There’s been some very disappointing news over the past 24 hours leaking out of the UBS settlement negotiations indicating that the Swiss banking giant will not be forced to pay a fine in the case and will only be required to reveal roughly 5,000 names – a fraction of the 52,000o offshore UBS accounts controlled by Americans in Switzerland.   If this indeed is what the final settlement includes, then it will be a sad day for justice.

Indeed the Swiss are even admitting that this settlement plan would do nothing to impart Swiss banking secrecy.  From the Washington Post:

The proposed resolution to a U.S. government demand for information about thousands of Americans suspected of using Swiss accounts to evade taxes would leave Swiss bank secrecy intact, a top Swiss official has said.

The United States has never been in a better position to crack down on offshore tax evasion.  To not utilize this opportunity to strike a lethal blow to Swiss banking secrecy would be very disheartening and would send a clear signal that the Obama Administration is not willing to live up to its rhetoric about cracking down on tax havens.

Check out Richard Murphy’s post here for a more thorough analysis of the case.

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