Casey Berry
5/1/2009
8:50 am
By: Vidya Ram

Swiss and U.S. Battle It Out

Switzerland and the United States are trying to work through a revised tax treaty but they cannot come to an agreement. The United States is pretty much demanding that the UBS, which is one of Switzerland’s biggest banks give them 52,000 of its private banking clients. The Swiss federal office is concerned that the court against UBS could “prejudice the successful conclusion of these negotiations and jeopardize ratification of the new treaty.” UBS is asking a court in Florida to drop a tax evasion case although earlier they had agreed with the U.S. to hand over some of their clients. What the Swiss didn’t understand was that by doing this they would be breaking Switzerland’s privacy laws. The U.S. is asking them to break the laws which are enforced through imprisonment.
In my opinion Switzerland should have done the proper research to check and make sure what they agreed to is not against the laws. If they promised the U.S. a number of their clients then they should have to give them those clients. Although putting people in prison for something their government agreed to is not fair to the banks clients who would have to switch their bank accounts over. Whoever is in charge of making the agreement obviously doesn’t know anything about Switzerland’s laws and regulations and should be fired immediately for this whole situation. This whole thing has put Switzerland in a very bad situation but honestly it’s their own fault. When I first read this article I thought it made the U.S. look greedy and made them look like they were bullying Switzerland but really Switzerland broke their agreement and should have to pay for that.