Financial Transparency Coalition

Switzerland's legendary banking secrecy is feeling the pressure. A series of tax treaties will make Swiss deposits more vulnerable to scrutiny from law enforcement. The treaties, specifically the German-Swiss one currently being negotiated, are far from perfect, but from the perspective of someone with a deposit in UBS or Credit Suisse, their cover is blown. You may think that this is something that will directly lead to historic prosecutions for epic-scale tax evasion, but that is unlikely. Instead, as Reuters reports, a significant portion of the $2 trillion deposited in Swiss banks are simply going to be withdrawn:

The Tax Justice Network has blogged repeatedly on the thoroughly toxic and dangerous tax deals that Switzerland has signed with Germany and the UK and others and is seeking to expand as a model to other countries. We have demonstrated on several occasions that the deals - which are supposed to apply withholding taxes on secret assets, in exchange for continued anonymity - are all but worthless, from a technical point of view (that is, they are absolutely riddled with loopholes, and will raise only a fraction of the promised sums; we have sent our detailed analysis to tax...