A United States citizen has been sentenced to a year in prison for having hidden $8.8 million (SFr 8.89 million) in a Swiss bank account.
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Emily Wright, swissinfo and agencies
The US Department of Justice said on Friday that this was the longest prison sentence to be handed down for using a “secret” UBS account in Switzerland.
The offender is part of a group of seven tax-dodgers who pleaded guilty of tax evasion in Switzerland in April.
The man, a New York financial advisor, was also sentenced to six months of home confinement and given a $4.4 million fine for hiding the money.
In August 2009, the Swiss and US governments agreed to a deal which stated that confidential details of 4,450 UBS clients suspected of tax offences would be handed over to US tax authorities. Switzerland had a year to comply.
A Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled in January 2010 that the handover of data was illegal, leaving the deal in doubt. But in June it gained the backing of the Swiss parliament.
Client data in about half the cases has already been supplied to the US, and the remainder is due to be handed over by autumn.
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US tax cheats pay for secret Swiss accounts
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has named and shamed 17 offenders on their website with sentences ranging from tough fines and prison time. The Swiss parliament recently ratified a deal to hand 4,450 UBS client names to the IRS. One watch manufacturer was put behind bars for ten months, a children’s toy dealer will spend…
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Banks UBS and Credit Suisse would almost certainly be forced to contribute to the proposed US levy, but they and other Swiss institutions would not face the same decision-making shackles as US counterparts. US President Barack Obama announced plans last week to recoup some $117 billion (SFr120 billion) of taxpayers’ money over the next decade…
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The strategy presentation arrived on the same day that the Swiss government revealed the criteria for handing over the names of 4,450 UBS clients suspected of tax evasion to the United States tax authorities. The bank said it hopes to produce a pre-tax annual profit of SFr15 billion ($14.87 billion) in the next three to…
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Over the past few years, UBS has garnered a lot of negative press. Extraordinary general assemblies and public protests have been occuring with increasing frequency.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.