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Swiss Government Rebuked Over UBS Affair,
by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels
Thursday, June 03, 2010
A Swiss parliamentary committee has sharply criticized the
government's role in the UBS tax evasion scandal, which now threatens
to punch a hole in Switzerland's banking secrecy laws.
Following a 15-month long enquiry into the UBS affair, the Swiss
parliament's two control committees published a report on May 31 which
concluded that the federal government failed to recognize the
ramifications of the US probe into tax evasion by UBS clients, which
has led to the drawing up of an agreement to hand over confidential
data to the US authorities.
"The significance of the transfer of the bank data of some
US clients of UBS was not recognised until too late," the joint
committees said.
The joint committees' report also accused the
government of being slow to react when the bank encountered financial
difficulties as a result of its investment in illiquid mortgage-backed
securities.
In August 2009 UBS agreed to a fine of USD780m and agreed to discuss
the transfer of data on 4,450 accounts to the US Internal Revenue Service, although this was far short of the
52,000 names originally sought. On March 31, 2010, in discussions with
the US, the Swiss government agreed to amend its double tax
agreement with the US to allow for the exchange of tax information in
cases of extreme tax evasion. This amendment will facilitate the
exchange of tax data on account holders with the largest outstanding
tax liabilities to US authorities.
The agreement must be approved by the Swiss parliament before it can
be ratified, and the upper house of the Swiss parliament is due to discuss
the issue on June 3, followed by the lower house next week. A majority of lawmakers are expected to back the deal, however, after the
conservative People’s Party removed their opposition to the
agreement in an attempt to prevent a tax on bankers' bonuses.
FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator, was also criticized in the
report for its part in the regulatory failures, although the authority
said that it "welcomes the Control Committees' thorough analysis of the
events and of how they were handled by the federal authorities."
"The Control Committees have drawn up a well-supported and detailed
overview of the facts in regard of the highly complex events for all
parties involved. FINMA supported the Control Committees with its work
by disclosing all the records and documents they requested. In
addition, FINMA assisted further by conducting numerous formal
hearings, providing written statements and organising meetings to
assess the findings," a FINMA statement said.
FINMA intends to respond to the report's conclusions and
recommendations by the end of 2010.
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