US tax authority asks Switzerland for client data from 26 institutions

The requests for administrative assistance concern bank accounts of US clients who had not previously given their consent to the handing over of their account data © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The US tax authority IRS wants further information from the Swiss authorities on account data at 26 financial institutions. The IRS has made numerous requests for information in the past.

The requests for administrative assistance concern bank accounts of US clients who had not previously given their consent to the handing over of their account data by the Swiss institutions to the US authorities, as can be seen from the notices of the Federal Tax AdministrationExternal link published on Tuesday.

The Swiss banks had reported the data of these clients to the IRS only in aggregated form.

Institutions affected by the new requests for information include UBS, a number of cantonal banks, PostFinance, several asset management firms and life insurance companies Helvetia and Swiss Life.

For the group requests the IRS relies on an agreement on the implementation of the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) agreement between Switzerland and the US.

The Federal Tax Administration will issue a final ruling for each account affected by the group request. Affected US clients of the Swiss banks have 20 days to ask to be notified if their names are released to the US tax authorities.