Switzerland Escapes America’s Fangs: Tribune De Geneve, Switzerland
If what we are reading today is true, the end of Swiss bank secrecy – if it hasn’t been reached – is closing in fast.
The Swiss Federal Council has made a deal with the U.S. Justice department to hand over the data on 4,450 American clients of the Union Bank of Switzerland, after a long investigation showed that the bank helped them engage in tax evasion.
So how momentous is this from the Swiss point of view? According to this editorial by Pierre-Yves Frei of the Tribune De Geneve, while Switzerland averted the worst – handing over the data of all 52,000 of UBS’ American clients – the arrangement highlights the impending doom of Swiss bank secrecy.
Referring to this ‘victory’, Pierre-Yves Frei writes in part:
Since the 1970s there has been a long and inexorable process of erosion. How can we deny this? And how can we doubt that this tendency toward disintegration will continue when in this very year, a major bank was forced to hand over confidential information and when the Swiss government has abandoned the distinction between tax evasion and fraud.
[Editor's Note: Tax evasion, where one merely 'fails' to report assets or income, is not a crime in Switzerland. When it comes to Americans at least, that is now apparently changed].
So is Switzerland victorious? Yes – if we consider that a gazelle liberated after being badly chomped within the jaws of a lion is victorious.
EDITORIAL by Pierre-Yves Frei
Translated By Philippe Guittard
August 20, 2009
Switzerland – Le Temps – Original Article (French)
Few agreements are a victory for both parties. The one between the United States and Switzerland concerning UBS [Union Bank of Switzerland] clearly belongs to this category.But even if the Federal Council [Switzerland's collective head of state] is pleased to have drawn what is needed out of the talks – and this is doubtless the case – let’s keep in mind that in normal times, Switzerland would have rejected America’s request for administrative assistance, or would have treated such a request with circumspection coupled with the extremely slow minutia required by such matters.
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14 Responses to “Switzerland Escapes America’s Fangs: Tribune De Geneve, Switzerland”
I have no sympathy for the Swiss international banking. Many Swiss do not either. Many Swiss people consider it a national shame that every crook and world mass murderer from drug cartels to Edi Amin hides their ill gotten money in Switzerland. This is a good development.
Well I don't have much sympathy, but crime is not what we are talking about. The Swiss would give info on money on criminals. You just had to give proof. This is giving info on things, that by Swiss standards, that are not crimes.
Tax evasion isn't a crime in Switzerland. That's the underlying problem in this story. The Swiss generally demur on giving info on tax evaders, proof or not, because they don't consider tax evasion a crime.
EEllis–
–[The Swiss would give info on money on criminals]–
Well uh actually they don't unless forced to by treaty. Besides we are talking about crime. The crime of tax evasion of which the Swiss ALSO prosecute for. Actually the Swiss are notorious for double standards in their legal system. They will learn.
Even if it were true that tax evasion is not a crime in Switzerland, it is in the US. These people should have moved to Switzerland if they wanted to freeload off honest people who do pay taxes. Tax evasion in the US is illegal and these people are US citizens, not Swiss. I have no sympathy for them. They knew what they were doing was against the law.
This is actually a disturbing event, but is not a surprise. I had warned people long ago that sooner or later envious and _desperate_ governments in the US and elsewhere would act against offshore tax havens. It is not limited to the Cayman and Cook Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, etc., but obviously also includes Switzerland.
Switzerland should have told the Obama administration to recall what the letters F-O mean, but it has relented instead, which is intriguing, for why would it decide to compromise and cripple itself as a refuge against greedy and misbehaving governments (far from only the depiction of crooks' hideaways that the dishonest Left portrays the functions of these places)?
The European governments have been losing sleep already over the past several years facing the future of their unsustainable social-spending and especially retirement-related programs (pensions in particular, in addition to health care), future problems worse than those the USA will experience (though this is lost on the fools in the USA who want the USA to ape Europe and its more-unsustainable social-spending programs — maybe we'll all rely on China for protection in place of Europe relying on the USA for this during the Cold War). Maybe they're trying with this US-IRS compliance merely to better distinguish the crooks (including tax _evaders_) from legitimate clients (tax _avoidance_ is legal). I do not consider the Obama administration adept or intelligent or well-managed enough to be doing this as part of any more broad effort (such as removing tax havens and asylum, moreover, from people like dictators in the Third World), but simply as a cynical revenue grab as well as a political tactic (toward AIG) related to Obama administration interventionism in the financial sector. (It's not just an IRS grab, but targeting of AIG.)
Actually, here it's UBS (You 'n' Us), not AIG, which is the subject of another targeting effort these days.
(Come to think of it, though, as I was thinking but didn't put to words before, is AIG and are other institutions next once the Swiss give the IRS what it wants with UBS?)
Dave Schuler:
“The Swiss generally demur on giving info on tax evaders, proof or not, because they don't consider tax evasion a crime.”
This was the subject of the news I overheard yesterday. More to the point, this kind of activity was, by the Swiss, heretorefore not seen (or recognized, or defined) necessarily as fraud. But (this was the big news) the Swiss have effectively revised their definition, increasing the scope of what kind(s) of conduct can be considered illegitimate or fradulent. The situation is more complex than it may first appear (it is first and foremost a money grab by IRS and the Obama administration, and a legal and forceful as well as political attack on the practice of securing one's wealth offshore). UBS was apparently exposed on a number of occasions (if the news announcement is correct) actually soliciting clients to stash their funds in Switzerland, with at least a tacit (and possibly openly admitted) acknowledgement that what was being solicited was illegal (tax evasion, tax fraud).
“Even if it were true that tax evasion is not a crime in Switzerland, it is in the US. These people should have moved to Switzerland if they wanted to freeload off honest people who do pay taxes.”
Actually, the correct point of view held by all but extremists on the Left is that sometimes these people are crooks, but it is understood that they're often trying to hide their assets from wrongful, scummy predation by the IRS and other tax authorities, in large part so that Washington will spend the money to buy the votes of so many more-childish people so envious and resentful of those who have so much they have to fear being such a target. (Don't forget as well the proliferation of junk lawsuits and the LegaLottO.)
The obvious crooks, nobody has sympathy for, but all the whining from the farther Left in particular about these people fleeing excessive taxes and _abuse_ by government makes us normal people almost wistful and hoping that some of these guys have their money safe and secure and are cruising the Caribbean or the South Pacific right now, with their attractive young crew-mate of the day, hour, or whatever.
It breaks my heart to say it, but I am totally 100% with DLS on this. I think the Swiss should be able to run their banks as they wish, and I feel a little ashamed that our government is trying to strong arm them into giving information that the better part of their economy is based upon keeping secret. I know I'm one of the very few hard-left people who think this way — besides the hard-lefties in Switzerland, of course. Free health care for all, everyone gets a job who wants one, clean and gorgeous public transportation, gay marriage — but they still want you to keep your grubby hands off their banking system.
“It breaks my heart to say it, but I am totally 100% with DLS on this.”
Mind over matter, for once! [grin]
Incidentally, Washington has not limited itself to muscling the Swiss (after which it won't be a surprise if other tax havens come next, sooner rather than the 10+ years later I originally had anticipated). Note that Washington has been very, very busy at infusing — excuse me, “reforming” — our own financial industry.
DLS –
Maybe it's YOU who finally got it right this time. Teehee.
Anyway, I do think that this country should be allowed to regulate our banking system as we see fit as well. Let the Swiss do what they do, sure, but I don't think theirs is the best way for our system to be run.
“Maybe it's YOU who finally got it right this time. Teehee.”
I'm moderate, not conservative. No stopped clock visions!
And I say, if this effort with the Swiss is successful (not requiring huge IRS payments or jail terms to establish that condition), I wouldn't be surprised if other tax havens were next on the Obama admin's “enemies list” and task checklist.
I feel this is a good move. The most illegal money deposited in Swis banks is from India. I hope India Government should act fast to get the data and money back to the country. This money should be utilised to build schools, hospitals and good roads…..
No, the Swiss international banking system harbors and enables criminals and despots, and, they do so for profit. This cannot stand. They DO NOT have a right to run their banks as they wish when it brings such harm to the world.