UBS may reveal U.S. clients' names in probe: report

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - UBS AG is considering whether to reveal the names of up to 20,000 wealthy American clients as federal authorities intensify an investigation into offshore bank accounts, the New York Times said on Friday, citing people close to the inquiry.

Federal investigators believe some clients may have used offshore accounts to hide as much as $20 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, enabling them to evade at least $300 million in federal income taxes, the newspaper said, citing a government official connected with the investigation.

A spokesman for UBS declined to comment on the report and said the bank's position had not changed.

"We are taking the investigations very seriously. We are putting in a lot of resources in order to work with the investigators. We will analyze these points and if necessary take corrective measures," he said.

According to the newspaper, UBS said it was cooperating with investigators and that it was against the Swiss bank's policy to help Americans evade taxes.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSBNG28006320080606

---

In related "offshore U.S. tax evasion" news...
10 Big Businesses That Have Moved Their Headquarters Abroad to Pay Less U.S. Taxes

Some call the practice of moving a company abroad to avoid taxes "corporate inversion," while others deem these businesses “expatriate corporations.” Whichever term you prefer, the fact is that several successful American companies have moved their headquarters overseas in recent years to avoid hefty U.S. taxes.

#1. Halliburton: Houston-based Halliburton, which offers a broad array of oil-field technologies and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide, announced the opening of a corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai on March 12, 2007. The company, which was once led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, said that its relocation was part of a strategy that it announced in mid-2006 to concentrate its efforts in the Middle East in order to attract business............
finish reading @ http://www.hrworld.com/features/10-overseas-companies-060408/

[Ghost Dog]

1. Yeah. This (developing) story deserves a kick

and a rec.

...And thanks for adding the "corporate" angle, most importantly, too.

[UpInArms]

2. great post!

:thumbsup:

[RoseMead]

3. K&R n/t

[WhiteTara]

4. one step closer

:bounce:

[underpants]

5. Rec'd

:wow:

[katerinasmommy]

6. How soon will we hear Phil Gramm's name in major media?

[pathwhisperer]

7. Kick and links to 2 related threads / UBS did make a big public show of combatting money laundering

I worked for them for over ten years.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3396077

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3395785

[UpInArms]

8. welcome to DU, pathwhisperer!

and thanks for the links!

here's from the first thread you posted:

McCain Adviser Phil Gramm in the News Again: Did His Bank Help Wealthy Clients Evade Taxes?

For someone who wants to change Washington, John McCain has surrounded himself with plenty of guys who game the system. His campaign in recent weeks had to boot out a bunch of lobbyists, though his two top campaign aides—Rick Davis and Charles Black—remain in their posts, despite the fact they recently were high-powered lobbyists. Then there's Phil Gramm, a campaign cochairman and economic adviser to McCain. After leaving the US Senate, he became an executive and lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss mega-bank. And as I noted recently, eight years ago, when he chaired the Senate banking committee, he helped create the current subprime meltdown by slyly slipping into a must-pass appropriations measure a bill that completely deregulated certain financial instruments. Isn't that the sort of person you want advising a president and in line to be Treasury secretary?

Gramm is back in the news today. The New York Times reports that federal authorities are investigating UBS to determine whether the bank helped thousands of wealthy Americans hide their assets from the IRS in UBS offshore accounts. Without mentioning that Gramm is a top McCain ally, the paper notes:
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank’s investment banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in bad investments, many of them linked to risky American mortgages.

[Virginia Dare]

11. I wonder if Miss Cindy McCain is on that list...n/t

[Lochloosa]

30. Bingo!

[UpInArms]

9. related: NYTs: Wealthy Americans Under Scrutiny in UBS Case

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/business/worldbusiness/06tax.html?em&ex=1212897600&en=6754e8caac60bdc1&ei=5087%0A

One afternoon in April, six dozen wealthy Americans were entertained at a luncheon party in Midtown Manhattan, along with a special guest from Paris: Henri Loyrette, the director of the Louvre.

The host of the exclusive gathering was the Swiss bank UBS, whose elite private bankers built a lucrative business in recent years by discreetly tending the fortunes of American millionaires and billionaires. As the wine flowed and Mr. Loyrette spoke of the glories of France, UBS bankers courted their affluent guests.

But now, as the federal authorities intensify an investigation into offshore bank accounts, the secrets of this rarefied world are being dragged into the open — and UBS’s privileged clients are running scared.

<snip>

The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank’s investment banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in bad investments, many of them linked to risky American mortgages.

The federal investigation, which is part of a broad, international crackdown on tax cheats, suggests that United States authorities are shifting their focus to Liechtenstein and Switzerland from Caribbean havens like the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scheduled to hold hearings as early as this month on offshore products sold by UBS and by the LGT Group, the bank owned by Liechtenstein’s royal family.

[Virginia Dare]

10. Wow, that would be awesome. K&R

[jasmine621]

12. This will only get real legs if put into the GD or GDP right now.

Many DUers are still too busy rejoicing over the Obama victory or sliming Hillary still.

[TNOE]

13. K&R

disgusting.

[whistle]

14. 20,000 tax dodgers and I'll bet it's far more than $300 million in taxes

...these people have hidden from the IRS

[Octafish]

16. ''The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.'' -- a crazy monkey.

"The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason - to pass the tax bill on to you." -- George W. Bush

[NewEnglandGirl]

15. Good

Let's see who's on that list. It's only fair.

[ejpoeta]

17. it sure would be interesting to see who is on the list.

i hope they get this out there.

[elehhhhna]

22. people in the know in Cayman have told me that if we knew

the names of some of their offshore account holders we'd riot in the streets. Major religious, political, entertainment, sports, and others. Names we'd know.

[anitar1]

18. K & R n/t

[Initech]

19. I've been saying this for years - tax their overseas bank accounts!

Finally it's happening! :woohoo:

[defendandprotect]

20. This high level of corruption and criminality in government DEMANDS secret bank accounts . . .

which are a threat to democracy -- to a people's government ---

If we can't follow the money, we can't track the criminals ---

[drm604]

21. K&R

This could become very interesting!

[pattmarty]

23. List the names!! Fuck these motherfuckers.....

[DogPoundPup]

25. Too late to edit, but here are the names

1. Halliburton: Houston-based Halliburton, which offers a broad array of oil-field technologies and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide, announced the opening of a corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai on March 12, 2007. The company, which was once led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, said that its relocation was part of a strategy that it announced in mid-2006 to concentrate its efforts in the Middle East in order to attract business.


2. Accenture:Consulting company Accenture is the Bermuda-based arm of the former Big Five accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, which is known for its involvement in the Enron Corp. scandal. Accenture has done pretty well for itself, garnering $662 million in contracts between Oct. 1, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2002. The company has argued that its operations should not be called corporate inversion because while Arthur Andersen was based in the U.S., Accenture never was.


3. Foster Wheeler Ltd.: The engineering firm Foster Wheeler moved its corporate headquarters to Bermuda in 2001, when the company was headed toward bankruptcy. Nearly 70 percent of Foster Wheeler's business comes from its international operations, and the move to Bermuda enabled the company to avoid paying taxes on income that it earned outside of the U.S. Most of the company's main offices remain in New Jersey.


4. Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd.: This New Jersey-based company, which manufactures Thermo King refrigerated trucks, also moved to Bermuda in 2001. In 2007, the company faced an IRS (Internal Revenue Service) audit over the way it classified some debt in its reincorporation in Bermuda in 2002.


5. Tyco International Ltd.: Manufacturers and providers of services in health care, flow control, security, telecommunications and electronics, Tyco International reincorporated in Bermuda in 1997. In 2002, Tyco International's chairman and CEO, L. Dennis Kozlowski, was indicted on charges that he had evaded more than $1 million in New York sales taxes.


6. Cooper Industries Inc.: Cooper Industries, a company that makes electrical products and tools such as Halo and Lumière brand light fixtures, moved from Houston to Bermuda in 2002 and subsequently garnered $3.6 million in government contracts.

“We felt that American companies, based upon the tax laws that are written today, are clearly put at an economic disadvantage to foreign companies," said Victoria Guennewig, a spokeswoman for Cooper Industries, in defense of the company’s relocation.

7. Noble Drilling Services Inc.: Noble, the fourth-largest U.S. offshore oil and natural-gas driller, calls the Cayman Islands home but operates out of Sugar Land, Texas. In 2002, the U.S. started a campaign to remove Noble and nine other American companies with offshore headquarters from the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Bermuda's Finance Minister, Eugene Cox, was outraged.


8. Global Crossing: Global Crossing provides telecommunications solutions over the world's first integrated global IP-based network. The company is legally based in Bermuda, although its administrative headquarters are in New Jersey.


9. Seagate Technology LLC: The California designer, manufacturer and marketer of rigid disk drives is run from the Cayman Islands. In December 2006, Seagate's Barracuda 750GB hard drive ranked No. 9 in PC World's "The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year."


10. Nabors Industries Ltd.: Nabors Industries, the world's biggest onshore oil and gas-drilling contractor, moved from Texas to Bermuda and Barbados in 2002. Nabors Industries apparently reported $428.4 million in profit in the U.S. in 2005 and would have paid $86 million in taxes on that money.

U.S. companies will surely continue to seek tax shelter in other countries, but only time will tell if they’ll be able to get away with this scheme.

[jamesinca]

24. Oh, the poor bums

I see those numbers and they look startling, $300,000,000 in taxes. We can't tax some group of people $300,000,000. Then I did the math, 1.5% tax rate. I want a 1.5% rate!!! Cheap bastards, won't even kick in 1.5% while I am having a third of my money taken.

[DogPoundPup]

26. Why do cheap bastard millioniaire/billionaires hate mankind and America?

Suppose they really believe those gated communities they live and vacation in will protect them and their family from the ills of society forever?

[bluesmail]

27. yes, fantastic post. K&R of course

These 20,000 are UnAmerican.

[Snarkoleptic]

28. A great whistleblower website is.

http://liveleak.com/
They were way ahead of the curve on this one.
There's a lot of crap on liveleak, but the discerning mind can find gems buried in the shit.

[chill_wind]

29. The McCain's Gramm problem will come out more fully in MSM

It's only just started..

May 28 NBC

McCain’s Gramm problem grows

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/mccains-gramm-problem-grows/2800815499

Candy Gramm for McCain

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/countdown-candy-gramm-for-mccain/785763785

[Joanne98]

31. YAY