Financial Transparency Coalition

As a federal probe of secret Swiss bank accounts made headlines in the summer of 2008, New York businessman Jeffrey P. Chernick got nervous. A middleman in international toy sales, Chernick had hidden millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service at Switzerland's largest bank, according to a recent court filing.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Swiss government officials, including the Swiss federal banking commissioner Urs Zulauf, are scheduled to take the stand next week at an evidentiary hearing in the high-profile case involving the U.S. and Swiss governments and UBS AG (UBS).

Wall Street Journal: Wealthy taxpayers have inundated the Internal Revenue Service in recent weeks with requests to come clean for past tax evasion, amid a government crackdown on undeclared income from overseas accounts.

Swiss authorities are investigating allegations that a Swiss official accepted a bribe from an American UBS client. From Reuters:

Swiss prosecutors are investigating allegations that an unamed Swiss official took a bribe from a U.S. client of UBS, they said on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement the tax authority had filed charges against unknown persons which it was now investigating without giving further details.

Word of the investigation came just one day after a former UBS client plead guilty in US court to filing false tax returns and evading...