It was a question posed to US taxpayers by the IRS in the wake of the UBS scandal: do you feel lucky?
The US offered US taxpayers the opportunity to voluntarily disclose offshore bank accounts as part of an amnesty program earlier this year. The choice? Come forward now and escape criminal prosecution or take your chances later.
It turns out that a number of US taxpayers didn’t feel quite so lucky. IRS Commish Doug Shulman has announced that more than 14,700 taxpayers came forward under the voluntary disclosure program. The disclosures were in the billions and covered accounts in 70 countries.
The number is higher than originally projected due to the numbers of taxpayers who made disclosures in the run up to the deadline. The deadline for disclosures had initially been September 23 but was extended to October 15 after input from tax professionals who were still fielding questions about the program from taxpayers.
UBS and the feds separately reached a settlement where UBS, in addition to a significant fine, agreed to release the names of over 4,500 US account holders at the bank. So far, only a handful of names has actually been released: at least two of those account holders have been sentenced to prison for their activities.
The remaining names will be disclosed over the next 10 months. Under the agreement, UBS will release the names of those account holders where there is a reasonable suspicion of “tax fraud or the like.” Generally, that includes high dollar accounts and accounts where there is a lot of movement of assets or complicated schemes. There will be procedure for appeals available in Switzerland.
ABC News is reporting that lawyers are already whining that their clients were misled by UBS about the extent of the banking secrecy. I suspect that means that lawsuits will be filed. That is, of course, how we like to solve problems in the US. It is *always* someone else’s fault, right? If the lawyers are smart, any such suits would do well to land in Switzerland and not in the US. Beyond the whole “juries likely don’t have sympathy for rich people who hide their money” issue, lawsuits based on the misdeeds of plaintiffs are not usually successful. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from trying before…
For now, it’s a waiting game for UBS clients. The question is: do you feel lucky… now?
Suddenly, it’s not so fashionable to have your money in Swiss banks. That’s sooo February 2009. This season, all of the trendy tax evaders are heading somewhere else.
In the wake of increased activity by IRS to track down previously undisclosed assets (joined by the taxing authorities in countries like the UK and Germany), banks in Switzerland are reporting that the assets just aren’t pouring in like they used to. The slowdown started midyear, not coincidentally the time when the US government was exerting pressure on Switzerland to relax its banking secrecy laws.
In support of this trend, two BoA/Merrill Lynch analysts, Derek De Vries and Marc Brehm, have reported that at least one Swiss Banking Group, the Julius Baer Group, “was slightly more cautious than we expected on net new money.” In other words, Baer isn’t drawing the number of new accounts globally that they once were.
And the pendulum swings both ways. If it’s no longer attractive for Americans to do business in Switzerland, then many Swiss have countered that they will pull out of the US. Wegelin & Co., Switzerland’s oldest bank, is recommending that clients “exit from all direct investments in US securities… on the grounds of the threat of inheritance tax coupled with uncertainty as to whether one might not, one way or another, be turned into a US person.” Their gist, and I’m not making this up, is that our state of “moral and fiscal decline” means that it doesn’t make sense to invest in the US anymore.
So it’s time to panic, right? Not at all. Pulling out of investing in US-controlled securities is an interesting recommendation but not a terribly viable one. Like it or not, even in the midst of a recession, the US economy is a huge part of the global scene.
It’s kind of like how you’ll continue to see Paris Hilton in the papers. Even if you don’t like her, she adds value to an event – even if it’s just added publicity.
In other words, they don’t have to like us but I think the Swiss will still invite us to their parties.
Jeffrey Chernick, a toy salesman out of New York, was sentenced on Friday to three months in prison for hiding millions of dollars from the IRS. Upon his release, Chernick will serve six months’ house arrest and six months’ probation. The judge did not impose an additional fine as Chernick is already subject to more than $4.5 million in civil penalties for filing a false tax return.
Chernick becomes the second UBS client to be sentenced in the scandal. Earlier in the week, Steven Michael Rubinstein was sentenced to three years’ probation, one year of house arrest and a$40,000 fine.
I noted at the Rubinstein sentencing that I felt that the punishment was light. US District Judge James Cohn apparently felt similarly, noting with respect to these specific cases, “The concept that tax evaders can get probation sends the wrong message… Some amount of incarceration is warranted.”
Chernick cooperated with authorities, which may have lessened his sentence: he had faced up to three years in prison. But even prosecutors sought leniency for Chernick, suggesting that his cooperation played a “significant and early step” in the UBS investigations, offering information about other taxpayers and banks.
In addition to pleading guilty to tax evasion, Chernick also admitted to paying a bribe, arranged by attorney Matthias Rickenbach and Swiss banker Hansruedi Schumacher, to a Swiss government official for information about which UBS accounts would be given to US authorities. That investigation is ongoing and it will be interesting to see the reach of the bribery scheme.
Chernick began setting up offshore accounts as early as 1981 in order to hide commissions on toy sales from the IRS. Over the years, he moved money from account to account and otherwise attempted to conceal his assets.
Interestingly, Chernick made an effort to sign up for the IRS’ voluntary disclosure program but did not qualify. Taxpayers who were under investigation or already facing charges did not qualify for the program.
Expect more high profile disclosures over the next few weeks. Clearly, the IRS hopes to send a message. The real question is: who’s getting it?
The IRS crackdown on foreign accounts has been generating a lot of discussion in the blogosphere. Some folks argue that it’s a waste of resources, others argue that it’s been a long time coming.
Today’s Fix the Tax Code Friday question is:
Is the targeting of offshore accounts a fair use of IRS resources? Or should the IRS focus more on collections and reporting inside the US?
The IRS is making serious noise about its attempts to combat offshore tax evasion. What could be a better pulpit than its high profile UBS matter?
Just a short while after details on the UBS settlement were released, the IRS announced the indictments of a former UBS bank executive and a Swiss attorney. [...]
Remember that great scene in the movie Footloose when Kevin Bacon is challenged to a game of chicken on the tractor?
It seems that the IRS is playing a little chicken of its own with taxpayers…
The IRS has entered into a settlement with UBS to divulge the names of about 4,450 account holders at the Swiss [...]
Maybe it’s summer.
Maybe it’s my grief over the UBS saga finally ending.
Or maybe I’ve just been inspired by 1LPoet to find my inner poet.
But it’s that time again. I feel some tax haiku coming on…
In honor of today’s post:
Oh Connecticut.
Your tax burden is so high.
Thank God for Jersey.
Re the UBS settlement:
It’s done, Switzerland.
No more [...]
Um, that’s all we know. Really. I’ve been sent a trillion links on this today and despite pages and pages of content, nobody has any real details.
The IRS has requested the names of more than 50,000 US taxpayers with accounts at UBS. The Swiss bank handed over about 300 names so far. [...]
Despite wide rumors that UBS might settle with the US government, there was no movement on the matter. The case, brought by the US government, focuses on the release of names of more than 50,000 US taxpayers who might have hidden assets in Switzerland for the purpose of evading tax.
This time it is the [...]
Rumors have been swirling for months that a settlement between UBS and the Justice Department would be announced in mid-July. Specifically, The New York Times had implied that the feds were backing off demands for the Swiss bank to release the names of more than 50,000 Americans with secret accounts.
The idea that no names [...]
