Tag Archive for UBS

Swiss Bankers Skirt Jail Time in U.S. Tax Evasion Case Thanks To ‘Cooperation Agreement’

A combined fine of $225,000 and five years of unsupervised probation without jail time was handed down to two former bankers of Credit Suisse AG. Josef Dörig and Andreas Bachmann, both Swiss nationals, received the reduced sentence due to their cooperation with U.S. authorities.

Their crime: helping U.S. citizens evade taxes. Just one year ago, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to “knowingly and willfully” assisting numerous American clients to commit tax evasion. How? By helping its U.S. clients open accounts and then hide the income generated by those accounts from the IRS. The penalty – which is considered to be the “cornerstone” of plea agreements when a company is the defendant in a tax evasion case – did not come without a price. In order to make “peace” with the U.S. government, Read More

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Former UBS Client Sentenced To Prison For Hiding Offshore Bank Accounts From IRS

Another former UBS client has bit the dust. The Department of Justice recently announced that Gregg A. Kaminsky, an internet entrepreneur who served as CEO of Circlenet LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia was sentenced for willfully failing to file a Foreign Bank Account Report. Unlike Raoul Weil and a few others who have held the government to its burden, Mr. Kaminsky chose not to fight, but instead to lay down his sword and enter a guilty plea.

Between 2000 and 2009, Mr. Kaminsky owned and controlled a foreign bank account with Union Bank of Switzerland AG (“UBS”), Switzerland’s largest bank and one of the largest wealth managers in the world. By 2006, Mr. Kaminsky’s UBS account reached a high watermark amount of roughly $1.1 million. During this time, Mr. Kaminsky Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR • Individual • IRS

What Should A Swiss Banker Charged With Offshore Tax Evasion Do In The Wake of Raoul Weil’s Astonishing Acquittal?

The acquittal of Raoul Weil, the only Swiss banker to have prevailed over the U.S. government in an offshore tax evasion case, has become a source of inspiration for dozens of others who find themselves in a similar situation – indicted and living in Switzerland. As a result, many have become emboldened to come out of the shadows and start fighting.

Let’s set the stage. More than twenty so-called “enablers” are still “at large” overseas. As “fugitives from justice,” they have yet to answer charges leveled by the Department of Justice that they assisted U.S. clients in evading their taxes. Those that have had the misfortune of having their names added to this dreadful list have much to lose by way of reputation. Indeed, they are “professionals” in every sense of the word: bankers, lawyers, and advisers. Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA • International • IRS • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Weil Case: What Was The Swiss Role?

If you poke about under rocks for long enough, you’d better be prepared to find something unpleasant. That’s what the US government is realizing as the Raoul Weil case finally goes to court. Weil, 54, is accused of helping US citizens avoid taxes while working as head of Global Wealth Management at Switzerland’s UBS – and some of the stories emerging are as bizarre as the numbers are huge.

Raoul Weil, left, arrives with his wife, Susan Lerch Weil, for the start of his trial at federal court on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.

US Clients

It’s thought that UBS’s clients included around 20,000 US citizens, among them, almost Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Man With Offshore Account Pleads Guilty To Hiding $1.1 Million From IRS

An 83-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty this week to hiding at least $1.1 million from the IRS in secret Swiss and Israeli bank accounts for over a quarter century.

Bernard Kramer held the secret accounts from 1987 to about 2012. He used the code phrase “Hot Lips” when referring to them in conversations with Swiss bankers in Zurich according to a criminal filing in Manhattan federal court.

Mr. Kramer pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of tax perjury. As a condition of his plea agreement, Mr. Kramer agreed to cooperate with government investigators and to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $588,042 along with past due taxes. He potentially faces a maximum eight-year prison term — five years for conspiracy Read More

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Raoul Weil The Ex-UBS Banker Is Coming To America to Rat You Out!

We originally posted “Was Raoul Weil the Ex-UBS Banker Your Banker?” where we discussed that an Italian judge ruled on Tuesday, October 22, 2013, that Raoul Weil, the ex-UBS banker wanted in the United States over allegations of helping Americans dodge taxes, must remain in custody while awaiting possible extradition to the U.S.

Now the former head of UBS’s wealth management division, Raoul Weil, has agreed to be extradited to the United States to face charges. United States authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Weil in early 2009, just months after he was charged with allegedly conspiring to help 17,000 American clients of Swiss bank UBS avoid taxes.

Weil is currently in jail in Italy, where he was arrested while on holiday with his family five Read More

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Was Raoul Weil the Ex-UBS Banker Your Banker?

TaxConnections Blogger postAn Italian judge ruled on Tuesday, October 22, 2013, that Raoul Weil, the ex-UBS banker wanted in the US over allegations of helping Americans dodge taxes, must remain in custody while awaiting possible extradition to the United States.

The decision was handed down by a judge of the Court of Appeal in Bologna, where Weil, a Swiss citizen and former head of UBS’s global wealth management business, was arrested by Italian police on Saturday. The 53 year-old banker was escorted in handcuffs into the court building by police officers to attend a closed-door hearing.

Weil was charged in the United States in November 2008 for conspiring to help 17,000 Americans hide assets worth $20 billion in Swiss bank accounts and declared a fugitive a few months later after failing to surrender to authorities.

As we discussed in our post Bradley Birkenfeld awarded $104 million (13% ) as UBS tax case whistleblower, another Ex-UBS Banker, Bradley Birkenfeld later became a whistleblower for the IRS. He said he learned in 2005 that the UBS’s advice to clients was illegal, and after reporting it to the UBS compliance office to no avail, he decided to become a US government informant. Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA • International