Financial Transparency Coalition

According to UBS's chairman, Kaspar Villiger, the bank's tax-evading American "clients are not just harmless victims. They knew what they wanted to evade." It's nice to see that the UBS chief is on the same page as the rest of the world on this point. However, according to Reuters, he also does not believe that "systematic tax evasion had been a problem in countries other than the United States." I find it very difficult to believe that he believes this.

Tax Analysts published a very long (albeit spot-on) article today which analyzes Mexico's request to the United States to be treated the same as Canada when it comes to exchange of tax information. Basically, the article demonstrates how the United States is an offshore tax haven that is being exploited by (among others) Mexican drug-lords. Of course, the United States just fought Switzerland for having some of the same tax/reporting exemptions that Mexico is challenging. Is the US practicing what it preaches? The short answer is no; it is not. Here's a...

Tax Justice Network USA put out a number of recommendations for the US Government following the announcement of the settlement in the UBS case. In case you haven't seen it yet, TJN recommends that the US:

• Insist that the issue of cross?border tax evasion be on the agenda of the September G?20 Summit in Pittsburgh.
• Push for immediate international action to facilitate increased tax information exchange.
• Press for mandatory standards of bank behavior enforced by home governments that preclude assisting in cross border tax evasion.
• Use the UBS disclosures to prepare and serve additional "John Doe" summonses on other banks known...

ZURICH (Reuters) - Clients of UBS facing disclosure of their accounts to U.S. tax authorities were not harmless victims and legal cases against former UBS bankers did not affect the bank, its chairman told Swiss Sunday newspapers.