Friday, May 29, 2015

4 More Swiss Banks Cave to IRS Pressure


According to Law360 the U.S. Department of Justice Thursday, in exchange for $2.2 million in payments, agreed not to press criminal charges on four (4) Swiss banks accused of hiding millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money from the Internal Revenue Service.

Societe Generale Private Banking SA, MediBank AG, LBBW AG and Scobag Privatbank AG agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in its ongoing probe of tax evasion in the Swiss banking industry in return for the nonprosecution agreements.

“Today’s agreements reflect the Tax Division’s continued progress toward reaching appropriate resolutions with the banks that self-reported and voluntarily entered the Swiss Bank Program,” Caroline D. Ciraolo, acting assistant attorney general with the DOJ’s Tax Division, said in a statement.

The agreements represent at least the fourth instance of Swiss banks voluntarily self-reporting and paying penalties in order to avoid criminal charges. The DOJ’s Swiss bank program has netted $211 million from one of the nation’s largest banks, BSI SA, in March and $5.4 million from Finter Bank Zurich AG in May.

Societe Generale will pay the largest chunk of Thursday’s fines, shelling out $1.36 million after it admitted to hiding $140 million in U.S. taxpayer funds from the IRS. It did so by concealing the names of account holders and by withdrawing and holding cash in a safe deposit box while clients moved money around, according to the DOJ.

Two of the other banks that signed nonprosecution agreements on Thursday, MediBank and LBBW, copped to accepting funds from former UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG clients once those banks came under investigation by the IRS.

Do You Have Undeclared Income from One
of these Banks under Investigation by the IRS?


 
Want to Know if the OVDP Program is Right for You?


Contact the Tax Lawyers at
Marini & Associates, P.A.  
 
for a FREE Tax Consultation
Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243




No comments:

Post a Comment