In  a letter dated August 31, 2011, the US Department of Justice demanded that Switzerland provide the US with all information relating to US taxpayers who deposited at least $50,000 in Swiss accounts between January 1, 2002 and July 31, 2010.

To back up this demand, the Justice Department threatened to bring charges against many Swiss banks such as Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, Wegelin, Zurich and Basel.  Similar charges that were previously brought against UBS caused UBS to hand over information about thousands of accountholders.

Taxpayers who have deposits in these and other Swiss accounts should give serious consideration to joining the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, the deadline of which comes to a firm end on September 9, 2011.

Also of note, but perhaps more ambiguous,  is a Statement of Cooperation between the Bank of Israel and the Fed Reserve and FDIC that was released at the end of August.  The statement says that the two countries are going to “establish a mechanism for the transfer of information between the authorities in the context of the authorization process of establishing cross-border banking activity in the US or Israel.”

As reported in a prior article by YWN, while the 2011 OVDI deadline was set to expire on August 31, 2011, it has been extended to September 9th because of Irene. 

Joseph Septimus is a tax and trusts and estate attorney with the law firm of Kostelanetz & Fink, LLP, and can be reached at (212) 808-8100 or[email protected]

(Joseph Septimus – YWN)