Bailed-Out UBS Rewards Bankers With Pay Hike

Wegelin brought down by probe

(NEWSER) - A Swiss bank older than the US has been indicted by the Justice Department for helping Americans dodge taxes. Wegelin, a 270-year-old private bank, helped some 100 wealthy Americans hide more than $1.2 billion from the IRS, according to the indictment. Clients who decided to co-operate with the investigation gave the Justice Department details about the bank's inner workings, which led to the indictment, Reuters reports. More»

Soaring Wall Street bonuses should be tolerated for economy's sake

(NEWSER) - Believe it or not, lavish Goldman Sachs bonuses are good news for everybody, a company official told a discussion panel yesterday. The out-of-whack pay inequality will give the economy a kick in the pants, insisted the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. "We have to tolerate the inequality to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," he explained to conference members attending discussions on "The Price of Morality in the Marketplace." More»

(NEWSER) - UBS will hand over the names of 4,450 of its American account holders as part of a tax evasion settlement, the Wall Street Journal reports, and another 5,000 names will be produced under a special IRS amnesty program. UBS won’t pay a monetary fine. Those being turned over may have a chance to fight the disclosure in Swiss court. The compromise gets around potential Swiss objections to the disclosures. More»

(NEWSER) - The IRS and Justice Department crackdown on UBS is widening, reports the Wall Street Journal, as new documents reveal the efforts the bank took to keep its clients' wealth away from the taxman. Two recent cases have relied on channeling millions to a Swiss account owned by a Hong Kong-based enterprise. In one instance, a UBS banker told an American tax dodger that "a lot of United States clients don't report their income." More»

Inquiry into Swiss banks leads hundreds of evaders to come clean

(NEWSER) - A crackdown on tax evasion has led to a flood of wealthy Americans lining up to reveal their offshore accounts to the IRS, reports the Wall Street Journal. A limited-time offer of lower fines, coupled with the ongoing probe of Swiss bank accounts held by UBS, has produced a stampede of tax sinners eager to pay up. "Last week we had 400 applicants, four times as many as in all of last year," says an IRS spokesman. More»