Sounds pretty much like what CS is accused of. Also, it appears pretty frivolous to me. Savvy property developers with their sophisticated lawyers should know better.

http://business.theatlantic.com/2010...l_gone_bad.php

I to a point agree.
Though I believe propery may fall still in the UK am holding onto it because at least it is physically there.
With all this Quantative Easing, money surely becomes in real terms worth less. I still thin the banks are dodgy and more repercussions to come.

I was looking at buying physical Gold when it was US$800 but never bought on the grounds that I thought it was hyped up.
With interest rates at virtually zero and wealth/capital tax in Switzerland, I would say having savings in a bank ccount doesn't make sense.
Surely you are better off having it in a safe deposit box?

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

You still have to declare it for the Capital tax.

Marton

Surely people do not declare it all?

Some do & some do not.
If they catch you then there is a fine.

Basically they can check your tax return to see if your capital has significantly reduced & then ask "where is it?"

for an accountant you ask some odd questions

I am an accountant but only understand the UK tax system.
I am trying to understand the Swiss tax system.
The questions are actually very appropriate with long term planning for International clients especially with the way the financial markets and the world is changing so fast where nothing is safe anywhere.

I fully understand that because , in effect the tax return capital statement is in effect a balance sheet.
As an accountant, Balance Sheets are what one needs to look at not Profit & Loss.
I was advised by a few Swiss business friends that when becoming a resident in Switzerland "to make sure you declare the capital you need and consider future spend and long term planning".

Few people outside the baking sector would argue that there is a need for radical reform.
I was just about ready to revise my opinion in the obamanomics the other day when he had Volcker next to him and announced the introduction of the Volcker rule.
I am not surprised but sad to read that everything is going ... as usual i.e. no reform and money talks

Volcker and Reform Defeated
The Former Fed Chairman Offers A History Lesson, Congress Skips the Class

"Sen. Shelby has his own interests. He is running for reelection this year. Wall Street has been the leading contributor to his campaign and the leadership political action committee this cycle, with $600,000 in donations through Jan. 10, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Add the real estate and insurance industries and Mr. Shelby has taken $2 million from financial interests, more than double the contributions from the next leading industry, the CRP said"

See article in WSJ here

__________________
Everything is simple when it's clearly explained

From today's FT "Traders and hedge funds have bet nearly $8bn against the euro, amassing the biggest ever short position in the single currency on fears of a eurozone debt crisis."

Seems like a good time to borrow euros & buy Swiss francs?

I've heard a lot of wealthy austrian are pulling their untaxed cash out of swiss banks ASAP, before the Austrian government decides to do the same thing as Germany...

Surely this cant be a good thing for swiss banks, if they have less money to play with...

I would expect the Swiss Franc to rise against the Euro; well the Euro to fall against the Swiss Franc.

I would expect the Euro to fall against the GB Pound until June when the GB Pound will fall when Conservative win with a hung parliament scaring the rest of the world and the government then revealing (as always) that the finances are a lot worse than they are.

This is an interesting news article by Peston on the mortgage market and government finance that could possibly be quite serious for the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...ty_of_the.html

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

The Swiss Sunday papers were claiming a lot of non-Swiss are pulling their cash out of Swiss banks & buying jewellry, gold, watches, cars etc. in Switzerland which is better for the Swiss economy than the money sitting in banks. Not so good for the banks; I still see the risk of UBS in a downward spiral as people keep pulling money out.

I suppose it is a naive question but what sort of taxes do they have to pay if caught? I assume the foreign governments treat it as undeclared income & charge income tax? Does anybody know?

Yes, it will be difficult for the Swiss Govt. to stop the Franc rising versus the Euro, with practically 0% interest their guns are empty.
I suppose the Swiss Govt. can keep buying euros but with the vultures circling over Greece, Spain & Portugal it will be like dripping water on a hot stone.
Plus filling your boots with a depreciating currency is not a good long term strategy or vote gainer.

I wonder how Italy avoids being on this watch list....


Did you forget the Peston link?

In the UK the penalty can be 100% of the tax on undeclared income plus the interest on the tax.
They normally charge 50% though.

They have been calling them the PIGS of the EC
Portugal - Ireland - Greece - Spain

Italy has been bankrup since 1940 but I think there might well be a few shocks to come there with high unemployment and companies in trouble and the government probably in trouble as well.


I think the banks are still in big big trouble and the governments are going to be hit hard. Theoretically if everyone is hit hard it would equal itself out but people with surpluses such as China would be better off (just like people that have cash in recessions and can take advantage of the situation). Saying that, China is owed more than a trillion from USA.

This article shows how serious it might be for the USA
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/our...oom-2010-02-02

Yep; sorry, I forgot the link of Peston which I have edited the post and put it in.

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

Bloomberg reports >>>
UBS AG, the European bank with the biggest losses from the credit crisis, said withdrawals by wealthy clients accelerated in the fourth quarter even as the company reported its first profit in more than a year.


As I have written before, the UBS Wealth Management business is finished. They just don't know it yet....

According to Swiss newspapers (not yet found in the English press) the EU has voted today against sharing bank data with the USA.
So far as I understood this covers the Swift network which only has details of on-line transactions not the status of bank accounts?
Anybody have a clearer view/comment?

I think that is the related news story

U.S., EU Terror-Finance Accord Rejected by Parliament (Update2)
2010-02-11 12:51:03.878 GMT


By Jonathan Stearns
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The European Parliament vetoed an
agreement on transferring bank data to U.S. counter-terrorism
investigators, risking a security gap seven weeks after an
attempt to bomb a trans-Atlantic flight.
The European Union assembly said the accord under which the
EU lets the U.S. Treasury Department view records from the Swift
money-transfer system lacks adequate personal-data protection.
The rejection came over appeals by EU national governments,
which had endorsed the deal, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
“Our laws are being broken,” said Jeanine Hennis-
Plasschaert, a Dutch member who steered the matter through the
27-nation Parliament today in Strasbourg, France. “The rule of
law is crucial.” The vote was 378 to 196, with 31 abstentions.
The veto deprives the U.S. of its preferred tool for
collecting European data under the Terrorist Finance Tracking
Program created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, nullifying a
preliminary accord meant as a precursor to a definitive deal.
The rejection highlights trans-Atlantic differences over
privacy rights in the fight against terrorism. The EU is also
resisting U.S. calls to install body scanners at airports
following a Nigerian man’s failed attempt to blow up a Northwest
Airlines plane flying to Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas
Day.
Swift, with headquarters in Belgium and computer centers in
the Netherlands and Switzerland, is one of the main conduits for
the global financial system. The cooperative, formally called
the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication,
relays money-transfer orders among 9,000 member banks and other
financial institutions in more than 200 countries.

Provisional Agreement

The EU-U.S. accord on Swift was due to last nine months,
during which both sides were committed to negotiating a “long-
term” successor. The EU’s national governments gave their
backing last year to the deal, which imposed limits on what the
U.S. could do with the data and how long it could keep it.
“The majority view in the European Parliament is that the
correct balance between security, on the one hand, and the
protection of civil liberties and fundamental rights, on the
other, has not been achieved,” said the assembly’s president,
Jerzy Buzek. “These are difficult, complex and sensitive
matters.”
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in
Brussels, plans in the coming weeks to draft guidelines for
negotiations with the U.S. on a definitive accord.

‘Instrumental’

The EU-wide preliminary agreement spared the U.S. from
having to seek bank data on a purely country-by-country basis
and made the transfers less politically controversial.
The U.S. government stepped up efforts in recent weeks to
persuade the Parliament to endorse the deal, saying the
Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has been “instrumental” in
protecting citizens on both sides of the Atlantic and failing to
support it “would be a deeply regrettable and potentially
tragic mistake.”
“The EU and U.S. cannot afford to handicap our
investigators by preventing access to key data,” U.S. Treasury
Undersecretary Stuart Levey said in an opinion piece published
last week by Europolitics, a news service devoted to European
affairs. “Undetected and undeterred, terrorists will abuse the
integrity and openness of the world’s financial system.”
Clinton and Geithner also wrote to Buzek about the matter,
according to the Parliament president.

I don't pretend to understand high finance (I have enough challenges managing my own low finances!).

However, I don't under how the above quote reconciles with the following excerpt from UBS' public financial results for the 4th quarter. It looks anything but finished.

"Fourth quarter 2009 profit of CHF 1,205 million

UBS reports a fourth quarter net profit attributable to UBS shareholders of CHF 1,205 million ....

Wealth Management & Swiss Bank's pre-tax profit was up 40% to CHF 1,109 million"
(from http://www.ubs.com/1/e/investors/rel...?newsId=174737).

I'll grant there is a huge difference between pre- and post-tax profits, but when one "doomed and dying" division's pre-tax profit is almost equal to the company's entire after-tax profit, I don't understand the claim that the division is doomed.


Also, from that same document, we have the following on the outflows (which admittedly is bad):

"Wealth Management & Swiss Bank – Outflows of net new money were CHF 33.2 billion in fourth quarter 2009 compared with CHF 16.7 billion in the prior quarter. Invested assets of CHF 22.8 billion were affected by the Italian tax amnesty, of which CHF 14.3 billion were retained within UBS."
2/3 of the outflow were due to the Italian amnesty and nearly (very loosely) 50% of the outflows were retained within UBS.

I wish my personal finances could do so badly!