Financial Transparency Coalition

About three years ago, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) caught wind that Swiss bankers from Swiss banking giant, UBS, were traveling to the United States and systematically offering wealthy Americans the opportunity to evade taxes. They also learned UBS formed offshore non-U.S. companies for investors’ assets and then engaged in an aggressive cover-up to conceal these activities. After an intense investigation by the IRS, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) pursued both criminal and civil charges against the giant Swiss bank. Federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges eighteen months later, however, after the bank admitted to fraud and conspiracy,...

Two weeks ago, the twenty most powerful leaders of the world headed to Cannes, France for the G20 Summit. It was the G20’s sixth meeting in a series of ongoing discussions about the world’s financial markets. While the meeting did not reach any concrete policy decisions on a host of important issues plaguing our financial world, some of the accomplishments of the meeting included a few pointed and poignant statements from some of the world’s most powerful. One of these statements came from Indian Prime Minister Manomohan Singh, who urged the world’s twenty most powerful countries to agree to...

We have had good press coverage for yesterday’s UK-Swiss tax deal analysis, which reveals how the UK government’s claims that it will net 4-7 billion pounds in tax revenues are fatally flawed. See, for example: Swiss-U.K. Tax Agreement May Be ‘Revenue-Negative,’ Group Says – Bloomberg Swiss tax deal could end up costing UK – Guardian

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has come out against the deal. Meanwhile, the European Commission has also said it will have to assess the legality of the deals but has not taken a firm position. The final withholding tax concept, known as ‘Rubik,’ was initially formulated by the Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland (AFBS) and by Swiss banks to protect banking secrecy against the international moves towards automatic tax information exchange, which followed the global financial crisis.

SPD Plans to Block Rubik Ratification in Germany

The SPD’s financial concept note published last Monday rejects the agreement with Switzerland. It is...