First arrest in UBS tax evasion case

United States authorities have arrested and charged an accountant in Florida on suspicion of evading taxes through an account held at Swiss bank UBS.

Florida officials said on Thursday that it was the first of what could be a series of tax evasion prosecutions of American clients of UBS.

The man charged worked for a company in the yacht-building business. He was accused of filing at least one false tax return that failed to disclose he had an account with UBS or made any money from it, the US Justice Department said.

The criminal complaint filed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) resulted from information provided by UBS to the US authorities on the identities and account information of American clients who were using their Swiss bank accounts to evade US taxes.

The man was arrested at his Florida home, which he is suspected of building with the help of funds from his UBS account.

A judge in Fort Lauderdale ordered him to be detained pending a bond hearing scheduled for next Tuesday.

UBS has acknowledged responsibility for helping US clients conceal assets from the US government, and has agreed to pay a $780 million (SFr885 million) fine and to identify some US clients.

A report published on Thursday in the New York Times quoted anonymous sources as saying the Justice Department had opened about 100 criminal investigations into wealthy American clients of UBS.

It said several of these people held Swiss accounts with more than $100 million in assets.

swissinfo with agencies