More banks in Switzerland, including ZBK and Mirabaud, are turning away clients from the United States because of pressure from the U.S. authorities on UBS, Reuters announced.
Financial institutions have responded to the U.S. Government attitude towards UBS, which seeks to compel the bank to publish a list of hundreds of American clients suspected of defrauding the U.S. Government by opening accounts overseas.
Various media are reporting that ZKB intends to stop doing business with all customers who are domiciled in the United States by the end of this year. This decision affects less than 1% of assets held by ZKB.
Yves Mirabaud, executive director of the Swiss financial group, Mirabaud, said: “Now we try to renounce to some customers in the U.S. that we have.”
According to the newspaper “TagesAnzeiger”, HSBC bank wrote in September 2008 that more customers and managers must give up the banking secrecy of Swiss accounts held by them. HSBC is the third largest bank in Switzerland and manages approximately 200 billion francs.
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The US should back off with the bullying of the Swiss to comply with OUR tax laws We want them to release the names of the Americans with accounts in their banks.(laughable)Soon the Germans will start bullying the US into complying with THEIR tax laws and we will have to release the names of the Germans with accounts in our banks. (laughable?)
The USA is a big tax haven. Non resident aliens(foreigners) pay no taxes on interest earned in US banks. The EU countries could use our bullying of the Swiss as a precedent and demand that the US comply with EU tax laws and force the US into releasing the names of their citizens who hold accounts in our banks.(The US established the precedent, why shouldn’t we comply with our own precedent)
Then the EU citizens will pull all their money out of our banks (like the Americans are doing to the Swiss banks)and our banks will collapse AGAIN. this time there will be a GREAT DEPRESSION!
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