No Offshore, Swiss Bank Data Given To US In UBS Tax Probe - Report

Tom Burroughes

12 November 2008

UBS has given details to the US authorities of US onshore bank accounts as part of a tax probe that is testing Swiss bank secrecy but no data has been transferred from offshore or undeclared bank accounts in Switzerland, the bank and the Swiss government say, according to Reuters.

As reported yesterday, a US federal investigation into UBS concerning its sale of offshore private banking services to US citizens is concentrating on senior and mid-level executives and bankers, and could result in one or more indictments. Investigators are sifting through more than 70 names and related account details of US clients provided by UBS over the last few months to the Justice Department.

The probe focuses on whether Swiss bank UBS illegally helped wealthy US citizens to dodge taxes through its offering of offshore services from 2000 to 2007.

" US authorities have requested data from UBS on US onshore clients," a UBS spokesman was quoted by Reuters as saying. "UBS must comply with that request for information located in the United States."

The spokesman said the request was made in the third quarter of this year. He would not say how many US onshore or declared bank accounts were involved.

The Swiss are still assessing a request by US authorities for information about offshore bank accounts held by US clients of UBS in Switzerland.

Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime and the Swiss Finance Ministry is the only authority in the country that could authorise the transfer of Swiss-based client data to the United States.

"Swiss authorities have not released any such data," Swiss Finance Ministry spokesman Roland Meier said. "There is an administrative assistance procedure ongoing."

UBS, whose credit woes already led to the departure of its former chairman and other top executives earlier this year, decided in July to stop offering offshore Swiss bank accounts to US citizens.

Switzerland is also facing increasing pressure from neighbouring Germany and other EU countries to give up on its tradition of closely guarding details of its bank clients.

Swiss bank-client confidentiality goes back centuries but was codified in the early 1930s as pressure mounted on the Alpine country to exchange client details, partly from Nazi Germany pursuing assets of fleeing Jews. But it subsequently became closely associated with tax evasion.

Switzerland is the world's biggest offshore centre and holds $2 trillion or about 27 per cent of estimated global undeclared assets, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Under an agreement between Berne and Washington, the US can ask Switzerland for help in obtaining information on Swiss bank accounts in the case of tax fraud, but not tax evasion.