket for robbing a bank."

The Proposal would give the IRS six years instead of three to complete audits, combating the perceived sluggishness of offshore jurisdictions to respond to audit requests. It would also broaden the use of socalled 'John Doe' summonses that are used to obtain information from offshore jurisdictions in tax investigations. Both provisions would give the IRS a decided advantage in the audit process.

Financial institutions and fiduciaries would not escape penalty for failing to comply with the STHAA. The US Department of Treasury could prohibit US banks from opening accounts for noncompliant foreign financial institutions and could prohibit US financial institutions from accepting credit card transactions involving noncompliant foreign banks.

The Proposal also calls for the codification of the 'economic substance' doctrine. This doctrine requires that transactions not only satisfy all relevant legal requirements but also must have a real economic purpose other than the creation of tax benefits. Courts have used the economic substance doctrine in the past to combat what they perceived to be 'sham' transactions. The STHAA would codify this doctrine and levy a 40 percent penalty on underpayments of tax resulting from transactions that lack economic substance."


.

Damn...!

oh nm, posted now.

cheap fucks, just pay your taxes

and here I thought nobody would spill the beans about me ;)

I agree...

And I think that UBS gave only records needed for the case...
Don't believe that they sent all their records to the US...

thank you grumpy

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! If i got to pay taxes to fix this shithole then the cheap fuckers who make millions need to as well. For people that say Obama is bad for doing this...FUCK U. its about time someone took care of the crooks that have been fucking our country all along. Again fuck u.

Surely none of these people are trying to hide their income in order to avoid taxation. It's all a simple misunderstanding. Really.

Every person who hides their income in "safe tax havens" increases the taxes the rest of us have to pay. fuck them.

agreed

I do all my banking in Corvallis, Oregon

Never Trust A Bank. That means N E V E R...

Europe (Switzerland is not in E.U. but I think that will change within 10 years or less if not Switzerland will / is in co-op with E.U.) is not good at all for offshore banking!
Even Cyprus is a temp. solution!

Carribean Area is best ! For the time being...

You are right on the money. Those that think they are being sneaky really have no clue. When/If the US govt. wants to see your money flow they will be able to do it without a problem.

Cyprus cracks me up. People that honestly think that is a safe haven that the US govt. doesn't have access to have another thing coming when shit hits the fan.

All taxes worldwide compared:
http://www.worldwide-tax.com/

Cyprus - IRS Tax Treaty Documents
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/intern...169497,00.html

Depends on the law. If they are breaking it then yes they are increasing my taxes by avoiding the law. Whether they disagree with the law is immaterial. There are a lot of laws I disagree with that I still obey -- and a few I don't ;-)

Party's over

switzerland is not secure bank heaven for a long while... old news...

Thank You again Grumpy! From those of us who do pay taxes so that we can get our garbage picked up on time.

Well, what about all the fucktards that got an ARM loan with nothing down for a house they knew they could never afford and now being bailed out by uncle sam? They increase our taxes too. You complaining about that?

I don't see Andorra listed there, it deserve a listing, that's where I live

who the fuck still banks with the swiss.

Thats cos you dont have enough people......

Isnt there zero income tax there in Andorra?

That's true, just because we are a minority doesn't mean that we should be left out

Snaaaaaaap

Hell yeah I'm complaining about that! What about it?

I thought the account were numbered and don't have names on them.