Credit Suisse Bankers Indicted for Helping US Taxpayers Evade Taxes

The US Department of Justice recently announced the indictment of four Swiss bankers charged with helping US taxpayers use secret accounts at Credit Suisse to evade US taxes. The indictment comes on the heels of the IRS announcement of a second offshore voluntary disclosure program. The program, the "2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative," has been described by the IRS commissioner as "the last, best chance for people to get back into the system." The indictment charges that as of fall 2008, Credit Suisse maintained thousands of secret accounts for customers in the United States, with as much as $3 billion in total assets under management in those accounts.

Key Takeaways:

• The indictment charges four Credit Suisse bankers with conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by helping US taxpayers use secret accounts to evade US taxes.
• The indictment alleges that the defendants and their co-conspirators solicited US customers to open secret accounts because Swiss bank secrecy would permit them to conceal from the IRS the ownership of the account.
• The defendants and their co-conspirators are charged with a range of activities, including advising US customers to structure withdrawals from their secret accounts in amounts less than $10,000 to conceal the secret accounts and transactions from US authorities.
• The indictment also names three other Swiss banks, Bank Leumi, Bank Frey, and Maerki Baumann, which were involved in cross-border banking services to US customers.
• The defendants include Marco Parenti Adami, Emanuel Agustoni, Michele Bergantino, and Roger Schaerer, who were employed by Credit Suisse and other Swiss banks.
• The indictment describes the overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy by providing sketchy information about the conduct of the defendants relative to 17 unnamed US persons involved in the conspiracy.
• The IRS has added the four Credit Suisse bankers to its list of targeted banks for OECD Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) and Swiss banks to include all UBS and other private bank accounts for tax evasion.
• U.S. persons with accounts at Credit Suisse, Bank Leumi, Bank Frey, Maerki Baumann, and the unidentified Hong Kong bank may be at risk for criminal prosecution if they do not make a voluntary disclosure before the August 31, 2011 deadline.

Statistics:

• The indictment charges that as of fall 2008, Credit Suisse maintained thousands of secret accounts for customers in the United States, with as much as $3 billion in total assets under management in those accounts.
• The alleged conspiracy dates back to 1953 and involves two generations of US tax evaders, including US customers who inherited secret accounts at Credit Suisse.
• The indictment alleges that the defendants and their co-conspirators solicited US customers to open secret accounts because Swiss bank secrecy would permit them to conceal from the IRS the ownership of the account.
• The indictment charges the defendants with a range of activities, including advising US customers to structure withdrawals from their secret accounts in amounts less than $10,000 to conceal the secret accounts and transactions from US authorities.

Sources:

• US Department of Justice press release, February 23, 2011.
• IRS press release, February 9, 2011.
• Credit Suisse press release, February 9, 2011.
• Bank Leumi press release, February 9, 2011.
• Bank Frey press release, February 9, 2011.
• Maerki Baumann press release, February 9, 2011.