US – Swiss Deal “The rich can still avoiding paying taxes”

 

US – Swiss Deal “The rich can still avoiding paying taxes”

The Obama administration has settled the negotiation with the Swiss government over 200,000 Americans with secret Swiss bank accounts.

One Swiss bank operated openly as a place to put money to avoid paying taxes – UBS.  The IRS asked UBS for the names of 52,000 Americans it felt were avoiding paying US taxes.  The Swiss government stepped in and said no.

The Swiss banking system has long been used to hide money from governments around the world and to avoid paying legally owed taxes.  The US IRS estimates that these accounts allow Americans to avoid paying over $100 billion in taxes each year.

The Swiss freely admit this is happening and say it isn’t their problem.  They have agreed to consider requests for information from the American IRS, but have not agreed to provide the information.  The US and the Swiss agreed to some general guidelines.  These guidelines and very troubling because they guarantee that tens of thousands of Americans can dodge paying legally owed taxes.

“According to the newly unveiled annex, however, the Swiss appear to have stretched the definition of that kind of subterfuge. Under the annex, Switzerland defined "fraud and the like" to include failure to provide a W-9 disclosure form for three years if the account met two measures: having more than $992,802 (1 million Swiss francs) at any time from 2001 through 2008, and generating average annual revenue of more than 100,000 Swiss francs over three years.”  By David S. Hilzenrath, Washington Post Staff Writer

Several things come to mind and one is how difficult would it be to have multiple accounts rather than one big one that might be revealed to the IRS.  We don’t know.

Why do the Swiss have this secret banking system?  It makes them billions in banking fees each year.  It provides a safe place to hid terrorist money, money dictators have stolen from their countries, drug money, and other funds gained from illegal activities and to hid money for people who are avoiding paying taxes in other countries including Americans.

The Obama administration had the upper hand by showing that many thousands of Americans were avoiding paying taxes by using secret accounts in UBS, a Swiss bank.  But they blinked and agreed to get details on just 4,450 accounts.

The Swiss government said it had about 40 people reviewing the requests for information, but it alone reserved the right to make the final decision on whether to provide the information to the American IRS.

I like most Americans do not like paying taxes, but I like most Americans file a tax return and try to be as honest as possible and pay what I owe.        

Should the IRS demand information on all Americans with Swiss bank accounts including their name and address, if not the bank balances, to insure these Americans are paying their taxes?

Would you consider using a Swiss bank account to avoiding paying your taxes?