FINANCIAL TIMES… In February, a month after the country’s oldest private bank said it would close after pleading guilty to helping Americans evade taxes, Switzerland agreed to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. This is extraterritorial legislation that requires foreign banks to provide information automatically on the offshore wealth of US citizens.
Then in May, Luxembourg and Austria finally stopped obstructing attempts by the EU to strengthen its defences against tax evasion, which paved the way for the bloc to start its own negotiations with Switzerland on sharing data automatically on bank clients.
These changes, which will in effect unravel secrecy in two key markets for Swiss banks, have been in the offing for a while. Indeed, the more far-sighted of Switzerland’s financial figures have been ex¬pecting dramatic change for at least a decade. “Even in 2001 we were talking about this,” says one, who also dec¬lines to be named. “People were saying ‘offshore won’t last for ever, we have to go onshore’. But no one acted.” … (more)
