According to the New York Times, Lynnley Browning, Pressured by IRS, UBS Is Closing Secret Accounts (Jan. 8. 2009), the Swiss bank UBS is closing the hidden offshore accounts of its US clients due to pressure from the IRS, potentially allowing such account holders' secrets to spill into the open.
According to the article, UBS will shut about 19,000 accounts that prosecutors suspect have gone undeclared to US tax authorities and will transfer those assets to other banks or other divisions within UBS, or will mail checks directly to the account holders, creating paper trails for federal prosecutors who are examining whether UBS clients used such accounts to evade taxes. Further, according to the article, those UBS clients now face stark choices: they can cash their checks, and thereby alert the authorities to any potential wrongdoing, or not cash them, effectively losing their money.
Posted by Lewis J. Saret, General Editor, Wealth Strategies Journal.
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