Word: taxingly
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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...
...Swiss constitution, the Swiss government had forbidden UBS from complying with the Justice Department's demands and had threatened to seize UBS data to prevent the bank from handing accounts over to the Americans. Earlier this year, UBS had already released to the IRS the names of 250 suspected tax cheats and paid the U.S. government $780 million to avoid criminal prosecution for helping wealthy Americans hide $20 billion in undisclosed offshore accounts...
...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...
...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...
...Teodoro Cocca, a former professor of wealth and asset management at the Swiss Finance Institute in Zurich. "But what is disturbing is that it contains elements of a 'fishing expedition,' and potentially other Swiss banks that have U.S. clients could be put under similar pressure." (See the top 10 tax dodgers...