The US and several Eurpoean countries have been looking hard at bank secrecy laws that make it hard to fight tax evasion. The global recession makes such actions even more important, as tax revenues help fund the economic stimulus that governments provide. The US has just entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Switzerland's big investment bank, UBS, and has recently sued the bank for an additional 52,000 account names. See this post on ataxingmatter for background on the deferred prosecution agreement. Now, the upcoming meeting of the Group of 20 in early April has spurred the push for transparency, with apparent success. See Saltmarsh, Tax havens Likely to be Target of G-20 Nations, NY Times, Mar. 12, 2009. This week, the OECD addition of Austria, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Singapore and Switzerland to the draft list of tax havens made the news, and may have been the straw that tipped the scale towards greater cooperation. Id.
The Swiss Federal Council announced on Friday that it would accept the OECD's international standards on transparency and exchange of information on tax matters to avoid being treated as an uncooperative tax haven. See, e.g., Switzerland eases banking secrecy, BBC News, Mar. 13, 2009; Switzerland to relax banking secrecy laws, ChinaView.cn, Mar. 14, 2009, The Swiss finance minister, however, said that "Swiss voters might have the final say" and he made clear the rules wouldn't happen overnight. Id. Switzerland will follow the OECD standards in developing new tax treaties (bilateral tax conventions) with other countries, so that the new standards "will only have practical effects when the renegotiated agreements come into force." BNA Daily Tax RealTime, Mar. 13, 2009. The government said, however, that "it would only respond to 'concrete and justified' requests" and would "resolutely refuse[] all automatic transmission of information," Switzerland eases banking secrecy, which may mean that it will not respond to John Doe summons unless the US includes such requirements in its renegotiated treaty.
Other countries to join the move to change bank secrecy laws include Andorra, Luxembourg, Austria and Liechtenstein. Representatives of OECD met with their government officials and they have agreed to cooperate by exchanging information on demand. Liechtenstein's prime minister acknowledged that "bank client confidentiality in future cannot be misused to facilitate tax crime." Liechtenstein eases bank secrecy BBC News, Mar. 12, 2009.
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