BIG MONEY. Report: Tax shelters cost U.S. over $100 billion.
Americans stash away 1.5 trillion dollars in tax havens
Published: Thursday July 17, 2008
Wealthy Americans are hiding about 1.5 trillion dollars in overseas tax havens in a "deceptive" partnership with top foreign banks such as UBS, resulting in 100 billion dollars in lost US tax revenue, a congressional probe was told Thursday.
The hearing centered on a 115-page report following investigations into alleged abuses by UBS in Switzerland and the smaller LGT Bank in Liechtenstein amid a widening international investigation into tax scandals involving the two banks.
"The evidence we have been able to obtain breaks through some of the wall of secrecy to show that these two banks have employed banking practices that facilitate, and have resulted in, tax evasion by US clients," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who led the six-month US investigations.
The offshore tax evasion problem faced by the United States is of "staggering proportions," said Republican Senator Norm Coleman, also a leading member in the Senate investigations panel.
"These tax havens hold an estimated 1.5 trillion dollars in American assets, resulting in lost taxes of roughly 100 billion dollars," he said, describing some of the tax haven banking activities as "a cloak-and-dagger deception in a James Bond movie."
The OECD group of mostly industrialized economies estimates that between five to seven trillion dollars are held in tax havens or banking secrecy jurisdictions globally.
In response to inquiries by the Senate probe panel, UBS, the world's largest manager of private wealth, said 19,000 of the 20,000 accounts in Switzerland for US clients were "undeclared" in the range of nearly 18 billion dollars.
US authorities have initiated enforcement action against 100 US taxpayers in connection with accounts in the secretive European principality Liechtenstein after a former LGT employee provided tax authorities around the world with data on about 1,400 people with bank accounts.
The ex-employee, who has gone into hiding, gave the US probe panel 12,000 pages of documents related to US clients as well as some, according to Levin, "explosive" evidence.
Wealthy Americans are hiding about 1.5 trillion dollars in overseas tax havens in a "deceptive" partnership with top foreign banks such as UBS, resulting in 100 billion dollars in lost US tax revenue, a congressional probe was told Thursday.
The hearing centered on a 115-page report following investigations into alleged abuses by UBS in Switzerland and the smaller LGT Bank in Liechtenstein amid a widening international investigation into tax scandals involving the two banks.
"The evidence we have been able to obtain breaks through some of the wall of secrecy to show that these two banks have employed banking practices that facilitate, and have resulted in, tax evasion by US clients," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who led the six-month US investigations.
The offshore tax evasion problem faced by the United States is of "staggering proportions," said Republican Senator Norm Coleman, also a leading member in the Senate investigations panel.
"These tax havens hold an estimated 1.5 trillion dollars in American assets, resulting in lost taxes of roughly 100 billion dollars," he said, describing some of the tax haven banking activities as "a cloak-and-dagger deception in a James Bond movie."
The OECD group of mostly industrialized economies estimates that between five to seven trillion dollars are held in tax havens or banking secrecy jurisdictions globally.
In response to inquiries by the Senate probe panel, UBS, the world's largest manager of private wealth, said 19,000 of the 20,000 accounts in Switzerland for US clients were "undeclared" in the range of nearly 18 billion dollars.
US authorities have initiated enforcement action against 100 US taxpayers in connection with accounts in the secretive European principality Liechtenstein after a former LGT employee provided tax authorities around the world with data on about 1,400 people with bank accounts.
The ex-employee, who has gone into hiding, gave the US probe panel 12,000 pages of documents related to US clients as well as some, according to Levin, "explosive" evidence.
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