From the ADN (Anchorage Daily Newspaper) of all places.
The US and Swiss agree on IRS fraud concerns.
The US and Swiss goverments settled a high-profile clash over Swiss bank secrecy and the Internal Revenue Service's right to pursue tax cheats at Zurich based UBS AG.
Details weren't immediately disclosed.
More after the fold . . .
In a telephone conference call Wednesday morning, Stuart D. Gibson, an attorney with the Justice Departments tax division in Washington D.C., told US District Judge Alan Gold, "The parties have initiated agreements." Gibson added: "It will take a little time." for agreements to be in final form, but when they are, the parties will file a "stipulation of dismissal."
The judge has been standing ready to hear the case on Aug. 17 if the parties didn't finalize an accord or ask for additional time.
The US and Swiss governments unveiled a tentative pact July 31 as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton met in Washington with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey.
The IRS has been seeking to enforce a so called "John Doe summons," demanding the names of 52,000 UBS customers with $14.8 billion in secret offshore accounts.
The IRS based the demand on evidence that those customers likely broke US tax law.
Both UBS, which is the largest bank in Switzerland, and the Swiss govt. maintained that turning over the names would be violate Swiss law.
UBS, which gained a major US presence with its acquisition in 2000 of PaineWebber, has already provided the names of 250 to 300 clients with secret Swiss accounts as part of an agreement aimed at avoiding criminal prosecution for the bank's extensive role in helping US taxpayers dodge taxes.
The Swiss Govt, had approved the release of those names because it determined those clients appeared to have committed tax fraud under Swiss standards. UBS also paid a $780 million fine as part of that deferred prosecution agreement.
Hmm . . .
Remember how President Obama said he would crackdown on off shore tax havens . . .
Huffington Post:
Republicans Defend Tax Havens Against Obama Crackdown
President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced on Monday a crackdown on offshore tax havens that could produce $210 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade.
The White House will face opposition to the proposal from the business community and Congress. Before the announcement, a Republican leadership staffer circulated an email citing a Bloomberg report saying the proposal "would be the biggest tax increase on U.S. corporations since 1986." And Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ken.) said later on Monday that he could not endorse Obama's plan since it "gives preferential treatment to foreign companies at the expense of U.S.-based companies . . ."
Something tells me these Republicans are protecting those who escape taxes while the rest of us pay them like honest citizens. Talk about saving money, if the rich weren't so selfish, we'd already have an extra 10 billion dollars. But since they are, we MAY save 10 billion dollars.
Update:
Switzerland and the United States agreed on an out-of-court settlement of a U.S. law suit against UBS this week that will spare the bank a tax trial in the United States, most likely in exchange for disclosing thousands of UBS client names to U.S. tax authorities.
"Everybody will be focusing on the number of accounts that will be handed over, but the more important issue is the criteria that the IRS and the Swiss have agreed upon that would prompt disclosure," US tax lawyer Scott Michel of Caplin and Drysdale told swissinfo.ch.