Offshore Tax Evasion: The IRS & Swiss Banks
LIGHTNING RELEASES (1/30/2015) – Attorney Gary S. Wolfe of The Wolfe Law Group is pleased to announce, after 12 years of research, the publication of his 10th book, Offshore Tax Evasion: The IRS and Swiss Banks, now available for immediate download through the Amazon Kindle store.
Switzerland is the epicenter of international tax evasion & money laundering.
Under the 2013/2014 US Govt. GAO Report, the IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program listed the top 7 countries with undisclosed accounts. #1 was Switzerland with 42% of the accounts (UK was a distant second with 8% of the accounts). Switzerland holds more than 5x the bankaccounts of “US tax cheats” than the 2d biggest jurisdiction (UK).
Major Swiss banks have admitted to tax evasion as their “business”: In Feb 2009 UBS agreed to pay a $780m fine and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Dept. of Justice
In Jan. 2013, Wegelin Bank, the oldest Swiss Bank (est. 1741) paid a $74m fine and entered a guilty plea to tax evasion charges and announced it would close its bank;
In November 2014, Credit Suisse entered a guilty plea to tax evasion and agreed to a $2.6B penalty.
As of December, 2014 more than a dozen Swiss Banks including major bank: HSBC & Julius Baer continue to be investigated for their roles in helping US taxpayers evade taxes.