Given the preponderance of real criminals and smart business men in our two
Houses and the backing of so many business houses the Indian government can be
expected to back Switzerland to continue business as usual
Notwithstanding the fact that it was a businessman who paid out $1.8 million to
bring back Gandhi Memorabilia.
R. P. Coelho
----- Original Message -----
From: Anil kumar
To: CAFBANGALORE
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 11:20 PM
Subject: CAF3096 Fw: [rti-times] Switzerland debates under pressure from USA
and European Neghibors to make Banking Secracy Laws more flexible to enable the
reach of Tax Collectors of other countries, under the threat of being
blacklisted by G-20, of which India is also a Member. What India is doing in
this respect?
--- On Fri, 3/6/09, Milap Choraria <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Milap Choraria <[email protected]>
Subject: [rti-times] Switzerland debates under pressure from USA and
European Neghibors to make Banking Secracy Laws more flexible to enable the
reach of Tax Collectors of other countries, under the threat of being
blacklisted by G-20, of which India is also a Member. What India is doing in
this respect?
To: [email protected]
Cc: "Her Excellency President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil"
<[email protected]>, "K.C Jayarajan" <[email protected]>,
"Hon'ble Prime Miister of India Dr. Man Mohan Singh" <[email protected]>,
[email protected], "Hon’ble Chief Justice of India Mr K G Balakrishanan"
<[email protected]>, [email protected], "Shri P. Chidambaram,
Home Minister of India" <[email protected]>, [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Smt.
Sonia Gandhi" <[email protected]>, [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], "Serious Fraud Investigation Office" <[email protected]>,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], "Share
Market Ombudsman" <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, March 6, 2009, 8:09 AM
Switzerland debates under pressure from USA and European
Neghibors to make Banking Secracy Laws more flexible to enable the reach of Tax
Collectors of other countries, under the threat of being blacklisted by G-20,
of which India is also a Member.
What India is doing in this respect ?
Milap Choraria
Swiss bracing for change in bank
secrecy
Swiss President and Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz gestures
during a press conference on the financial crisis, banking secrecy and
international relations, at the Geneva press club,yesterday, in Geneva ,
Switzerland . With the largest Swiss bank UBS AG in a showdown with the US
government over wealthy American tax evaders, Switzerland 's federal government
has been dealt the unenviable task of avoiding sanctions abroad while gently
burying the myths at home it has helped create about confidential banking.- AP
BERN, March 6 — Switzerland is bracing for a monumental change
in a tradition of banking secrecy that survived pressure from Nazi Germany,
World War II and numerous other crises over the last 75 years.
It will have a hard time withstanding an American legal
onslaught intact.
With the largest Swiss bank, UBS AG, in a showdown with
Washington over wealthy American tax evaders, Switzerland ’s federal government
has been dealt the unenviable task of avoiding sanctions abroad while gently
burying the myths at home it has helped create about confidential banking.
Rudolf Merz, Switzerland ’s president and finance minister, was
still taking a tough stance yesterday. “I cannot imagine how we could abolish
banking secrecy,” he told reporters. “It’s part of the social idea, the
mentality of our country. It’s the protection of privacy.”
But others, including Oswald Gruebel, a widely respected banker
who came out of retirement last week to head UBS, are suggesting bank secrecy
laws will have to be changed to ease the pressure being put on this small
Alpine nation.
“It’s questionable whether we can continue to hide tax evaders
behind banking secrecy,” Gruebel told the newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft in an
interview published last weekend.
On Wednesday, a US Senate committee criticised UBS for evasive
answers on about 50,000 American-held accounts Washington is interested in, and
authorities in Switzerland ’s European neighbours are growing equally
impatient.
A three-member panel will present options to the full
government today on what to do about the demands.
The fight recalls the uproar in the 1990s over Jewish accounts
left unclaimed after World War II. Switzerland failed initially to gauge
mounting pressure from the US , and Swiss banks were forced into a US$1.25
billion (RM4.65 billion) out-of-court settlement with the descendants of
Holocaust survivors.
This time, the squabble is over how the Swiss assist foreign
authorities investigating tax evasion. Switzerland differentiates between the
crime of tax fraud and the minor offense of evasion, and providing assistance
to foreign governments probing tax evasion is punishable by law.
Switzerland passed its banking secrecy laws in 1934 during a
worldwide depression and under the threat of espionage by France and Germany ,
which aggressively courted Swiss bank employees to divulge the names and data
of customers. Strict penalties were imposed for violating bank confidentiality.
Still, secrecy rules have eroded. Swiss officials have retooled
the rules over the past two decades to allow cooperation with governments
trying to reclaim assets stashed in Switzerland by despots before they were
deposed.
But expanding the changes to deal with all foreign tax evaders
would be much more sweeping.
UBS has formally accepted responsibility for helping Americans
hide assets from the US government and agreed to pay US$780 million in fines
and restitution. It also turned over the names of about 300 US clients that
possibly committed tax fraud, but it is not giving the Internal Revenue Service
the names of all American citizens who maintained secret accounts with the
bank.
At the Senate hearing Wednesday, senior UBS executive Mark
Branson said the bank could not disclose much of the information sought by US
tax authorities because it would put employees at “serious risk” of criminal
prosecution under Swiss law.
The Swiss government refused to send a representative to the
hearing.
But Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf visited Washington
earlier this week and has shown some softening of the national position. She
said the government would consider helping foreign authorities investigating
“gross tax evasion” - a new distinction that has not previously existed.
The government is in a tough spot, battling to avoid being
blacklisted as an uncooperative tax haven when representatives of the Group of
20 leading economies meet in London in April. But it is struggling to get
unified support at home, with secrecy changes being vehemently opposed by two
pro-business parties in Switzerland ’s broad governing coalition.
Merz said Switzerland is ready to talk with the United States
and European neighbours that are frustrated over money flowing out of the reach
of tax collectors. He said the willingness to negotiate should make the G-20
reconsider threats to put Switzerland on any blacklist.
He predicts a “dynamic development” in Swiss law, and many
people think it is increasingly likely that will mean dropping the
differentiation between tax fraud and evasion.
Gerhard Roth, a tax expert and managing partner at the Swiss
law firm GHR, calls it an “arbitrary distinction created to facilitate tax
evasion.”
“If Switzerland wants to save banking secrecy it needs to go on
the offensive now,” Roth said. “In today’s world you can’t argue anymore that
it’s morally right to place banking secrecy above tax evasion.” — AP
TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS PREVAIL
Milap Choraria Editor: Suchna Ka Adhikar / RTI TIMES
National Convenor : Movement for Accountability to Public (MAP)
http://milapchoraria.tripod.com/msp http://rtitimes.net
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