Pressured by I.R.S., UBS Is Closing Secret Accounts

[groovedaddy]

Under pressure from federal authorities, the Swiss bank UBS is closing the hidden offshore accounts of its well-heeled American clients, potentially allowing their secrets to spill into the open.

In a step that would have once been unthinkable in the rarefied world of Swiss banking, UBS will shut about 19,000 accounts that prosecutors suspect have gone undeclared to the Internal Revenue Service.

UBS will transfer the assets to other banks or other divisions within UBS, or will mail checks directly to the account holders, creating paper trails for federal prosecutors who are examining whether UBS clients used such accounts to evade taxes.

The clients now face stark choices: they can cash their checks, and thereby alert the authorities to any potential wrongdoing, or not cash them, effectively losing their money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09ubs.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Perhaps many of our billionaires will soon be moving

to various small island nations that have no extradition treaties with us.

This will not necessarily be an entirely bad thing.

[Donnachaidh]

2. but is the UBS being totally transparent about the transferred accounts?

Or is this just a *give the IRS something to play with, while protecting the BIG accounts* move?

[aquart]

3. Define "big" account?

There's a nice chunk o' change in that 19,000.

[Donnachaidh]

5. sure it's a chunk

But is this just on *offering* to the IRS, to make themselves look as if they are cooperating, while putting other accounts into other divisions or other banks under the same secrecy that the 19,000 had?

[kickysnana]

4. Now about those Camen island accounts. n/t

[aquart]

6. My old boss liked to hide money in the Channel Islands.