Amongst the AIG bonuses scandal, our president along with Tim Geithner (Treasury Secretary) and Congress are trying to recoup the 165 million dollars used to pad AIG employee pockets to help pad our economy. Well, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Federal Courts decided they want to help out, too. It seems the government will stop at nothing to get the money it is owed, but this new strategy is ingenius. The IRS, FBI and the courts intend to get some much needed money back by going after tax evaders. And not just any old tax evaders, ones with “black accounts” (a.k.a secret accounts) with the Swiss bank UBS. According to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice the accounts in question have been holding about 14.8 billion dollars in assets for up to a decade. The IRS and the Feds have been going after the world’s largest private bank to cough up the names of the 52,000 U.S. account holders. And better yet? The IRS, to sweeten the deal, has offered to soften penalities for those who come forward voluntarily before the boom drops on UBS on July 13th.
“This is a chance for people to come clean on their own,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shuler told reporters.
And it seems that that is the route U.S. clients will have to take to save face (and save themselves from jailtime, another little perk for turning yourself in) because UBS is putting up quite a fight declaring its Swiss financial secrecy laws are sacrosanct. Sacrosanct is a big word for a bank that helped tens of thousands of U.S. citizens escape taxes. I guess the Swiss think they’re above the law. Well, we’ll see about that…
