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 Internal Revenue Service (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. So I’ll go out on a limb and say that the number is somewhere between 300 and 50,000.
It’s possible that the specifics are being kept secret in an attempt to lure more taxpayers into compliance. The US has created a “voluntary compliance program” to allow US taxpayers not currently under investigation to come forward without fear of prosecution or substantial penalty. The program ends on September 23, just over a month or so away. I suspect we’ll hear more details of the settlement closer to that date…
I read in the morning paper a larger than expected number of voluntary people with USB accounts have come forward. Tax attorneys should be doing a land office business. (TAXGIRL?) For the remaining scumbags, they should be hammered with penalties that eat substantially into their net worth along with criminal prosecution for attempting to defraud the U.S. Government. That would be an excellent deterrent.