Worth reading

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/...into-own-goal/

"In order to give their clients a head start in the race to hide their finances – UBS sent each of its 52,000 American clients, not just the 4,450 earmarked for disclosure, even those who had specifically requested ‘no mail’ from the bank, a registered letter firmly marked ‘UBS Switzerland’ warning them that their details might have to be handed over next year. Needless to say, the US Inland Revenue which works closely with the US Postal department now has a complete list of all those Americans who received a registered letter marked ‘UBS Switzerland’………."



Sorry if this info has been posted here before now.

hang on - they got flak for closing down accounts with little communication and now complaints because they write to people.

hey - guess what...? If you have been honest with the IRS, you have nothing to fear.

Cake and eat it are word that spring to mind.

UBS could have written more discretely.

"When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government" Grover Cleveland, Second Annual Message; December, 1886

Would Cleveland consider GM's or Citi's rescues a form of dilapidating taxpayers money? You bet.

aww come on, do you guys seriously believe that happened?

I mean UBS have done some dumb things, but something this colossally stupid would take superhuman effort and planning - I mean, not like they hired McKinsey to tell them how to realllly blow this up

this reminds me of that time when some Japs were allegedly caught running around with $100 billion in bonds - and nobody stopped to think if the 'news' made any sense ...

The really rich, the ultra high net worth individuals, most probably have no nominative accounts with UBS anyway. They have probably structured their accounts through a trust or some other vehicle with an office in Bermuda or the likes. So correspondence will not arrive to the USA. Most of the really big fish will keep on swiming... unscathered.

"UBS could have written more discretely."
Yeah they could've written Credit Suisse on it instead.

Can we get some confirmation that the envelopes were actually marked "UBS Switzerland"? I'm having a hard time believing this. I have never had anything marked about the sender besides the postage, and this is for letters to their Swiss clients. I can't imagine why they'd change the policy, especially on such a sensitive matter.

I have received several letters from Credit Suisse recently. They
say that they are trying urgently to contact me. They luckily don't
have my correct phone number.

This seems bizzare, although for the US government to be able to track all those envelopes to their destinations, they would realistically have had to be prepared - I genuinely do not think that they have the resources to track 'everything, everywhere, all the time'.

So IMHO, unless UBS intentionally wanted to reveal the identities of their clients, marked all their envelopes and then tipped off the US that they were doing this, I would be sceptical about how many of these would ultimately be traced.

Of course, Swiss authorities tipping off the yanks appears to be popular at present, so who knows...

This article is a joke. All sensitive correspondence from my bank in the US is unmarked so I am sure Swiss banks would do the same.

Agreed; the "tell" is the phrase "the US Inland Revenue". If the writer doesn't even know the name of the US tax collector ("Internal Revenue"), why would you expect anything else to be accurate?

You are right, I hadn't noticed that. Ha. What a bunch of losers.

Swiss postal rules require that a registered letter must identify the sender. This so that the recipient can refuse it.

Swiss banks might be dumb - but not as much as this... They even put oldfashioned stamps on their envelopes if requested to do so by the customers. Then, those envelopes are distributed to changing post offices so that the post print can't be attributed.

I don't doubt possible IRS agents that read this forum will like my revealings

It's different, though, if the letter is sent registered - then, the sender's name on the envelope is a must as Goldtop just explained.

Well done!

There have been versions of this story circulating for decades (literally back to the 1960s), but as far as I know it is just a myth. (I've never seen anyone cite a source for this story.) The idea is clever, subtle, and very labor-intensive, so likely something the French fisc would do.

The standard in Swiss private banking for letters to customers:

1. Neutral non-window envelope.
2. Thick lined envelope with random numbers printed on the inside surface to prevent see-through.
3. Envelope is hand addressed.
4. No sender identification.
5. Self-sticking stamp, not machine stamped.
6. Posted at some rural post office or even in the destination country (prevent customs examination).

Someone asked for this source (on the page the OP posted). Wonder who it was An answer has been given by Anna Raccoon, the author of the page: Reuters and the NT! The corresponding, direct links are here and here. What do you think, do you agree with her question whether these sources are serious enough?

I assume we are still discussing the part of the article which claimed the US postal service has been screening incoming letters? If so, the author did not cite a single source. Neither article made such a claim.

The closest was the Reuters story (printed in the NYTimes) which cited a Swiss newspaper (Sonntag) as stating "the use of registered mail and envelopes showing the sender...could enable the U.S. authorities to trace customers..."

Well, certainly, it could happen. There's just no evidence (I've ever seen) that it has happened.... and, as I wrote, this story has circulated for decades.

People place way too much faith in the efficiency of the US government...Katrina Rescue effort is more the case in point in to how well our government typically works here...same goes with all the conspiracy nuts...perhaps the government is 'hustling' but if their typical efficiency is true there is no way in hell they can pull off even the most minor conspircacy.