Reply #2: UBS executive charged with helping 20,000 Americans avoid taxes [View All]

[Robbien]

Source: The Guardian

A senior executive at the Swiss bank UBS has been charged with helping thousands of Americans to avoid tax in a long-running international dispute which has brought the US authorities into conflict with Switzerland's stringent tradition of bank secrecy.

Federal prosecutors in Miami today unsealed an indictment accusing Raoul Weil, head of UBS's wealth management division in Zurich, of conspiring to defraud the US through tax evasion. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The department of justice alleges that 20,000 American clients have been systematically using Swiss bank accounts to conceal $20bn of assets from the Internal Revenue Service.

. . .

Birkenfeld told investigators that UBS went to great lengths to advise its clients on how to avoid tax - including telling them to mislead customs officials and advising them to use Swiss credit cards. He even claimed that he couriered diamonds across an international border in a tube of toothpaste for one client.

Prosecutors today said that UBS generated $200m in annual revenue from cross-border business between 2002 and 2007. In 2004, the US attorney said, bankers reporting to Weil travelled 3,800 times to the US to discuss clients' accounts.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/12/ubs-useconomy-tax-fraud

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One of the corrupt crooks finally is charged. But like most the execs in the whole financial mess, this exec won't see one day in court. He is Swiss and the Swiss do not allow their citizens to be extradited.