Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s agreement with the USA to hand over the names of 4,450 US clients accused of tax fraud, with accounts in Swiss bank UBS, is in danger of unravelling. A Swiss court has ruled that simply not filing an American W-9 form does not constitute “tax fraud and the like”. The Federal Administrative Tribunal, one of the country’s high courts, has asked the Federal Tax Administration to review 25 similar cases, in a decision made public 22 January. An infraction or crime as defined in the annex to the August 2009 agreement cannot take precedence over the 1996 tax treaty, the court has found.
The decision cannot be appealed and may affect up to 4,200 of the clients who are on the list to be handed over to the IRS, the US tax authority.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has finished reviewing the first 500 files of UBS clients suspected of tax fraud by the IRS, the US tax authority. The FTA announced 25 November that it has not communicated names to the IRS and will not, as stipulated in the Swiss-US agreement, until clients have exhausted the appeals process.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss bank UBS holds a regular Investors Day Tuesday 17 November in Zurich and speculation is running high among media and analysts about what it will say to them. The plan to move the bank back to profitability is undoubtedly high on the list, with Bloomberg suggesting that Oswald Gruebel, chairman, “will probably list hiring in fixed-income as a key element in his turnaround plan,” because the bank is likely to count on its investment bank’s trading of debt securities to pull it out of debt. The Wall Street Journal says investors will be watching Robert McCann, new head of the US wealth management unit, for signs of what the bank plans to do there, and whether Gruebel intends to sell off the unit at some point.
