Is the Obama administration's request for Swiss Bank UBS to turn over US customers to the IRS unconstitutional? Does he Care?
PartysOver
2010/02/01 23:33:14
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President Obama has been traveling the world to "reset" diplomatic relations with the likes of Russia and Iran. But his Administration continues to do what it can to blow up America's long and amicable relationship with Switzerland.
In a federal court in Florida, the IRS and Justice Department are seeking to compel the Swiss bank UBS to hand over the names of 52,000 U.S. taxpayers with private-banking accounts in Switzerland. According to an affidavit filed with the court by the Swiss tax authorities, the summons "does not identify any facts that could be construed as constituting tax fraud or the like, but rather makes a broad demand for the identity of all U.S. taxpayers for which certain forms have not been filed."
This sort of fishing expedition expressly violates the U.S.-Swiss treaty on sharing tax information. The original treaty dates back 30 years, and under the pact the Swiss regularly provide the IRS with information on specific cases. But what the IRS is attempting here is a mass search of U.S. taxpayers merely for banking in Switzerland.
Apart from the diplomatic ramifications, the government's request for so broad a swath of information could well run afoul of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search. The Obama Administration should use the court reprieve to rethink the whole case.
Printed in the Wall Street Journal.
Never before have I seen a President who is supposed to be a Constitutional Scholar disregard as much of the constitutional provisions in my lifetime.
In a federal court in Florida, the IRS and Justice Department are seeking to compel the Swiss bank UBS to hand over the names of 52,000 U.S. taxpayers with private-banking accounts in Switzerland. According to an affidavit filed with the court by the Swiss tax authorities, the summons "does not identify any facts that could be construed as constituting tax fraud or the like, but rather makes a broad demand for the identity of all U.S. taxpayers for which certain forms have not been filed."
This sort of fishing expedition expressly violates the U.S.-Swiss treaty on sharing tax information. The original treaty dates back 30 years, and under the pact the Swiss regularly provide the IRS with information on specific cases. But what the IRS is attempting here is a mass search of U.S. taxpayers merely for banking in Switzerland.
Apart from the diplomatic ramifications, the government's request for so broad a swath of information could well run afoul of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search. The Obama Administration should use the court reprieve to rethink the whole case.
Printed in the Wall Street Journal.
Never before have I seen a President who is supposed to be a Constitutional Scholar disregard as much of the constitutional provisions in my lifetime.
Read More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753176561835971...
Top Opinion
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All of the above
+8Constitutional scholar my Pataki! Obama couldn't amount to a pimple on a first-day assistant lecturer's butt. Bottom line, people: You have elected a communist as POTUS and WE told you you were about to do it. Now what the hell are you going to do to remedy the situation?
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Just like his buddies...You are what you do...not what you say!
That's quite a selection of voting options...
In reality, the Obama administration's request for Swiss Bank UBS to turn over US customers to the IRS is not unconstitutional, as the US Bill of Rights does not apply to foreign countries. The issue is that Swiss law disallows banks to violate customer privacy. Thus, UBS is required to decline this request for the reason of Swiss statute.
Stu
Correct, but it is US law applicable to US citizens only, and only with respect to search venues within the US.
Stu
This article is old, yet still quite interesting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com...
Switzerland agreed to the consent agreement with the IRS that relieves a Swiss national of the legal penalties for revealing the banking information of US citizens when the requesting agency shows that there is, or could be, sufficient grounds to believe that the US citizen is violating US law which prohibits US citizens from hiding their assets from the US government.
There are ways to secure one's assets, but the Swiss blabbermouth system is not it.
Recall that the IRS and the US Department of Justice are administrative agencies (under The Obama, chief executive of the Administrative Branch) of the US Federal government and their internal rulings are not subject to judicial review by the US courts.
DoJ rewords the demand notice and presto-change-o the records are produced.
You can now get Swiss records in a divorce case on the order of a State Judge.
So much for Swiss secrecy.
Swiss bank accounts cannot be opened without the holder signing a legal document asserting that they have no outstanding financial obligations to the IRS. Despite this, Swiss banks have been criticized for improperly shielding individuals practicing tax evasion. Because only tax fraud (actively lying to authorities) is a crime in Switzerland, while tax evasion (passively neglecting to report income) is not, it is believed that many tax evaders have been able to take advantage of the Swiss privacy provisions.
In January 2003, the United States Department of Treasury announced a new information-sharing agreement under the already extant U.S.-Swiss Income Tax Convention; the agreement was intended to facilitate more effective tax information exchange between the two countries. However, Swiss policy has continued to come under international criticism, and in March 2009 Switzerland agreed to renegotiate more effective tax cooperation with the United States and other countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The "uber-rich" have enough money to hire people who are smart enough to keep them from getting caught in this sort of issue.
Bush thought he would use the "Nazi" gold scam to force the Swiss into opening their records, instead they agreed to a new information-sharing agreement under the U.S.-Swiss Income Tax Convention that was already in existence.
Read the article from a lawyers point of view and you will realize that the issue here is the same one that happened in Ireland.
The DoJ just needs to get the wording right.
under the new agreements dated June 25, 2009
http://www.abajournal.com/new...
This is a story from Feb 18, 2009. Kennedy was was were they started to go after the Swiss bank records of US citizens.
http://abcnews.go.com/Busines...
here is a story from 1987 regarding the release of Swiss records:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/d...
Swiss law prohibits a Swiss banker form revealing the account information except in the case of crimes. Recall that everybody was happy when the Swiss banks got their chops busted over "Nazi" bank accounts and the accounts of "Zionist Jews" from WWII a few years ago. That was the first step in squeezing Switzerland into opening their records to the IRS.
Big Brother may not be watching you, but you can take it to your foreign bank that the IRS is.
The Swiss don't see the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. In the US tax avoidance is legal and tax evasion is illegal.
The question that will be addressed is the jurisdiction that has precedence in the case of actions that are a crime in the persons country of origin but not a crime in Switzerland.