Prior to his death in 1980, Maurice Pinot opened a Swiss account with approximately $1 million, which would pay interest and dividends to his longtime companion, and after her death, to her daughter. That daughter, Micheline Fournie, an 81 year old French citizen with U.S. residency, is now resisting pressure […]
Category: Offshore Accounts/International Tax Disputes
The owner of Le Perigord, a popular French restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, has pleaded guilty to obstruction charges stemming from undeclared Swiss bank accounts he held from 1992 to 2011. Georges Briguet, 77, grew up on his family’s vineyard in Switzerland. In 1960, he moved to New York and opened […]
UBS has confirmed that it is again being investigated by U.S. regulators for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes, this time involving the sale of “bearer bonds” that allow investors to transfer ownership anonymously. Bearer bonds, which are generally illegal in the United States, are still common in Europe and have […]
U.S. authorities may revisit a 2012 deferred prosecution agreement with HSBC due to new allegations that the bank helped wealthy individuals hide money and evade taxes. Over the weekend, an international group of media outlets reported on a massive cache of files showing how HSBC’s Swiss arm helped wealthy clients […]
A former Swiss banker who was indicted in the United States three years ago has been arrested in Germany and is expected to be extradited to the United States. Roger Keller, a former client advisor at Wegelin & Co, was indicted in 2012 for helping Americans hide more than $1.2 […]
The IRS announced that its popular Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) will remain open on an indefinite basis, while warning taxpayers that identifying individuals with undeclared offshore accounts remains one of the agency’s top priorities. In 2009, the IRS announced its first Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI), which gave taxpayers […]
The IRS has announced its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams, which are areas of enforcement that the agency will focus on in 2015. Once again, the list includes undisclosed offshore accounts, which has been a top priority since 2009. Since 2009, the Department of Justice has indicted more […]
The Chairman and CEO of an international pulp mill company pled guilty to concealing more than $8.4 million in secret Swiss bank accounts. The 77 year old faces a maximum of five years in prison, and he has already agreed to pay a civil FBAR penalty of $4.2 million, which […]
The CEO of an Atlanta internet company has pleaded guilty to one count of willfully failing to file an FBAR, related to his concealment of offshore accounts from the U.S. Treasury. As part of his plea agreement, Kaminsky has agreed to pay the IRS a civil FBAR penalty in the […]
The acquittal of the former CEO of Global Wealth Management and Business Banking at UBS AG could affect the handling of more than twenty other cases involving Swiss “enablers,” many of whom are currently fugitives. A US jury rejected charges that Raoul Weil knew UBS bankers had used deception and […]