US Congressional investigators today will accuse UBS and Liechtenstein’s LGT Group of using the “cloak of bank secrecy laws” to help US clients evade billions of dollars in taxes. The Senate-led investigation details allegations about how the banks “colluded” with US clients to help them shield taxable income from regulators even though they knew their clients were seeking to hide from the Internal Revenue Service. However, the report does not say whether the banks broke the law. Methods allegedly used by LGT included advising US clients to open accounts in the name of foundations to hide ownership and counselling them on the use of offshore structures and “transfer corporations” to disguise transfers via LGT accounts. UBS told committee investigators it holds 19,000 accounts worth roughly $18bn for US clients that it has not declared to the IRS.

This entry was posted by James Fontanella on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 5:42 and is filed under Capital markets, People. Tagged with LGT Group, ubs. Edit this entry.