Financial Transparency Coalition

Washington Post - A new treaty touted as helping U.S. law enforcement crack Swiss bank secrecy may do little to help authorities achieve a prime objective: exposing tax evaders.

PARIS — The Swiss government said Wednesday that it was prepared to seize U.B.S. client data rather than allow the bank to hand it over to the United States to settle a tax case.

On the eve of Leader of Government Business McKeeva Bush’s appointment to sign Cayman’s 11th Tax Information Exchange Agreement, this time with the Netherlands, two OECD countries have indicated that the proverbial goal posts may have shifted once again when it comes to measuring cooperation on fighting global tax evasion. According to reports from a summit in Evian, France, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have called for a March 2010 deadline for sanctions against tax havens that fail to bring their transparency up to international standards.

Kolkata: Although the government failed to lay down a concrete roadmap on ways to reduce the huge fiscal deficit in the Union Budget 2009-10, the changes made in the tax structure, both direct and indirect taxes, were a welcome measure and could have a positive impact on the economy, felt industry experts.