This blog post is a follow up to our posts titled U.S Indicts Swiss Executive for Foreign Bank Account Evasion and Will IRS Voluntary Disclosure Practice Help UBS Clients.
The New York Times reporter Julia Werdigier reports in UBS Finds Only Limited Tax Fraud Involving Wealthy Americans the following:
“Our investigations have uncovered a limited number of cases of tax fraud under both U.S. and Swiss law,” [UBS Chairman] Peter Kurer told shareholders at a special meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland. He asserted that Swiss bank-client confidentiality agreements had not been broken in an unfolding investigation of the bank’s activities, adding that the rules were not “there to protect cases of tax fraud.”
UBS’s conclusion flies in the face of U.S. Justice Departments allegations that,
UBS . . . helped as many as 17,000 of its American clients evade $300 million a year in taxes through hidden offshore accounts.
In his blog post titled, How Much Fraud Counts as a “Limited Number?” , Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog criticizes Ms. Werdigier’s report:
[UBS] bank chairman describes his internal investigation’s results in vague terms that could mean anything, and this is translated by the reporter as “only a small number of tax-fraud cases” and put on the first page of the Business section. Cynicism, sloppiness, or naivete?
Caron is clearly right.
All numbers are, by definition, “limited” so when Kurer tells UBS shareholders that there are a “limited number” of cases in violation of U.S. tax law he is saying absolutely nothing.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Joe // Mar 4, 2009 at 3:31 am
The U.S. needs to stop trying to control every aspect of every person’s life. At this pace, within the next ten years you won’t be able to fart without them coming after you. They already tax every little thing you do mulitple times over and it’s still never enough. They need to stop trying to screw the hard working people who were able to reach the american dream and trying to turn this into a socialist country.
2 Justice Department May Pursue Criminal Charges Against UBS Execs // Mar 5, 2009 at 2:30 pm
[...] UBS Offshore Tax Fraud Update Bookmark & Share: [...]
3 10 Top Tax Stories of the Decade and 4 of My Own // Dec 31, 2009 at 11:00 am
[...] [...]
Leave a Comment