Newspaper headlines: Tax evasion, bonds ‘bribe’ and ‘Twitter asbos’
The Guardian’s very “word-heavy” front page is entirely taken up with details about what the paper calls “questionable practices” at a subsidiary of HSBC – one of the world’s largest banks.
The paper says the financial institution’s private Swiss bank “helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities”.
The Guardian is one of a number of media groups (including the BBC’s Panorama, Le Monde and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) who have collaborated to piece together the story revealed by many thousands of leaked Swiss bank documents, shedding light on 30,000 accounts containing £78bn in assets.
The paper explains that the leaks came to light when Swiss-based whistleblower Herve Falciani fled to France with hacked customer files which were eventually passed to French, British, American, Belgian, Argentinian and other tax authorities.
It adds: “HMRC received a list in 2010 from which it identified more than 1,000 tax evaders.
“More than £135m was quietly recovered in repayments, but only one person was prosecuted. There has been no UK legal action against HSBC. Names were never revealed.”
Prominent celebrities, famous business figures and even royalty are said to feature on the lists of account holders, although merely holding an account in Switzerland is not illegal for UK taxpayers, providing it is declared with all gains made from it.
Mr Falciani faces arrest for breaching secrecy laws if he returns to Switzerland.
HSBC has issued a lengthy response to the Guardian and Panorama’s story, admitting its failures of “compliance and control” at the Swiss bank, which it acquired in 1999.
“The business acquired was not fully integrated into HSBC, allowing different cultures and standards to persist. Too many small and high-risk accounts were maintained. We acknowledge that the compliance culture and standards of due diligence in HSBC’s Swiss private bank, as well as the industry in general, were significantly lower than they are today.”
In its statement, it continues: “We have taken significant steps over the past several years to implement reforms and exit clients who did not meet strict new HSBC standards.”
The Guardian comments: “The revelations will amplify calls for crackdowns on offshore tax havens and stoke political arguments in the US, Britain and elsewhere in Europe where exchequers are seen to be fighting a losing battle against fleet-footed and wealthy individuals in the globalised world.”
