Luxembourg offshore tax evasion summit discusses future of bank secrecy

[jose v]

Luxembourg offshore tax evasion summit discusses future of bank secrecy
On Sunday 14th February 2010, high-level talks in Luxembourg assessed whether there is a future for what remains of bank secrecy in Europe. International pressure is forcing disclosures. Offshore financial scam centers are struggling to find common ground. Present at the gathering were the finance ministers of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria and Germany, the prime minister of Liechtenstein, and many others. The meeting was said to be about tax evasion, money-laundering and bank secrecy and how to tackle the problems cross-border. Something has to be done by offshore financial entities to avoid ending up on a black list of tax havens drafted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which has the blessing of the G20 nations. International pressure is building on the European secrecy hubs. They are being asked to move to a system of automatic exchange of tax data which would kill their already weakened financial privacy laws. The Swiss moneymen are in particular panic and confusion over the issue. Non-EU member Switzerland, whose banks manage nearly $2 trillion of wealth on behalf of foreign clients, wants to avoid being denied access to the vast EU financial market place if it does not align to best tax cooperation practices. Switzerland's image suffered a major blow in 2009 as it emerged that its banking flagship UBS (Zurich and Basel) had helped rich Americans to hide money in secret Swiss accounts. The bank paid $780 million to settle criminal charges and agreed to share thousands of client names with US tax officials. Germany's Bild newspaper has reported this weekend that Swiss financial lawyers were threatening Germany with retaliation to fend off similar tax pressures. Swiss lawmaker Alfred Heer is on the offensive: "If Germany buys stolen bank data (as it has been), we will work on a change in the law that would mean all Swiss accounts belonging to Germans holding public office should be made public." The imminence of the introduction of the new gold-backed global banking system is making the pips squeak in secret Europe.