The United States Justice Department has received 106 requests from Swiss entities to participate in a settlement program aimed at ending a long-running probe of tax-dodging by Americans using Swiss bank accounts according to a senior US official.
We first posted “Swiss Banks Agree to Plan to End Past US Tax Evasion Issues!” on August 29, 2013, where we discussed that Swiss banks were ready to pay hefty fines for sheltering United States tax fugitives under the terms of a new deal given the green light by the Swiss government.
Kathryn Keneally, a senior official of the United States DOJ’s tax division, said the department was ‘gratified’ by the response to the offer, although it does not expect that all the applicants will be granted non-prosecution. The program is open only to banks, who will have to pay between 20 and 50 percent of the value of undeclared US-owned accounts as of 1 August 2008.
Reports are also appearing that Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, is close to reaching its own settlement with the US DOJ. Credit Suisse is one of the 13 banks excluded from the US DOJ amnesty because it was already being investigated when the program was announced, but it is still free to negotiate its own non-prosecution deal.
Moreover, the bank will have to disclose a great deal of information about its American clients, even including some of their names. Thus US taxpayers who have used Credit Suisse accounts may now want to consider applying for the US Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), which sets a limit to the penalties imposed on them by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for failing to declare foreign assets and earnings.
However, once Credit Suisse has disclosed an account holder’s name to the IRS, OVDP election is no longer available to that account holder.
Taxpayers who wish to take advantage of the OVDP must act quickly!
The US Can Use Swiss Data for Enforcement Actions!
The new agreement makes clear that “personal data provided by the Swiss banks… will be used and disclosed only for purposes of law enforcement (which may include regulatory action) in the United States or as otherwise permitted by US law.”
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1 comment on “Offshore Swiss Bank Account? This May Be Your Last Chance To File A Voluntary Disclosure!”
How do you define “sheltering United States tax fugitives”? Is this any bank which made the mistake of not prohibiting US indicia from having a local checking account to pay bills like rent? American banks already reject American clients and thus they are not “sheltering United States tax fugitives” since they deny US citizens financial services. A “tax fugitive” must be anyone who has US citizenship. At the going rate of things, will Americans be allowed to leave America?
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