Swiss Banks Urge ‘United Front’ Against U.S. Pressure on Tax Evasion

The trade group’s chairman, Patrick Odier, urged the Swiss people and the government to “put up a united front” and work out a solution that applies to all countries. He said that U.S. and Swiss politicians must work with existing accords.

“The solution must be globally applicable, be definitive and correspond to existing Swiss law,” Mr. Odier told the association at a meeting in Basel, Switzerland, according to his prepared remarks. “A second bilateral treaty has to be avoided and the U.S. needs to respect this.”

A double taxation agreement was approved by Switzerland in 2009, but is still awaiting ratification by the U.S. Senate.

The United States last year forced Switzerland to agree to a separate bilateral tax treaty to prevent the country’s biggest bank, UBS, from facing damaging civil litigation in U.S. courts for helping thousands of Americans hide money in offshore accounts.

UBS was forced to hand over the names of thousands of American account holders and pay a $780 million fine in a landmark case that pierced Switzerland’s storied tradition of banking secrecy. Swiss lawmakers are due to approve a revised tax agreement with the U.S. this fall.

But Switzerland now fears that U.S. officials may try to bring charges against one or more Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, if it does not divulge more details on how many Americans may have used Swiss banks to avoid paying their U.S. taxes.

The Swiss government has also faced similar growing pressure outside the United States, and has signed revised agreements with several countries, including Germany and Britain, to provide greater help to foreign tax authorities seeking information on their citizens’ accounts in the Alpine nation.

Taken together, the moves have been widely seen as the beginning of the end of Switzerland’s strict policy of noncooperation with foreign authorities in tax evasion cases.

“The U.S. should take the tax agreements with Germany and the United Kingdom as an example. Bilateral problems between friendly nations should be solved by mutual agreement,” Mr. Odier said.

The agreements with Germany and Britain were both reached in August. Swiss banks will pay an up-front guarantee of 2 billion francs, or nearly $2.7 billion, to Germany and 500 million Swiss francs, or $630 million, to Britain.

German residents who haven’t previously declared existing assets in Switzerland will have the chance to make a one-time tax payment totaling between 19 and 34 percent of those assets, or to declare them to German authorities. Similarly, British clients will have the option of making an anonymous one-off payment for taxes owed in the past, or declaring their assets to British authorities.

The Swiss Bankers Association said also that there may be rough times ahead because of the strong franc and new banking requirements to boost capital holdings.

In a statement Monday, it said “the economic and regulatory trends indicate that there may be some headwinds going forward.”

But the group reported that Swiss banks’ combined assets rose slightly to 2.7 trillion francs, and generated earnings of 61.5 billion francs in 2010 — an increase of 13.4 percent in earnings on the year.

The value of the franc has risen sharply as a safe haven for investors, but that has made Swiss exports more expensive, driving down profits.

Banks also must meet new rules to gradually increase their capital cushions, eating into the amount they can invest.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/business/global/swiss-banks-urge-united-front-against-us-pressure-on-tax-evasion.html?partner=rss&emc=rss