Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Fix Is In (or On Its Way) -- Saving the US-UBS-Swiss Deal

Tax Notes Today and other online press report that the Swiss Government will seek a legislative solution to resolve the various seemingly desparate legal initiatives to derail the deal. The announcement uses treaty-speak, so rather than try to summarize it, I refer the reader to the links below and the announcement itself. Bottom-line, so the reports go (this on from Law and Tax\-News.com)

According to the Administration, by handling matters in this way, Switzerland will be able to process the US request for information by the end of August 2010 deadline, as set in the agreement. It notes however, that the SFTA will not pass any data on to the IRS until the UBS Agreement has been approved by Parliament. The only exceptions to this rule are those cases in which the person concerned has given their express consent to the data transfer, or has reported themselves to the IRS under the latter's voluntary disclosure program.
See alsos other press reports here.

1 comment:

  1. Very interesting. As we know from our own system of government, if we don't like what the courts say, we can legislate around or against the judicial ruling. It appears that the Swiss parliament is heading in that direction, in order to salvage the UBS settlement. What is interesting is that the Swiss already committed to ending the tax fraud/tax evasion distinction. First, when Switzerland agreed to banking transparency in line with Article 26 of the OECD Model Income Tax Convention; second, under the US-Switzerland TIE (Tax Information Exchange agreement). It appears that the current legislation is in accordance with what Switzerland has already promised to do.

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