Financial Transparency Coalition

Off-shore hedge-fund investors could be the next target of the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. lawmakers after last week's landmark agreement between the U.S. and Swiss governments over secret Swiss bank accounts held by U.S. citizens.

Reuters has reported Swiss press coverage of UBS comments this weekend, It’s amazing stuff. A selection of the quotes are:

"The clients are not just harmless victims. They knew what they wanted to evade," Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the world’s second-largest wealth manager, said in an interview with SonntagsBlick.

"But they trusted the bank that it would work. Now we have to correct that," said Villiger, adding it was still not the responsibility of UBS to make sure clients paid their taxes.

Wrong guys. It is your job to detect money laundering through your...

New Delhi (PTI) -- In the midst of a row over tainted money stashed in banks in Switzerland, the government today said it will begin talks with that country in December for amending the relevant treaty and it was not interested in a "roving inquiry".

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.