Swiss Account Holders Face Numerous Problems, Not Just Taxes



Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2009

by
Panama Legal

Executive Summary The Swiss agreed to turn over 4450 names of depositors at UBS bank plus previously another 300 or so were turned over. These records of course include account holder information, beneficiary information and transaction records, history, balances, etc. These people may be hit with a tax bill, especially those from the USA but that can be just the tip of the iceberg. These bank records can easily be entered into the public domain by the IRS, Revenue Canada, HM Revenue and Customs etc. This can create numerous additional problems for the account holders.

Public Domain Problems The tax authorities can easily get the Swiss banking records or any other offshore banking records they have into the public domain. Getting the records lawfully in the first place is the trick. The Germans actually got Lichtenstein banking records in what appears to be an illegal way yet these records were used extensively by numerous nations anyway. The high tax nations have an attitude that the laws apply only to you not them. They can file liens, court cases, criminal cases or flat out just enter the info into public records. The tax authorities are the enemies of bank secrecy and will do whatever they can to defeat its value. They are tax consumers, not tax payers and are of course biased against bank secrecy and offshore tax havens. Once the banking records get into the public domain adversaries from old divorce cases, bankruptcy cases or civil cases can use these records to impeach financial testimony and of course go after these assets since they now know that they exist, how much there is, for how long these assets were around and where they are.

The home country courts can be used to compel the account holders to repatriate the assets into the jurisdiction of the courts so the funds can be attached. Failure to do so can be considered contempt of court so once the bank records re discovered moving the funds to another country will not accomplish much. If the person leaves the jurisdiction of the court and goes to another nation before any such orders are issued and relocates the funds to another country then they might be able to thwart such efforts of the court to attach the funds. This of course can be construed as a fraudulent conveyance, criminal or civil. In Divorce cases statue of limitations can go forever when it comes to filing false financial statements. This can open up perjury charges too although the defendant may be able to argue statue of limitations on a criminal charge if the filing of the financial forms was many years ago but the ex seeking money compensation may still be able to prevail and collect. An article similar to this was carried by Time magazine very recently and can be found here:

Ex-Wives Eagerly Await UBS Tax-Cheater List

We have been discussing governments releasing secret banking information into the public domain for years. Now it may be a happening in wholesale quantities.

Reading Between the Lines The high tax countries behind the OECD have hopelessly toxic banking systems. These banks will never ever be healthy again. They print fiat money with vigor. Now they are attacking the offshore tax havens. The idea is to scare their constituents into confessing and paying past due taxes, penalties and interest under threat of dying in prison. Then the idea is these people have already paid the taxes so may as well bring the money back to the home country and deposit it into one of the toxic banks. Well that is their plan, not what is going to happen. The other thought is that this attack will cause capital flight from the tax havens and thus push their banks into failure from lack of liquidity. In some offshore tax havens this may very well occur. They are going to cause some damage for sure but it is still too soon to tell how things are going to go. We are seeing many nations dragging their feet about signing these new treaties and a few nations outright saying they a re going to resist. The net difference to the OECD tax collection efforts between an outright statement of rebellion and lip service with no action is zero.

Trust Agreement We again emphasize International Trust Agreement Banking as the protective measure against privacy invasions that may or may not get worse with the offshore banks.

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