This is something I’ve been watching for a while:
The Swiss banking giant UBS and the Justice Department said Wednesday that they had reached an accord that would force the bank to disclose names of American clients suspected of tax evasion.
“The parties have initialed agreements,” Stuart Gibson, a Justice Department lawyer who is trying the case, said in a conference call on Wednesday with the judge overseeing the matter. Mr. Gibson told Judge Alan Gold of Federal District Court in Miami that both sides would move next week to have the legal case dismissed and file court documents outlining the settlement.
Mr. Gibson told the judge last week that he hoped a deal could be completed by Aug. 12.
***In February, UBS agreed to pay $780 million to settle charges that it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes on nearly $20 billion hidden in offshore accounts. One day later, the Justice Department filed a civil suit seeking to force UBS to disclose 52,000 client names. Of the names on the agency’s original list, prosecutors are focused on several thousand Americans with offshore accounts containing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Should be fun. I’ll bet it is a Who’s Who of Republican and Democratic fundraisers.
geg6
I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this. This should be causing heart attacks all over Manhattan, the Vineyard, and Sullivan Island.
This is some news that makes me happy, happy, joy, joy.
Comrade Darkness
There making this list public, right?
Yummy, if so.
gypsy howell
Fundraisers? I wouldn’t be surprised to see actual congressmen on the list. All that
briberyer, I mean lobbying money has to go somewhere!Punchy
Let’s say 90% Republicans, 10% Dems on this list.
Please cue MSNBC, Fox, ABC, NBC, CNN, Politico, and CNBC on how those Dems pose a huge hurdle for Obama and how damaging it is for Obama “to have associates like these”.
Just you watch the slant that’s coming.
Aspasia
It’s about time a presidential administration started keeping house. Tax evasion on a major scale has been going on since Reagan tampered with the regulatory machinery put in place by FDR. I wonder how much dough the treasury will actually recover. And if any rich person will ever bank with UBS again.
Speaking of Reagan, two very good books about his actions as president, as opposed to the myth, were published recently: Tear Down This Myth by Will Bunch and Ronald Reagan: The Man Who Sold the World, by William Kleinknecht.
Aspasia
thomas
Will that $780M fine come out of Phil Gramm’s bonus?
Cat Lady
@Punchy:
Because everyone expects it to be 100% Republicans on the list. 10% Democrats on the list would show how hypocritical Dems are and can’t be trusted. No one has any expectations of or trusts Republicans, therefore Democrats are worse, thus the story.
Demo Woman
@Cat Lady: True.
wilfred
If there’s no pushback on this in the next few days you can be sure the right people were given a heads-up ages ago.
Besides, what if they took their money out the minute they heard about the investigation? Would their names appear on any list? Will any prosecutions accompany disclosure?
opium4themasses
The Swiss are still fighting this. They say it’s against their laws to reveal the names.
I wonder if they would lose more money pulling out of the US or in customers lost due to revealing these names. Because, if the US wins, a number of other countries won’t be far behind in filing lawsuits.
CapMidnight
@geg6:
And they might not be covered by health insurance. Under Republican policies, “having a heart” is a disqualifying “previous condition.”
r€nato
Remember when Pres. Bush told us that rich people will always find a way to avoid taxes, so why bother with things like taxing them or closing tax loopholes?
It’s a sign of how deluded this nation has been by wrong-wing propaganda, that the torches and pitchforks did not come out over that casual admission that we let the wealth get away with everything, and who cares?
General Winfield Stuck
We will need more tar and feathers. A lot more.
In a way, dems would and should be worse. Repubs make no bones their disdain for paying taxes. Dems harp all the time about how it’s patriotic to pony up.
Though their is no doubt repubs are far and above the kings of hyprocrisy on just about every issue. Dems on this particular list will join them.
General Winfield Stuck
There, their, they’re. return of edit function will be a glorious day.
The Moar You Know
@Punchy: Let’s not. The wealthy, regardless of their political leanings, are amoral tax-dodging bastards who think that responsibilities are for the little people.
I’m betting straight up 50/50.
Zifnab
@Punchy:
FIX’D!
You better believe we’re gonna see some media figures tucked away in there. I’ll put $10 each on Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and Mike Huckabee.
geg6
Besides this, it seems Michelle Bachmann haz a sad today. Her son has joined Teach for America, a program of Americorps which runs those re-education camps she’s so terrified of.
Oh, and apparently Rick Santorum is in Iowa, preparing for his 2010 presidential run (I kid you not).
So between Swiss banks being forced to give up the tax cheats lists and these two pieces of lovely news, all in all it’s a good day. :)
geg6
Damn, the edit function.
Make that bumper sticker: “Santorum 2012: Man on Dog.”
opium4themasses
I think all of you are getting ahead of yourselves. This hasn’t been won yet. There is still a legal battle to be had. And even if that is won, this could end up being a political football traded away for some sort of concession from the Swiss.
NonyNony
@Zifnab:
Limbaugh perhaps? It certainly wouldn’t surprise me to find out that in addition to his various vices the man was also an unpatriotic tax dodger. It certainly would fit his character.
Trinity
@Cat Lady: Halperin is that you??
Cat Lady
@Trinity:
Heads they win tails we lose. Great news for John McCain!
PeakVT
It’s a good development for addressing existing wealth but reporting regulations need to be tightened as well to prevent the problem from becoming so big again.
Zifnab
@NonyNony: Limbaugh keeps all his money in the Caribbean. I wouldn’t be surprised if liquidating his assets would put half of Gulf Coast organized crime out of business.
Barry
gypsy howell
“Fundraisers? I wouldn’t be surprised to see actual congressmen on the list. All that bribery er, I mean lobbying money has to go somewhere!”
Oh, I’m sure that a huuuuuuuuuuuuge proportion of that money is not really there to avoid paying taxes, but to hide bribes.
R-Jud
@geg6:
Well, she should be terrified. I mean, I joined Teach for America and they had BILL AYERS come and speak to us. Nice white kids bearing lesson plans– fear us!
Fulcanelli
With all the cash missing from Iraq, I’m waiting to see if there are any Blackwater or KBR names on the list. And then there’s our military and the Iraqis that collaborated with us among others.
There’s an awful lot of taxpayer cash that’s gone AWOL after being dropped into that hot war zone a few years back.
maya
Get real, peeps. When, and if, the congressional approved list comes out don’t be surprised if it consist of Leona Helmsley1 thru Leona Helmsley52000.
Sentient Puddle
Oh yeah, do please pass along any more developments. I don’t think I’ve seen any coverage of this story outside of BJ. Which may actually say more about me than the media.
My money’s on a 50/50 split too. I don’t have any delusions of the Democratic party being anywhere near squeaky clean. I just expect the media to make it a bigger deal for the Democrats. Because, y’know, that’s what the media does…
Roger Moore
The next time we invade a small country to show them who’s boss, maybe we can make it Switzerland, Luxembourg, or the Cayman Islands. There’s probably more real national interest at stake than there was in invading Iraq, and by preventing tax evasion, we might even manage to have the invasion that pays for itself. It might be tough to drum up enough support in Congress, though.
arguingwithsignposts
Using Stumbleupon recently, I came across a blog post entitled “15 best tax havens,” which was basically a list for people who want to get out of their lawful duties and hide money off shore. The comments were outrageous as well.
NPR was reporting the other day about how the Swiss are worried about their reputation as a place where people who need “privacy” in their banking being shot because of all this legal action. My question is: is there ever a *legitimate* use for these types of bank accounts. I mean, besides money laundering and trying to keep from paying taxes, alimony or other debts owed, I can’t think of any reason to have this type of hush-hush bank account.
Barbara
Is there a legitimate reason for a private account? Maybe. During the 30s, certainly, Jews or Russian emigres might have had a pretty good reason for wanting privacy in their banking arrangements. And perhaps today there are countries where citizens have a need to protect their assets from the view of their government — Venezuela, for instance. But the same privacy laws also protected Germans who were stealing from Jews. And of course, it’s pretty well-understood that a sizable percentage of those relying on Swiss secrecy are elites looting the assets of their own developing nations, or organized criminals trafficking in drugs or humans. Tax evaders are probably the most ethical of the whole sorry bunch.
I understand why Switzerland wants to play this game — but I have no idea why anyone else has any interest in continuing to let them get away with it.
gbear
Maybe she convinced him to join in order to show Teach For America how to do things ‘right’, or in order to feed her information about the coming internment so she can prepare a scathing expose.
I’ve never heard anything about her kids (she’s got a huge family, five kids of her own and 23 foster kids. Her husband is a de-gay ‘therapist’). It would be a nice twist of one of them was revealed to be a sane and reasonable and compassionate soul who didn’t buy into any of mom’s whacked-out screetching. I hope that’s the case with this kid.
gypsy howell
@gbear: I’ve never heard anything about her kids (she’s got a huge family, five kids of her own and 23 foster kids.
No wonder she’s fuckin’ nuts. I thought I’d lost my mind trying to raise two.
The Crafty Trilobite
Reminds me of a plot point in David Brin’s remarkably prescient SF book, “Earth.” He envisioned a Helvetian War right around now, in which most of the world fought Switzerland, the Saychelles, and other international money havens to force disclosure of transaction records. The Swiss et al. nearly won, and most of the bankers got away clean.
Calouste
@Roger Moore:
I think Luxembourg had to rewrite their banking laws when the European Common Market came into being. It is one thing to have an off-shore “private banking” center, it’s another thing to have one slam-bam in the middle of the EU, within about 3 hours drive of half the then EU population.
tammanycall
90% GOP, 10% Dem would be reported as: “There are Democrats AND Republicans on this list.” Although it might be tough to pin some of these people down as members of either party. Most of the very wealthy contributors give to both, just in case.
Comrade Luke
I expect there to be *more* Republicans than Democrats, but there will also be a lot of Republicans that will be shown to have contributed to both parties and will therefore be labeled “independent”, even if the contributions are 10:1 Republican.
Thinking there are only 10% of Dems on the list is delusional thinking. Greed knows no party.
Dayv
I just want the list to be revealed without any Bushes redacted from it.