Deal reached in UBS fraud case

The US government has reached a deal in principle with Switzerland in its attempt to get the names of thousands of Americans suspected of evading taxes by making deposits in UBS, the major Swiss bank. A final settlement in the tax secrecy case is expected to be completed within a week, Stuart Gibson, a US Justice Department tax lawyer told a federal judge in Miami on Friday. "The parties have reached an agreement in principle on the major issues ... There are some other issues that need to be resolved," Gibson told US district judge Alan Gold. A trial in the case that was due to begin on Monday has been postponed until August 10, pending a full agreement between the parties. Tax haven The agreement came as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, held talks with Micheline Calmy-Rey, Switzerland's foreign minister, on the UBS case in Washington. "There's been an agreement in principle … Our governments have worked very hard on this to reach this point," Clinton said, without giving any further details of the deal. Calmy-Rey said she was "very satisfied" with the deal. The US case against UBS was launched in an attempt to get the names of about 52,000 US citizens suspected of storing a total of $15bn in assets in UBS accounts. The Internal Revenue Service, the US tax office, had called on Gold to order UBS to give them a list of all American depositors so that it can collect due taxes. The IRS would then turn the names over to the US justice department so that it could launch criminal proceedings against anyone suspected of tax evasion. Swiss unease But UBS and the Swiss government had said that revealing the names would have involved breaking Swiss law. The Zurich-based bank admitted to the US justice department earlier this year that it had helped US citizens avoid paying domestic taxes by allowing them to make deposits. UBS disclosed the names of about 300 US clients and paid a $780m penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, but the IRS then filed a case to get the list of 52,000 other US citizens suspected of storing money at the bank. Three UBS clients whose names were given to US authorities under the agreement with the US justice department have pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges in federal court. source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/07/2009731163924865931.html Get 30 days of free traffic analysis simply by going to Web-Stat: http://www.web-stat.com/?id=2955 Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu Improve blog traffic with TrafficG http://trafficg.com/splash/splash01.php?uid=eelder1 Netcraft rank: 24118 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/stats/topsites?s=842818698226B7BA4A1D0E313F8F#24118

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