Word: agreement
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Under an agreement announced by Swiss and U.S. authorities on Aug. 19, Switzerland's second largest bank, UBS, will disclose the names of approximately 4,450 American account holders suspected by the IRS of evading taxes. In return, the U.S. Justice Department will withdraw its lawsuit against the banking giant and stop demanding the names of 52,000 Americans accused of hiding assets in offshore accounts. (See pictures of tea-party tax protests...
...Under the terms of the new agreement, the IRS will submit a request to Swiss tax authorities to divulge within one year the names of clients suspected of stashing money in UBS to evade U.S. taxes. Account holders will be notified before their names are disclosed and will be able to appeal the decision in Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court. This approach, the Swiss government says, is in line with the existing law allowing the exchange of account information in cases of suspected criminal activity and also complies with the newly signed double-taxation treaty between the two countries, which...
...Switzerland, news of the settlement was greeted with relief. "The out-of-court agreement avoids a prolonged legal battle that would have had an uncertain outcome, and the solution found conforms entirely with prevailing Swiss law," the Swiss Banking Association (SBA), a trade organization for Switzerland's financial institutions, said in a statement. "This is of crucial importance because international clients rely very much on the predictability and stability of the Swiss legal system." (See the top 10 scared traders...
...stressed that the agreement does not violate Swiss banking-secrecy laws and that the privacy of clients who are not suspected of tax evasion or other forms of criminal activity is protected...
...more recent date has some members of parliament and, especially, bureaucrats in the Oil Ministry concerned. That would be July 31, when parliament failed to pass a British-Iraqi security agreement. The British navy, which helped secure Iraq's gulf waters, then left the area. Now the oil-export terminals near Basra may be vulnerable - and the terminals facilitate over 70% of state revenue. The U.S. Navy has said it will pick up the slack, but eventually the Iraq navy must take responsibility. And it is still in training...