Sacrosanct – 1) extremely sacred or inviolable; 2) not to be entered or trespassed upon; 3) above or beyond criticism, change or inteference. Hmm. The definition of sacrosanct must mean something different to the gentleman at UBS. The executives who were once claiming they could not release the names of the 52,000 Americans in violation of tax evasion due to Swiss secrecy laws have now changed their mind.
At first UBS denied any and all connections to aiding U.S. citizens in tax evasion, but after the Justice Department opened a little under 100 criminal investigations of the well-known and largest private bank they swayed under the pressure. One major development on the I.R.S. case against UBS is that after finally admitting to helping their U.S. account holders defraud the I.R.S., in February, UBS turned around and agreed to pay $780 million dollars to settle the investigation against them. Another development was the specification that under that settlement, if UBS did not turn over the names the executives themselves could and would be indicted. Well, that’s enough to make you want to rollover on your own mother.
Hans-Rudolf Merz
And had Hans-Rudolf Merz’s (Swiss president and finance minister) mother been one of the 52,000 accused of defrauding the I.R.S., he would have sent her up the river. Because low and behold, despite their vigorous effort to block the numerous U.S. governmental factions that came at them with indictments and evidence from every turn, UBS has turned over 285 names. Far from the 52,000 initially asked, but it will do for now. So…now that the I.R.S has shaken UBS’s financial tree, let’s see what 285 bad apples come loose.
