Swiss veto UBS accounts handover
Swiss ministers reject handover of UBS accounts details to the Internal Revenue Service
Swiss ministers have shot down a deal which would have seen banking giant UBS
hand over account details to the US government.
In August 2009, the Swiss government agreed to a handover of the secret
accounts to prevent further sanctions against the UBS by the Internal Revenue
Service.
However, Switzerland’s lower house of parliament rejected the move on the
grounds the agreement was not in line with the existing Swiss-US Double Taxation
Treaty signed in September 2009.
Andreas Kolb, partner in the Switzerland office of law firm Eversheds said:
“Under the new DTT with the US which has been signed on 23 September 2009,
exchange of information would basically not be granted in the UBS case.
“This is namely due to the fact that the US are not in the position to
indicate the names of the taxpayers.”
Further reading:
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