Swiss bank tax evasion fines to US reach $1 bn

www.thelocal.ch...

US officials have settlements with four more Swiss banks to lift the total fines in the two-year disclosure program to more than $1 billion from 75 banks.

With the resolutions "under the Swiss Bank Program, the department has reached agreements with 75 Swiss banks, imposed penalties in excess of $1 billion, and secured voluminous and detailed information regarding the illegal conduct of financial institutions, professionals and account holders around the world", said Caroline Ciraolo, acting assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's tax division.

The program, started in August 2013, allows non-prosecution agreements for banks that agree to cooperate with probes, pay fines for tax-related criminal offences and provide account-specific information on US taxpayers.

Uncle Sam is going after the elite who choose to continue to hide their money off shore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and as is the case with the US gov't, no bank caught up in enabling such crimes will be prosecuted, just fined a lot of money. So it's win win for Uncle Sam, money coming in from both ends.

The elites can still pay their way out of any criminal wrongdoing for tax evasion. If Joe Blow did that he goes to jail. It's still a skewed system.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

We have the best criminal justice system money can buy!

No bank left unfined

originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: Blackmarketeer

We have the best criminal justice system money can buy!

You and I are quite often at very vocal odds with each other, but on this point we agree quite firmly.

a reply to: Shamrock6

We wouldn't be at odds if you finally just agree with everything I say. Problem solved!

Sounds like they are just hitting the Swiss banks. The people making the deposits are not the ones being fined.

a reply to: Bluntone22

The depositors probably used offshore wires encrypted with Crypto AG algorithms to transfer the money.
The US government wouldn't know that any of the money had taxes due unless they had an decrypted audit trail.
There must be a Hans Buehler somewhere offering "discreet" Swiss banking services?

Maybe if the government hadn't tried to punish people for success in the first place with excessive regulations and taxes they wouldn't have driven all the jobs and money offshore.

a reply to: Slichter

How would the USgov claim jurisdiction?

a reply to: bonesymphony

That is a good question.
Historically agencies like Crypto AG would not release any decrypted information directly for court evidence.
My suspicion is that the Swiss might cooperate with the US tax officials by giving them anecdotal information EG, who to investigate, perhaps an audit trail up to the point that the money wired out of US jurisdiction into the Swiss accounts.
The Swiss would confirm the wire details with the US authorities and I doubt they would give their errant clients a free ride by paying fines themselves that were not reimbursed through penalties on the client accounts in that scenario.
The Swiss would probably just explain to the client that the funds were seized.