The Swiss have proposed new banking rules in an attempt to improve relations with their neighbours by making it harder for other Europeans to hide money from the tax collector back home.
While the proposal should preserve Switzerland’s prized banking secrecy, it is likely to accelerate a shift away from banks relying on undeclared assets. That, analysts say, could result in more consolidation and downsizing among the private banks.
“This will be a huge change for the Swiss market,” said Andrio Orler, a partner and tax specialist at the law firm Tavernier Tschanz in Geneva. “It’s an attempt to retain banking secrecy while coming in line with international standards and responding to pressure from the West.”
Switzerland aims to sign new treaties by the summer with Germany and Britain under which their citizens would pay taxes on more of their undeclared assets in Swiss banks. France and Italy are expected to follow suit.
Such deals would go beyond an accord reached with the European Union, which took effect in July 2005. That agreement was meant to resolve an issue that has long been problematic — Europeans placing their money in Switzerland to avoid taxes. But in reality, the scope was limited and, according to experts, numerous loopholes existed.
For the German and British governments, there now appears to be a basic calculation: better to have a predictable stream of tax revenue — exactly how much remains unclear — than a string of slow-moving lawsuits.
Estimates in Switzerland suggest Berlin might reap about ¤50 billion, or $71.4 billion, in the first year. For London, the figure would be lower, but nonetheless welcome for a government wrestling with a budget deficit.
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The Swiss are seeking to avoid repetitions of the legal action that led to UBS, the country’s largest bank, paying a $780 million fine in 2009 for helping Americans evade taxes. Swiss officials also say they hope to end the practice, more common in recent years, of Swiss bank employees’ selling stolen client lists to foreign governments, as well as the threat of more Swiss bank employees being arrested while abroad.
Mario Tuor, a Swiss government spokesman for international financial affairs, said the issue of undeclared money should be settled by June and that the Swiss expected to win improved market access in Germany and Britain for their companies.
Much is at stake for the Swiss economy. According to the Swiss Bankers Association, the financial sector generates about 11 per cent of gross domestic output and provides about 200,000 jobs.
The British treasury declined to comment, except to say that the talks were “ongoing and are positive.” A spokesman for the German finance ministry said that Berlin hoped to reach an agreement by the summer.
Under the proposal, nonresident Germans and Britons with Swiss bank accounts would pay a flat, one-time tax, expected to be around 20 per cent, on retained income, including dividend and coupon payments, interest rate income and capital gains from assets held in Switzerland. Details like how retroactive a charge would be and how assets will be valued remain to be seen.
Subsequently, a flat-rate withholding tax, also based on capital gains and income, would be levied each year. It would be deducted by the bank, transferred to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, and once a year passed to the tax authorities of the clients’ home countries.
Once it has been paid, the individual’s tax obligation toward the home country would have been fulfilled and client anonymity preserved.
In 2009, the Swiss brokerage firm Helvea gave an estimate of 725.8 billion Swiss francs, or about $808.5 billion today, in undeclared European Union assets, about 84 per cent of all European assets held in the country. Germany had the most, followed by Italy, France and Britain. The shift will bring further change to the smaller private banks that have traditionally served as niche fund managers to global elites, who often want to keep their financial affairs secret. As the size of the undeclared funds that they manage ebbs, these banks will have to fight in the increasingly tough wealth management market on the basis of fiscally transparent services.
©2011 The New York
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