Belgian Charges Against UBS for Money Laundering and Tax Evasion (2/26/16)

A number of internet articles indicate that UBS has been charged with money laundering and tax evasion.  See e.g., Joshua Franklin, Belgium charges UBS with money laundering, tax fraud (Reuters 2/26/16), here.  Here are some excerpts:

A Belgian judge has charged Swiss bank UBS with money laundering and serious and organized tax fraud, Brussels prosecutors said in a statement on Friday. 

"The Swiss bank is suspected of having directly, and not via its Belgian subsidiary, approached Belgian clients to convince them to set up structures aimed at evading taxes," Brussels prosecutors said in a statement. 

* * * * 

Belgian prosecutors said they were able to firm up the case against UBS through cooperation with French authorities and the work of an inquiry committee. 

I will post more today if I obtain more details.

NPR Planet Money Podcast on a Tax Protestor (2/20/16)

I just listened to this podcast episode of NPR's Planet Money:  Episode 685: Larry vs. The IRS (Planet Money), here.  I recommend it to readers of this blog.  Larry Williams, an admitted risk taker, allegedly received bad advice from a camping buddy lawyer.  Here is the blurb from the web site:

A lot of people dream of not paying their taxes. Larry Williams scoured the fine print of IRS code, talked to lawyers, settled on a plan, then just stopped paying taxes. Today on the show, we tell his story. It starts on a fateful camping trip, it winds through a jail cell in Australia and a courtroom in California, and it ends up in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The show goes through basic tax and criminal law related to tax protestors / deniers.  There is a brief discussion of the Cheek concept that ignorance of the tax law can be a defense -- a sincerely held belief that the taxpayer does not owe the tax is a defense.  Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991), here.  Many refer to this as the Cheek or good faith defense.  The podcast does not get into Cheek's exclusion of constitutional defenses from the defense, so that tax protestors / deniers should steer clear of those defenses.  At any rate, it is a short episode (around 20 minutes) and very well presented.  I recommend.  (The comments posted on the web site are interesting, also.)

One interesting point of the Cheek case is that the very late Justice Scalia wrote  a concurring opinion excoriating his colleagues in the majority for creating an artificial distinction allowing the good faith defense for nonconstitutional sincerely held belief but not for constitutional sincerely held belief.  Let's let him speak for himself.  His concurring opinion is short and very well stated. He keys off the longstanding definition of the willfulness element for tax crimes -- repeated in Cheek -- as the intentional violation of a known legal duty.  Here is the dissent:

JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in the judgment. 

I concur in the judgment of Court because our cases have consistently held that the failure to pay a tax in the good-faith belief that it is not legally owing is not "willful." I do not join the Court's opinion because I do not agree with the test for willfulness that it directs the Court of Appeals to apply on remand. 

As the Court acknowledges, our opinions from the 1930s to the 1970s have interpreted the word "willfully" in the criminal tax statutes as requiring the "bad purpose" or "evil motive" of "intentional[ly] violat[ing] a known legal duty." See, e.g., United States v. Pomponio, 429 U.S. 10, 12 (1976); United States v. Murdock, 290 U.S. 389, 394-395 (1933). It seems to me that today's opinion squarely reverses that long-established statutory construction when it says that a good-faith erroneous belief in the unconstitutionality of a tax law is no defense. It is quite impossible to say that a statute which one believes unconstitutional represents a "known legal duty." See Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 91 Cranch 177177-178 (1803).

Good Article on Pitfalls for Quiet Disclosure in the Offshore Setting (2/20/16)

Many readers of this blog will or should be interested in this article offered by  Frank Agostino and Lawrence A. Sannicandro of Agostino & Associates:  “Gotcha" -- Unanticipated Audit Issues After Quiet Disclosures (Agostino & Associates Monthly Journal of Tax Controversy (February 2016), here.  This firm has been very active in the offshore account area and thus can speak with authority and experience in this context.

I cut and paste from the Introduction and the Conclusion so that those interested will know whether to read the article.

I. Introduction 

Some taxpayers not willing to pay the 27.5% penalty that otherwise applied under the traditional Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Programs have made quiet disclosures or entered into the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (“Streamlined Program”). Many of these taxpayers rejected the protections of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Programs in favor of what they perceived to be a more cost-effective quiet or streamlined disclosure. These taxpayers have subjected themselves to criminal liability and audit adjustments which, depending upon the source of the unreported income, could easily eclipse the 27.5% penalty under the traditional program. In this regard, audits of returns submitted as quiet disclosures or under the Streamlined Program have been (and should be) troubling to both practitioners and clients.  

This article discusses common audit adjustments that can apply to returns for taxpayers with international activities, including: the disallowance of deductions and credits for U.S. citizens, resident aliens, and nonresident aliens; the disallowance of the foreign earned income exclusion for U.S. citizens and resident aliens; and the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to recharacterize as ordinary income purported gifts and bequests from a partnership or a foreign corporation under Treas. Reg. § 1.672(f)-4. This article also highlights those taxpayers who are most likely to be negatively affected by each type of adjustment. Finally, for taxpayers who imprudently made a quiet disclosure, this article discusses how to transition the taxpayer from a quiet disclosure to a traditional Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program.  

*** 

VIII. Conclusion

Practitioners worry about audits of returns submitted as quiet disclosures for good reason. The Service has been far less draconian in submissions under a traditional Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program or the Streamlined Program, but revenue agents have taken a hard line in disallowing otherwise deductions and credits with respect to quiet disclosures. In this regard, the Service is granted broad authority to deny legitimate deductions, credits, and income exclusions, and to recast transactions to not only prevent the avoidance of U.S. tax but to impute income to U.S. donees and legatees. Practitioners should consider these issues when advising taxpayers to submit  returns as quiet disclosures, pursuant to the Streamlined Program, or under the traditional Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program. Finally, it is important for practitioners to reevaluate whether the quiet disclosure was in fact a more cost-effective alternative than the traditional Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program before being contacted by the Service. 

IRS Issues Publication Warning of Abusive Tax Shelters and Scams (2/17/16)

The IRS issued  IR-2016-25 (2/16/16), here, titled Abusive Tax Shelters Again on the IRS “Dirty Dozen” List of Tax Scams for the 2016 Filing Season.  In this announcement, the IRS singles out some particularly abusive kinds that appear to be ripe for criminal investigation and prosecution.  They are:

• Abusive Tax Structures (which I call bullshit tax shelters)
• Misuse of Trusts
• Captive Insurance.

I cut and paste just the discussion on Abusive Tax Structures (bullshit tax shelters):

Abusive Tax Structures 

Abusive tax schemes have evolved from simple structuring of abusive domestic and foreign trust arrangements into sophisticated strategies that take advantage of the financial secrecy laws of some foreign jurisdictions and the availability of credit/debit cards issued from offshore financial institutions. 

IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) has developed a nationally coordinated program to combat these abusive tax schemes. CI's primary focus is on the identification and investigation of the tax scheme promoters as well as those who play a substantial or integral role in facilitating, aiding, assisting, or furthering the abusive tax scheme, such as accountants or lawyers. Just as important is the investigation of investors who knowingly participate in abusive tax schemes. 

Multiple flow-through entities are commonly used as part of a taxpayer's scheme to evade taxes. These schemes may use Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs), International Business Companies (IBCs), foreign financial accounts, offshore credit/debit cards and other similar instruments. They are designed to conceal the true nature and ownership of the taxable income and/or assets.
Whether something is “too good to be true” is important to consider before buying into any arrangements that promise to “eliminate” or “substantially reduce” your tax liability. 

 If an arrangement uses unnecessary steps or a form that does not match its substance, then that arrangement is an abusive scheme.  Another thing to remember is that the promoters of abusive tax schemes often employ financial instruments in their schemes; however, the instruments are used for improper purposes including the facilitation of tax evasion.

Here is my discussion of the features of abusive tax shelters from the current working draft of my Federal Tax Procedure Book (footnotes omitted):

The Revenue Rule: Is It Relevant Any More? Should It Be? (2/16/16)

Keith Fogg has this excellent blog today:  Why is the IRS Collecting Taxes for Denmark? (ProceduralyTaxing 2/16/16), here.  As Keith notes in the blog entry, the general rule -- certainly in the U.S. -- is that one country (the U.S. in this case) does not involve itself in the collection of other countries' taxes.  This is a specific application of the so-called so-called "Revenue Rule."  I explain that rule in my Federal Tax Procedure book as follows (footnotes omitted):

Historically, the “Revenue Rule,” has been a barrier to one country seeking to collect taxes in another country.  According to the most recent Supreme Court foray into the rule, the Revenue Rule “at its core * * * prohibited the collection of tax obligations of foreign nations.”  Although described as a common law rule (suggesting some affiliation with Anglo-American jurisprudence), the Revenue Rule in one form or another is the general rule among countries. 

This means that taxpayers desiring to avoid U.S. tax can put their assets in a foreign jurisdiction and thereby avoid the U.S. being able to collect U.S. tax from those assets.  Similarly, persons subject to foreign country tax (including U.S. persons whose operations are subject to tax in a foreign country) can put or keep their money in the U.S. and avoid the foreign country enforcing those tax liabilities in the U.S.

But, cracks in the rule have developed over the years.  Here is my discussion of those cracks (footnotes omitted):

C. Cracks in the Revenue Rule.

1. Treaties.

As noted above, U.S. tax treaties now have exchange of information requirements which obligate one treaty party, upon a proper request from the other, to use their internal processes to obtain information and share it with the other party.  

Some U.S. treaties go beyond merely the exchange of information and provide for use of each other's legal systems for tax collections.  E.g., the Third Protocol (1995) of the U.S.-Canada Treaty of 1980 provides for reciprocal enforcement of some tax debts of the treaty parties.  The majority decision in Attorney General of Canada indicated that there are only 5 U.S. treaties providing for general assistance in collecting some tax debts of the other treaty partner.  The standard treaty provision requires such assistance in collecting only amounts necessary to protect on the Limitations of Benefits clause. 

Of course, the reason Tax Haven jurisdictions have no such treaty provisions (they wouldn’t be Tax Haven jurisdictions if they did) is to avoid such treaty information sharing provisions and tax debt collection provisions.  Tax Havens typically do not have such treaties with the U.S.  But Tax Havens are under heavy attack to change their ways.  Thus, in response to economic incentives, some of these traditional Tax Haven countries have entered into Tax Information Exchange Agreement (also referred to as a “TIEA”).  How effectively they work is another issue.  But the point here is that a taxpayer may get caught in this ever-expanding net as the developed countries continue their assault on Tax Havens and offer them sufficient incentives to move closer to the global mainstream.  At some point, this could mean not only tax information sharing agreements, but also reciprocal tax debt collection as in the U.S.-Canada Treaty. 

2. Pasquantino and Extensions.

US DOJ Swiss Bank Program Categories 3 and 4 Comments (2/4/16; 2/7/16)

As readers know, DOJ has just announced the final NPA under the DOJ Swiss Bank Program for so-called Category 2 banks.  Category 2 was designed to resolve potential criminal issues for banks who had committed criminal acts with respect to U.S. depositors, provided that they were not under criminal investigation at the time (the latter banks are called Category 1 banks).  The DOJ Swiss Bank Program had two other categories, Categories 3 and 4.  Banks qualifying under Categories 3 and 4 were banks who had not committed criminal acts (thus not being in the scope of Category 2) but who desired to obtain "Non-Target Letters" ("NTLs")

Thus, one condition for a Category 3 bank was (par. III.A.3.):

3. that [it] has not committed any tax-related offenses under Titles 18 or 26, United States Code, or monetary transactions offenses under §§ 5314 or 5322, Title 31, United States Code, in connection with undeclared U.S. Related Accounts held by the Swiss Bank during the Applicable Period (i.e., that is not a Category 2 Bank).

A condition for a Category 4 bank was (par. IV.A.2.):

2. that is a "Deemed Compliant Financial Institution" as a "Financial Institution with Local Client Base" under the FATCA Agreement, Annex II Paragraph II.A.1, as if the FATCA Agreement were in force during the Applicable Period (except that the Swiss Bank must meet the terms of Annex II, Paragraph II.A.1.e on December 31, 2009, and the date of the announcement of this Program),

I won't parse that Category 4 condition; suffice it to say that these banks would not be Category 2 banks because they did not commit criminal acts in the "Applicable Period."

A Swiss bank within the scope of Categories 3 and 4 had until October 31 to provide a letter to DOJ Tax of its intent to seek an NTL and then meet certain requirements as to an Independent Examiner, recordkeeping, and waiver of the defense of the statute of limitations and preindictment delay if DOJ were to discover that they had indeed committed criminal misconduct.

I have received inquiries about whether any banks within the scope of Categories 3 and 4 actually completed the requirements and obtained NTLs.  Unlike NPAs for Category 2 banks, DOJ Tax makes no announcement of issuing NTLs under Categories 2 and 3, just as it makes no public announcement when and if it issue such or similar letters in grand jury investigations generally.  So, this raises two questions.

1. Why would any Swiss bank have seen a benefit in obtaining a Non-Target Letter.
2. Did any actually seek and obtain Non-Target Letters.

Why would Any Swiss Bank Seek NTLs?

Bank Julius Baer, a Category 1 Bank, Enters Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Payment of $547 Million (2/4/16)

DOJ announced, here, that Bank Julius Baer (sometimes "BJB") has entered a deferred prosecution Agreement.  I provide certain key excerpts from the press release and deferred prosecution agreement below.  Except for the headings, the bold face is supplied by me to draw the readers attention to the information bold-faced.  Please note that this is a very quick summary due to the press of time.  I may add more later.

Key excerpts from the press release are:

Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo and U.S. Attorney Bharara also announced a deferred prosecution agreement with Julius Baer (the agreement) under which the company admits that it knowingly assisted many of its U.S. taxpayer-clients in evading their tax obligations under U.S. law.  The admissions are contained in a detailed Statement of Facts attached to the agreement.  The agreement requires Julius Baer to pay a total of $547 million by no later than Feb. 9, 2016, including through a parallel civil forfeiture action also filed today in the Southern District of New York. 

* * * *  

The criminal charge is contained in an Information (the information) alleging one count of conspiracy to (1) defraud the IRS, (2) to file false federal income tax returns and (3) to evade federal income taxes.  If Julius Baer abides by all of the terms of the agreement, the government will defer prosecution on the Information for three years and then seek to dismiss the charges. 

In addition, two Julius Baer client advisers, Daniela Casadei and Fabio Frazzetto, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court today.   Casadei and Frazzetto were originally charged in 2011 and remained at large until Feb. 1, when they each made initial appearances before the Honorable Gabriel W. Gorenstein, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York.  

Casadei and Frazzetto each pleaded guilty to an Information (collectively, with the Julius Baer information, the informations) before U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain charging them with conspiring with U.S. taxpayer-clients and others to help U.S. taxpayers hide their assets in offshore accounts and to evade U.S. taxes on the income earned in those accounts.  

* * * * 

The Offense Conduct 

From at least the 1990s through 2009, Julius Baer helped many of its U.S. taxpayer-clients evade their U.S. tax obligations, file false federal tax returns with the IRS and otherwise hide accounts held at Julius Baer from the IRS (hereinafter, undeclared accounts).  Julius Baer did so by opening and maintaining undeclared accounts for U.S. taxpayers and by allowing third-party asset managers to open undeclared accounts for U.S. taxpayers at Julius Baer.  Casadei and Frazzetto, bankers who worked as client advisers at Julius Baer, directly assisted various U.S. taxpayer-clients in maintaining undeclared accounts at Julius Baer in order to evade their obligations under U.S.  law.  At various times, Casadei, Frazzetto and others advised those U.S. taxpayer-clients that their accounts at Julius Baer would not be disclosed to the IRS because Julius Baer had a long tradition of bank secrecy and no longer had offices in the United States, making Julius Baer less vulnerable to pressure from U.S. law enforcement authorities than other Swiss banks with a presence in the United States.    

In furtherance of the scheme to help U.S. taxpayers hide assets from the IRS and evade taxes, Julius Baer undertook, among other actions, the following: 

• Entering into “code word agreements” with U.S. taxpayer-clients under which Julius Baer agreed not to identify the U.S. taxpayers by name within the bank or on bank documents, but rather to identify the U.S. taxpayers by code name or number, in order to reduce the risk that U.S. tax authorities would learn the identities of the U.S. taxpayers.
• Opening and maintaining accounts for many U.S. taxpayer-clients held in the name of non-U.S. corporations, foundations, trusts, or other legal entities (collectively, structures) or non-U.S. relatives, thereby helping such U.S. taxpayers conceal their beneficial ownership of the accounts.

Julius Baer was aware that many U.S. taxpayer-clients were maintaining undeclared accounts at Julius Baer in order to evade their U.S. tax obligations, in violation of U.S. law.  In internal Julius Baer correspondence, undeclared accounts held by U.S. taxpayers were at times referred to as “black money,” “non W-9,” “tax neutral,” “unofficial,” or “sensitive” accounts.

Another Taxpayer Guilty Plea for Offshore Account Misbehavior (2/3/16)

The DOJ press release is here.

Former U.S. Citizen Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud Related to Swiss Financial Account 

Used Hong Kong Entity and Foreign Accounts in Switzerland, Monaco and Singapore to Conceal Funds 

A former U.S. citizen residing in Switzerland pleaded guilty today to one count of filing a false income tax return, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia. 

* * * * 

According to court documents, in 2006, Albert Cambata, 61, established Dragonflyer Ltd., a Hong Kong corporate entity, with the assistance of a Swiss banker and a Swiss attorney.  Days later, he opened a financial account at Swiss Bank 1 in the name of Dragonflyer.  Although he was not listed on the opening documents as a director or an authorized signatory, Cambata was identified on another bank document as the beneficial owner of the Dragonflyer account.  That same year, Cambata received $12 million from Hummingbird Holdings Ltd., a Belizean company.  The $12 million originated from a Panamanian aviation management company called Cambata Aviation S.A. and was deposited to the Dragonflyer bank account at Swiss Bank 1 in November 2006.  

* * * * 

On his 2007 and 2008 federal income tax returns, Cambata failed to report interest income earned on his Swiss financial account in the amounts of $77,298 and $206,408, respectively.  In April 2008, Cambata caused the Swiss attorney to request that Swiss Bank 1 send five million Euros from the Swiss financial account to an account Cambata controlled at the Monaco branch of Swiss Bank 3.  In June 2008, Cambata closed his financial account with Swiss Bank 1 in the name of Dragonflyer and moved the funds to an account he controlled at the Singapore branch of Swiss Bank 2.  

In 2012, Cambata, who has lived in Switzerland since 2007, went to the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, to renounce his U.S. citizenship and informed the U.S. Department of State that he had acquired the nationality of St. Kitts and Nevis by virtue of naturalization.

Comments:

Two Ex-Julius Baer Bankers Return to U.S. to Face Charges (2/2/16)

There are several articles reporting that Daniela Casadei and Fabio Frazzetto, two former Julius Baier bankers, have voluntarily come to the U.S., have entered not guilty pleas, but, reportedly will enter guilty pleas when Julius Baer resolves its case with a $547 million payment.  E.g., Nate Raymond, Two ex-Julius Baer bankers plead not guilty in U.S. tax case (Reuters 2/2/16), here.  David Voreacos, Patricia Hurtado and Giles Broom, Julius Baer Bankers Said Ready to Plead Guilty in Tax Case (BloombergBusiness 2/2/16), here.

Prior reporting involving their initial indictment is Swiss Bankers / Enablers Indictment; Reputedly Julius Baer Related (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 10/11/11), here.

I recently reported that Julius Baer appeared to be on the verge of settling its criminal tax investigation.  Julius Baer Group Ltd. Expects to Pay $547 Million to US to Conclude Criminal Investigation (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 12/31/15), here.  In that blog I said:

3.  Two Julius Baer employees, Daniela Casadei and Fabio Frazzetto, were indicted in 2011, but have not yet come to the U.S., so the case has not proceeded beyond the indictment stage.  See BloombergBusiness article.  And, they are reported to still be with Julius Baer.  I would not expect that their criminal indictments will be resolved by the resolution with Julius Baer and would expect that their relationship with Julius Baer will be terminated.  (I am surprised that Julius Baer had not already terminate them in an attempt to curry favor with DOJ.)

I surmise that the report identifying them as "Ex-Julius Baer bankers" suggests that they are no longer with Julius Baer.  Perhaps more importantly, It is not clear whether, since they are not extraditable, Julius Baer induced them to come to the U.S. as a component of its appeasement with the U.S.   As to the reputed guilty plea, I can't imagine that they came back without first achieving a plea deal they deemed beneficial.

60 Minutes Exposé on Money Laundering Into the U.S. (1/31/16)

60 Minutes had an exposé on money laundering into the U.S., a process enabled by the ease to create U.S. corporations whose owners are anonymous.  I recently posted on some U.S. initiatives to curb the practice for real estate cash deals in the names of corporations whose owners are anonymous.  More on Transparency for Entities Acquiring Valuable Real Estate in Some U.S. Markets (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 1/23/16), here; and One Step in Attacking Lack of Transparency in U.S. (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 1/13/16), here.  Both article  have links to other sources.

The 60 Minutes program involved undercover investigations by Global Witness, a London-based nonprofit organization that exposes international corruption, here. The 60 minutes programs are entitled Anonymous, Inc., parts I and II.  The programs with transcripts and some extra materials and key excerpts are available here.  (Note:  Ad blockers must off in order to access the content.)

Here is the opening from the transcript:

If you like crime dramas and movies with international intrigue, then you probably have a basic understanding of money laundering. It's how dictators, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, and other crooks avoid getting caught by transforming their ill-gotten gains into assets that appear to be legitimate. 

They do it by moving the dirty money through a maze of dummy corporations and offshore bank accounts that conceal their identity and the source of the funds. 

And most of it would never happen without the help -- witting or unwitting -- of lawyers, accountants and incorporators; the people who actually create these anonymous shell companies and help move the money. In fact, the U.S. has become one of the most popular places in the world to do it. 

Tonight, with the help of hidden camera footage, we're going to show you how easy it seems to have become to conceal questionable funds from law enforcement and the public. 

You need look no further for evidence than the changing skyline of New York City, where much of the priciest residential real estate is being snapped up not by individuals, but by anonymous shell companies with secret owners. 

There's nothing illegal about it as long as the money's legitimate, but there's no way to tell, if you don't know who the real buyers are. It is one of the reasons Global Witness, a London-based nonprofit organization that exposes international corruption, came to New York City 19 months ago. It wanted to see how helpful U.S. lawyers would be in concealing questionable funds. 

This hidden camera footage was shot in law firms across Manhattan without the lawyers' knowledge by the man in the gray coat with the German accent.

The hidden videos recorded some pretty disturbing behavior by lawyers.  Some of it is perhaps ethically equivocal, but one lawyer did show the "client" the door.  Here are two of the excerpts:

My List of Category 2 Banks Obtaining NPAs (1/28/16; 1/30/16; 2/7/16)

In developing my statistics on the Category 2 Financial Institutions (Banks) in DOJ's Swiss Bank Program, here, I populated my Excel spreadsheet with the names of banks that indicated they would join or some other source indicated they would join.  I have included the number indicating or indicated that they would join in my statistics.  As of my most recent posting, Final Swiss Bank Achieves NPA Under Swiss Bank Program (1/25/16), here, the number of banks I had was 98.  DOJ Tax said that the original number of banks indicating they would join was around 106.  Since the program started, some of the banks upon further consideration, determined not to participate as Category 2 banks.  The final number indicated in DOJ's press release is 80.  My stats show 81 actually joining (but I think one that I include is participating through a related bank); I have not attempted to to reconcile the banks.  I thought I would list in this blog the banks which joined to obtain NPAs according to my spreadsheet and the banks that I show indicated interest but, finally, did not join.

Category 2 Participating Banks (in Alpabetical Order):

Aargauische Kantonalbank
ARVEST Privatbank AG
Banca Credinvest SA
Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino (Banca Stato)
Banca Intermobiliare di Investimenti e Gestioni (Suisse) SA
Bank BSI SA
Bank CIC
Bank Coop AG
Bank EKI Genossenschaft (Bank EKI)
Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG
Bank La Roche & Co AG
Bank Linth LLB AG
Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd
Bank Sparhafen Zurich AG (BSZ)
bank zweiplus ag (Bank Zweiplus)
Banque Bonhôte & Cie SA
Banque cantonale du Jura SA
Banque Cantonale du Valais
Banque Cantonale Neuchâteloise (BCN)
Banque Cantonale Vaudoise
Banque Heritage SA
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (Suisse) SA
Banque Pasche SA
Baumann & Cie, Banquiers
BBVA Suiza S.A.
Berner Kantonalbank AG (BEKB)
BHF-Bank (Schweiz) AG (BHF)
BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA (BNPP)
Bordier & Cie Switzerland
Cornèr Banca SA
Coutts & Co Ltd
Crédit Agricole (Suisse) SA
Credito Privato Commerciale in liquidazione SA (CPC)
Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA
Dreyfus Sons & Co Ltd, Banquiers
DZ Privatbank (Schweiz) AG
E. Gutzwiller & Cie. Banquiers
Edmond de Rothschild (Lugano) SA
Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) SA
EFG Bank AG (SEE EFG BANK EUROPEAN - JOINT CAT 2 RESOLUTION)
EFG Bank European Financial Group SA, Geneva
Ersparniskasse Schaffhausen AG (EKS)
Falcon Private Bank AG
Finter Bank Zurich AG
Gonet & Cie
Graubündner Kantonalbank
Habib Bank AG Zurich (HBZ)
HSZH Verwaltungs AG
Hyposwiss Private Bank Genève S.A. (Hyposwiss Geneva)
Hypothekarbank Lenzburg AG (HBL)
IHAG Zürich AG (IHAG)
KBL (Switzerland) Ltd.
LBBW (Schweiz) AG
Leodan Privatbank AG
Luzerner Kantonalbank
Maerki Baumann & Co. AG
MediBank AG
Mercantil Bank (Schweiz) AG
Migros Bank AG (Migros)
Nidwaldner Kantonalbank (NKB)
PBZ Verwaltungs AG
Piquet Galland & Cie SA
PKB Privatbank AG
PostFinance AG
Privatbank Bellerive AG
Privatbank Reichmuth & Co.
Privatbank Von Graffenried AG
Rothschild Bank AG, Zurich
SB Saanen Bank AG
Schaffhauser Kantonalbank (SHKB)
Schroder & Co. Bank AG
Scobag Privatbank AG
Société Générale Private Banking (Lugano-Svizzera)
Société Générale Private Banking (Suisse) SA (SGPB-Suisse)
St. Galler Kantonalbank AG (SGKB)
Standard Chartered Bank (Switzerland) SA, en liquidation
Union Bancaire Privée, UBP SA
Vadian Bank
Valiant Bank AG
Zuger Kantonalbank

The foregoing banks (and related banks) are or will be included on the IRS financial institution list requiring 50% OVDP Miscellaneous Offshore Penalties for U.S. depositors joining OVDP after any bank they used in the 8 year period.

Addendum to Swiss Bank List of Banks Obtaining NPAs (1/30/16):

A reader advised me by email that an entity on the list as originally posted, Finacor SA, is an asset manager rather than a bank qualified under the terms of the DOJ Swiss Bank Program.  That is correct and thus makes my number of banks in the program 1 too many.  So the corrected number is 80 banks achieving NPAs.  In an address yesterday at an ABA Tax Section meeting in Los Angeles, Carline Ciraolo, the Acting Assistant Attorney General, said:

For those who are counting, in the last 10 months, the department executed 78 agreements with 80 banks and imposed more than $1.3 billion in Swiss Bank Program penalties. 

The department also signed a non-prosecution agreement with Finacor, a Swiss asset management firm, reflecting the department's willingness to reach fair and appropriate resolutions with entities that come forward in a timely manner, disclose all relevant information regarding their illegal activities and cooperate fully and completely, including naming the individuals engaged in criminal conduct.

As to Finacor, I included it in ithe original listing because, as I noted in my blog entry, Swiss Asset Manager Settles Up with DOJ Tax (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 10/6/15), here, and the related DOJ press release, here, Finacor had attempted to join under Category 2 but was determined not to be a bank and thus technically disqualified.  Still, the agreement reached with Finacor seems to have paralleled the Category 2 agreements.  Thus the press release says:

[T]he firm is required under today’s agreement to fully comply with the obligations imposed under the terms of that program [Swiss Bank Program].

Hence, in my spreadsheet, I put it under category 2 even though not technically Category 2 and listed it as an asset manager rather than a bank.  However, in aggregating the number of Swiss banks, I only filtered for NPAs and Category 2, thus including Finacor in the aggregate Category 2 number and, in producing the list above, I only filtered by the same criteria, thus including Finacor in the list as originally posted.  I have now revised the filter to also only include banks in the Category 2 aggregate numbers and lists (thus excluding Finacor, an asset manager).  Future postings of the results therefore should be accurate, but I have gone back to only the last blog entry for the final Category 2 resolution to change the aggregate number to 80.  I apologize for wrongly listing Finacor.

Swiss Banks indicating or indicated that they would join as Category 2 but who did not join:

Final Swiss Bank Achieves NPA Under Swiss Bank Program (1/25/16)

DOJ Tax announced here the final Category 2 resolution in its Swiss Bank Program, here, as follows:

HSZH Verwaltungs AG

$49.757 million

The press release opens with DOJ Tax touting the results achieved under the program (emphasis supplied by JAT):

The Department of Justice announced today that it reached its final non-prosecution agreement under Category 2 of the Swiss Bank Program, with HSZH Verwaltungs AG (HSZH).  The department has executed agreements with 80 banks since March 30, 2015, when it announced the first Swiss Bank Program non-prosecution agreement with BSI SA.  The department has imposed a total of more than $1.36 billion in Swiss Bank penalties, including more than $49 million in penalties from HSZH.  Every bank in the program, including HSZH, is required to cooperate in any related criminal or civil proceedings, and that cooperation continues through 2016 and beyond.

* * * * 

“The department’s Swiss Bank Program has been a successful, innovative effort to get the financial institutions that facilitated fraud on the American tax system to come forward with information about their wrongdoing – and to ensure that they are held responsible for it,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery.  “As we have seen over the last year, Swiss banks are paying an appropriate penalty for their misconduct, and the information and continuing cooperation we have required the banks to provide in order to participate in the program is allowing us to systematically attack offshore tax avoidance schemes.” 

“The completion of the agreements under Category 2 of the Swiss Bank Program represents a substantial milestone in the department’s ongoing efforts to combat offshore tax evasion, and we remain committed to holding financial institutions, professionals and individual taxpayers accountable for their respective roles in concealing foreign accounts and assets, and evading U.S. tax obligations,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.  “Using the flood of information flowing from various sources, the department is investigating this criminal conduct, referring appropriate matters to the Internal Revenue Service for civil enforcement and pursuing leads in jurisdictions well beyond Switzerland.  Individuals and entities engaged in offshore tax evasion are well advised to come forward now, because the window to get to us before we get to you is rapidly closing.”

As to HSZH, the history is presented as follows:

HSZH, the final bank to reach a non-prosecution agreement under Category 2 of the Swiss Bank Program, was previously known as Hyposwiss Privatbank AG.  HSZH was founded in 1889 in Solothurn, Switzerland.  In 1988, Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft AG, which was later merged into UBS AG, acquired the bank and renamed it Hyposwiss Privatbank AG.  Hyposwiss Privatbank AG increasingly focused on private banking activities, servicing both domestic and international clients, and at all times, HSZH solely operated on Swiss territory.  In 2002, the bank was acquired from UBS by St. Galler Kantonalbank (SGKB), the state-owned cantonal bank of St. Gallen.  In 2014, HSZH unwound its residual banking operations under the supervision of FINMA, the Swiss banking regulator.  On Jan. 6, 2014, and in connection with the wind-down, the bank changed its name to HSZH Verwaltungs AG.  HSZH returned its banking license, and FINMA released HSZH from its supervision on Nov. 27, 2014. 

The bank will be added to the IRS's Foreign Financial Institutions or Facilitators, here.  As indicated in the last quoted paragraph, accountholders in the listed banks joining OVDP after one of their banks are listed will be subject to the 50% penalty in OVDP (provided that they do not opt out, in which case, who knows).

The updated statistics are:

US DOJ Swiss Bank Program	Number	Number Resolved	Total Costs
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 1 (Criminal Inv.) *	16	4	$3,470,550,000
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 2 **	98	80*	$1,363,683,990
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 3	14		$0
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 4	8		$0
Swiss Bank Program Results	136		$4,834,233,990
* Includes subsidiary or related entities counted as separate entities, so the numbers may exceed the numbers the IRS and DOJ posted numbers which combine some of the entities.
** DOJ says original total was 106 but that it expects about 80 to complete the process.

* As revised on 1/30/16 to exclude Finacor S.A., an asset manager, which attempted to join the program under Category 2 but, since not a bank, was determined to be ineligible but achieved an NPA under the Category 2 terms.

More on the U.S. as the World's Tax Haven (1/27/16; 1/29/16)

On the theme of U.S. laws offering tax haven opportunities for foreign persons, Jesse Drucker reports on one instance of an offshore bank, Rothschild & Co., setting up shop in the U.S. to promote the business.  Jesse Drucker, The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States (BloombergBusiness 1/17/16), here.  [Please see note at end of this blog entry for a correction I made on 1/29/16 to this opening statement.]

Excerpts from the opening:

Last September, at a law firm overlooking San Francisco Bay, Andrew Penney, a managing director at Rothschild & Co., gave a talk on how the world’s wealthy elite can avoid paying taxes. 

His message was clear: You can help your clients move their fortunes to the United States, free of taxes and hidden from their governments. 

Some are calling it the new Switzerland. 

After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

Other key tidbits:

Rokahr and other advisers said there is a legitimate need for secrecy. Confidential accounts that hide wealth, whether in the U.S., Switzerland, or elsewhere, protect against kidnappings or extortion in their owners’ home countries. The rich also often feel safer parking their money in the U.S. rather than some other location perceived as less-sure.
“I do not hear anybody saying, ‘I want to avoid taxes,’ ” Rokahr said. “These are people who are legitimately concerned with their own health and welfare.” 

No one expects offshore havens to disappear anytime soon. Swiss banks still hold about $1.9 trillion in assets not reported by account holders in their home countries, according to Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Nor is it clear how many of the almost 100 countries and other jurisdictions that have signed on will actually enforce the new disclosure standards, issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a government-funded international policy group. 

There’s nothing illegal about banks luring foreigners to put money in the U.S. with promises of confidentiality as long as they are not intentionally helping to evade taxes abroad. Still, the U.S. is one of the few places left where advisers are actively promoting accounts that will remain secret from overseas authorities.

One More Swiss Bank Achieves NPA Under Swiss Bank Program (1/25/16)

On January 25, 2015, DOJ announced, here, that 1 more bank has entered an NPA under the DOJ program for Swiss banks, here.

Leodan Privatbank AG

$500,000

The banks will be added to the IRS's Foreign Financial Institutions or Facilitators, here.  As indicated in the last quoted paragraph, accountholders in the listed banks joining OVDP after one of their banks are listed will be subject to the 50% penalty in OVDP (provided that they do not opt out, in which case, who knows).

Here are the updated statistics for the Swiss Bank Program:

US DOJ Swiss Bank Program	Number|	Number Resolved	Total Costs
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 1 (Criminal Inv.) *	16	4	$3,470,550,000
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 2 **	97	80	$1,313,926,990
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 3	14		$0
U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 4	8		$0
Swiss Bank Program Results	135		$4,784,476,990
* Includes subsidiary or related entities counted as separate entities, so the numbers may exceed the numbers the IRS and DOJ posted numbers which combine some of the entities.
** DOJ says original total was 106 but that it expects about 80 to complete the process.

More on Transparency for Entities Acquiring Valuable Real Estate in Some U.S. Markets (1/23/16)

I recently reported on a common complaint against the U.S. which insists on more transparency from foreign countries but has some gaps in its transparency for foreign countries with respect to hiding ownership of real estate.  One Step in Attacking Lack of Transparency in U.S. (1/13/16), here.  Foreigners have been able to use entities to hide the true ownership of valuable real estate, particularly in such attractive destinations as New York.  In that blog, I noted that the U.S. is now attempting to require information about the true owners and, of course, the next step is making the information available to foreign countries.

Tax Notes Today, has a very good article on the issue in considerable more depth.  William Hoke, Reporting Rule Might Deflect Some Criticism of U.S. as Tax Haven, 2016 TNT 15-3 (1/25/16), no link available.  I recommend that those with a subscription to TNT or the sister publications in which it is printed read the article.  Some key points from the article that I thought interesting are:

1. There is criticism of the U.S. failure to join CRS, which was inspired by FATCA, but may operate to require more transparency in some cases.  Two quotes from the article:

J. Richard Harvey of Villanova University said that by implementing FATCA, the United States paved the way for more international reporting of financial assets, such as through the CRS. "Thus, it is somewhat ironic and disappointing that the U.S. has failed to fully participate in CRS," Harvey said. "Such failure could make it more difficult for the U.S. to successfully implement FATCA to the extent [that] other countries decide to not provide certain information with the U.S." 

* * * *  

Andres Knobel of the Tax Justice Network said that while more than 70 jurisdictions have signed the multilateral competent authority agreement on the automatic exchange of financial account information under the CRS, a number of requirements regarding underlying treaties, national legislation, and confidentiality must also be met before the transfer of information can begin. Knobel likened the process to the Tinder online dating service. Automatic exchange of information "will take place only among jurisdictions that meet all the requirements . . . and that choose each other," he said.

That reminds me of the illusory contract illustration used by Hardy Dillard, former dean of UVA Law School, way back when I went there.  He illustrated the illusory contract of the boyfriend trying to bend the girlfriend to his intentions by promising that "I'll marry you if I choose to."  That, of course, was from a different era, with such illusory promises probably not necessary any more.

2.  Regarding the new initiative reported above to require ownership information for entities acquiring real estate:

Notice to Readers: Irrelevant and Political or Anti-IRS Comments Will Not Be Approved (1/22/16; 1/28/16)

I have in the past routinely approved most irrelevant and political and anti-IRS comments to blog entries.  Today, I received another and my tolerance for such comments has worn thin.  I post below the comment that has provoked my reaction. 

I remind readers that this is a federal tax crimes blog.  It is not a political blog or tax policy blog or any other kind of blog except federal tax crimes.  Hence, I will no longer approve comments that are not relevant to the blog entry and that present more political argument or anti-IRS argument than analysis of the law relevant to federal tax crimes issues.

For those of you who want to make political comments or anti-IRS, I recommend that you find another blog which welcomes those comments.  For example, you might try the Tax Prof Blog, here, where Professor Paul Caron posts each day one entry labeled The IRS Scandal, Day xxx (the entry today is The IRS Scandal, Day 988).  Each day you will find a posting and, so long as you want to make political or anti IRS comments, he seems more than willing to post such comments on his blog.

Thus, for readers who may be inclined to want to make these comments, please note that henceforth they will not be approved for publication on the Federal Tax Crimes Blog.

Here is the comment provoking this response.

Breaking News: The IRS rabbit hole of corruption goes even deeper. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/01/20/irs-wipes-another-hard-drive-defying-court-order-but-you-must-keep-tax-records/#128fd9ac726b 

There are several very annoying things about the IRS in this article but this quote I find very revealing: 

Despite a court order to preserve documents, the IRS wiped the hard drive of an important IRS official, Mr. Samuel Maruca. Controversially, Mr. Maruca helped the IRS hire Quinn Emanuel, an outside law firm tasked with pursuing Microsoft. Hiring outsiders at over $1,000 an hour (!) angered Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who wrote a letter to the IRS complaining about strange deal and the $2.2 million fee. 

So once again we have an internal IRS cover up of their own wilful criminality.  Any honest person working at the IRS must realize that this it has turned into a political crime racket, and that's probably why so many rats are jumping ship.   

Compare this to how the IRS hounds  law abiding Swiss wealth advisers who were merely following Swiss law and the QI agreements in the course of doing their jobs.  Even worse for these honest Swiss citizens, the IRS is going to pay $1000/hr lawyers from crony political law firms to extract the IRS's pound of flesh.... for following the laws of the country they are citizens of and live in. 

For US tax payers this is even worse news on the heals of the latest bill that allows the IRS to outsource its tax collection.  We know these firms will be crony political K-street tax collectors providing campaign kickbacks to the Democratic party.  And we know that these extra costs will be paid for by the US tax donkeys through higher fees and penalties.   

But even worse, we know that this 2-way street of corruption will be used by the Clinton machine to guarantee that anyone running against Hillary will be fighting the IRS too.  That is certainly is one formidable wall of corruption.

Addendum 1/28/16 6:15pm:

Other blogs have posted on this blog and offered their readers opportunities to comment..

• Maple Sandbox, here.
• Isaac Brock Society, here.

Should Proof of No Tax Evaded Be Admissible as Defense in Crime Not Requiring Tax Evaded as an Element (1/20/16)

Tax evasion, § 7201, here, requires proof of a tax evaded as an element of the crime.  Other prominent tax crimes do not require proof of tax evaded as an element of the crime. E.g., tax perjury, § 7206(1), here, and tax obstruction, § 7212(a), here.  But, a tax evaded is at the heart of most tax crimes, even when not an element of the crime, because of the Sentencing Guidelines which key the principal punishments -- incarceration and fines -- to the tax evaded.  See e.g., John A. Townsend, Tax Evaded in the Federal Tax Crimes Sentencing Process and Beyond, 59 Vill. L. Rev. 599 (2014), here.

The question sometimes presented is whether the presence or absence of tax evaded is an issue that can be presented to the jury in a trial for a crime not requiring a tax evaded as an element of the crime.  Obviously, from the Government's perspective informing the jury that taxes were evaded is important to supply the motive for the conduct that requires willfulness as an element or, as with tax obstruction, corrupt action as an element.  I suspect that most courts would routinely admit the Government's evidence of tax evaded.  But the defendant might try to admit evidence that no taxes were evaded in the case in chief in order to make conviction less palatable to the jury and as mitigating or disproving other elements of the crime -- e.g., the ubiquitous willfulness requirement for tax crimes and corruptly element of § 7212(a)?

In United States v. Giambalvo,  810 F.3d 1086 (8th Cir. 2016), here, the defendant was convicted of one count of tax obstruction, § 7212(a), and eight counts of tax perjury, § 7206(1).  As previously noted, tax evaded is not an element of either crime.  In the case in chief, the defendant called as an expert an H&R Block accountant to testify that, based on her review, the defendant owed no tax.  (That evidence would clearly be appropriate at the sentencing phase where tax loss is the primary driver for the Sentencing Guidelines calculations.)  The district court excluded the proffered testimony.  On appeal, defendant raised the issue.  The Court of Appeals resolved the issue as follows:

Prior to trial, Giambalvo notified the government of his intent to call H&R Block accountant Claudia Bradshaw as an expert witness. Bradshaw would testify that, based on her preparation of Giambalvo's tax returns dated May 31, 2014, for the tax years at issue in the case, Giambalvo did not owe any taxes on January 26, 2011. According to Bradshaw's proposed testimony, Giambalvo would have been due a substantial tax refund had he filed proper and timely federal income tax returns. The government moved in limine to exclude evidence of Giambalvo's tax returns and tax-loss data prepared and filed post indictment. 

The district court granted the government's motion in limine during a pretrial motion hearing, concluding that "the suddenly filed tax returns under the established law clearly doesn't come in" because these tax returns were filed "[m]ore than ten years later, more than three and a half years after the indictment [was] issued." As a result, the court found the probative value of such returns "minimal," but the prejudice to be "great." According to the court, under § 7206(1), "the amount of tax loss isn't probative" to whether Giambalvo's misstatements could have hindered the IRS in carrying out its "functions as to verification or the accuracy of the return or unrelated tax return." The court concluded that the parties would not "get into tax loss" because "[a]ll we are looking at is whether [Giambalvo] made misstatements on his tax returns at the time he made the returns, because it is a perjury related statute. It is irrelevant whether or not there was a tax deficiency."

Prosecuting Corporate Employees and Officers, with Focus on Swiss Banks (1/15/16)

I have previously blogged on Professor Brandon Garrett (UVA Law) who have carved out an academic niche on how the Government deals with corporate crime, particularly large corporate crime (the too big to jail group).  See e.g., Judge Jed Rakoff Reviews Brandon Garrett's Book on Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 2/10/15), here.  At the risk of oversimplifying his arguments, I summarize them in part relevant to this blog entry:  When the Government goes after corporate misconduct, it too often focuses only on the corporation in terms of criminal sanctions and not the individuals, particularly those higher up the chain, who committed the underlying conduct.  Corporations cannot go to jail; individuals can. Prosecuting and convicting individuals in addition to corporations could, he thinks, provide more front-end incentive for individuals to forego illegal conduct within the corporations.  However, as fans of tax crimes know at least anecdotally, it is hard to convict higher level corporate officers for conduct that their underlings actually commit.  The poster child example is the acquittal of Raoul Weil, a high-level UBS banker who "remoted" himself from the dirty work of actually servicing U.S. taxpayers seeking to evade U.S. tax.  See e.g., Raoul Weil Found Not Guilty (Federal Tax Crimes 11/3/14; 11/6/14), here.

One might turn a common phrase and say that lifeless, breathless, unthinking, unfeeling corporations do not commit crimes; people do.  Still in our jurisprudence, corporations can commit crimes.  They just can't be jailed.  To the extent that actual incarceration incentivizes people to avoid misconduct, people should be jailed.  In September of 2015, DOJ announced a new policy of more aggressively pursuing people for misconduct in corporations.  See the DAG memo here and my blog entry, New DOJ Policy on Prosecuting Individuals Beyond Corporate Crime (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 9/10/15), here.

Professor Garrett has a new article that updates in summary fashion his research.  The Year Banks Finally Paid (Slate 1/13/16), here.  The following are excerpts:

Nevertheless, we need to keep asking whether this strategy of chasing dollars rather than changing practices and prosecuting executives makes any sense. In the past decade, data I have collected show that federal prosecutors have set new records each year in corporate fines. For all their success and zeal, however, it’s not clear that fines alone are stopping bad actors on Wall Street. 

* * * * 

A remarkable number of banks, 80 of them, finalized cases with federal prosecutors. Most were Swiss banks that settled out of court as part of a DOJ Tax Division program designed to incentivize them to come clean or face the music. Next year we will see still more cases with less-cooperative Swiss banks that won’t get such lenient deals. More mammoth bank cases lumber along in the courts; last spring, several major banks, including Wall Street giants JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp, agreed to plead guilty in cases relating to foreign-exchange currency manipulation. Those cases have not resulted in sentencing yet, but when they do, prosecutors will rake in $5 billion more in fines. 

* * * * 

Banks pay the fines, but bankers don’t usually do any time. I have found that among the 66 cases of financial institutions that received deferred or nonprosecution agreements from federal prosecutors from 2001 to 2014, only 23 of them—33 percent—had any employees prosecuted. 

Now, I don't have Professor Garrett's expertise and have not spent enough time on his marvelous web site at UVA Law, here, but I thought I would add some thoughts from my even narrower niche of the universe in which he teaches -- the offshore account and enabler activities.