Swiss in a bind over ruling on US tax case

Source: AP

GENEVA

The Swiss government is in a bind: break its own laws, or break its word to the United States that it will hand over thousands of files on suspected tax cheats in return for an end to proceedings against Switzerland's biggest bank.

Officials remained tight lipped Tuesday on the eve of a cabinet meeting that will look at ways Switzerland can honor an agreement with the U.S. government despite a court ruling last week that declared fundamental aspects of the deal illegal.

"The Federal Government will discuss tomorrow the next steps after this court ruling based on a preliminary analysis provided by the Justice Ministry. That's all I can say," government spokesman Andre Simonazzi told The Associated Press.

He declined to say whether the government officials have been in touch with their U.S. counterparts since Friday's ruling, which threatens the delicate deal reached last August between Washington and Bern to settle U.S. civil proceedings against UBS AG.

cont'd

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9DFK3581.htm

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Swiss Court Ruling Could Scuttle UBS Settlement
http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/01/ubssettlement.html



And in other news...


Fla. watchmaker charged with hiding UBS account
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1447242.html


STREET MOVES: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Hires UBS Brokers
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100126-713497.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

The Swiss, the Vatican, all those other tiny countries who hide things for a fee.

Transparency: part of the new world order.

Answers here -

http://news.muckety.com/2010/01/08/six-degrees-of-phil-gramm/23671

with them. DoJ already put the WHISTLEBLOWER behind bars. Mission accomplished.

Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/7/why_is_the_whistleblower_who_exposed

From that article:

What’s triple outrageous—I’m going beyond double—is that then they recommend thirty months imprisonment for Birkenfeld. He gets forty months, more than probably every single tax cheat, the 19,000 of them that he turned in, will get collectively. Olenicoff, the billionaire, who for twenty years was hiding millions and millions of dollars willfully, got probation. A guy named Liechti, who was Birkenfeld’s third line supervisor in the Swiss bank, who was in charge of all the illegal accounts, who was detained and arrested by the Justice Department, was released and let to go back to Switzerland with no prison time or even a conviction, whereas Birkenfeld, who blew the whistle on the whole scheme voluntarily, is going to serve more time in prison than the worst of the wrongdoers that were involved in holding back $20 billion in illegal accounts.