Financial Transparency Coalition

UBS AG (UBS) should pay U.S. taxes on 52,000 secret accounts held by American citizens in Switzerland as part of a settlement to a high-profile legal case between the bank and U.S. tax authorities, according to Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.

For more than a year, the Internal Revenue Service, the feared tax-collecting agency of the US government, has been revving the engines and aiming a bulldozer at Switzerland's historic banking secrecy laws.

The Swiss bank UBS and United States federal prosecutors sought Sunday to delay a hearing scheduled for Monday so the two sides could try to settle their closely watched dispute over the release of names of wealthy American clients of the bank who are suspected of offshore tax evasion.

Financial Times - Switzerland may have seen off Habsburg armies, but the American taxman might prove a greater threat to its sovereignty. US officials, filing a civil suit in a court in Florida, are seeking to force UBS, the Swiss bank, to reveal the names of American clients whose tax papers have not been properly filed. The Swiss government has made it clear that UBS would not be able to comply without breaching the Alpine country’s bank secrecy laws.