Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “There is no guarantee that the IRS will have 4,450 names” when Switzerland finishes reviewing the 4,450 UBS bank accounts identified according to the criteria established by the United States and Switzerland, Folco Galli of the Swiss Federal Justice Department told GenevaLunch Wednesday 18 November. There is also no reason to believe the number will be close to this – or, on the other hand, far smaller. The US ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer, last week commented that he expects the number to be far smaller, while the New York Times appears to have erroneously implied 17 November that Switzerland must turn over this many names to the IRS.
”At the moment, no one knows,” Galli says, because the accounts and names are being reviewed, a process that will take a year. And no one knows how many, if any, of the 14,700 individuals who came forward to the IRS under the amnesty programme, are part of the group of 4,450 UBS accounts, since those account holders are currently all known only to the bank itself. UBS, as part of the agreement, is filtering the identified accounts based on the governments’ criteria in order to turn data over to the federal administrative review.
Hans-Rudolf Merz, Swiss president
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland is ready to revise its double tax treaty with Germany, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz told Peer Steinbrueck, the German finance minister, when the two met in Berlin Monday 22 June. Merz says the Swiss government wants to quickly implement its 13 March decision to bring Swiss tax law into line with international standards, but that Switzerland expects Germany to allow unhampered access by Swiss financial service providers to its markets and an agreement on taxation of Swiss airline employees who work in Germany, the government announced in a communiqué. Both men after the meeting played down the recent spat caused by Steinbrueck’s comments on Swiss banking secrecy.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and the United States “initialed” a revised double taxation agreement (DTA) in Washington, DC 18 June. According to the US government, “Official signing of the protocol is expected in the next few months.” A new agreement was necessary following the Swiss government’s decision 13 March to adopt the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Model Convention standard under which countries provide each other with tax assistance.
The decision followed pressure on Switzerland from other OECD member countries to ease its strict banking secrecy laws. The OECD has told Switzerland it must have 12 new bilateral tax agreements in place by the end of 2009 if it does not want to appear on a “gray list” of countries that are considered non-compliant.
Paris, France (Le Temps, Fre) – Switzerland and France Friday signed a new tax treaty that could go into effect as early as January 2010, which for the first time promises the French more help in catching tax evaders.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, and Hans-Rudolph Merz, president of Switzerland, Tuesday 28 April met as part of negotiations for a new tax treaty between the two countries, but no news filtered out of the meeting and it is not yet clear if any statements will be issued.
Berlin, Germany (TSR, Fre and Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – The director of the Swiss Bankers Association, Urs Philipp Roth, presented Switzerland’s case for banking secrecy during a three-hour hearing by the financial commission of the German Bundestag (parliament), a meeting Swiss observers later qualified as “respectful.”
