Tax evasion

Indonesia and Switzerland have signed a joint declaration on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI) yesterday. The signing was held at the Directorate General of Tax in Central Jakarta.

At the signing ceremony, Indonesia was represented by Director General of Tax for the Finance Ministry Ken Dwijugeasteadi and Switzerland was represented by its Ambassador to Indonesia Yvonne Bauman. The signing was witnessed by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

Wealthy people are dodging even more tax than previously thought, according to new research.

Economist Gabriel Zucman and his co-authors Annette Alstadsaeter and Niels Johannesen, from the University of Copenhagen and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, matched the identities in both caches to tax records in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Their goal was “to correct global inequality statistics, so as to better capture the very rich.”

The Italian Tax Agency Revenue compiled a list of possible tax evaders. After 750 Italian papers identified in Panama, there’s other special surveillance: 3,500 Credit Suisse clients who signed life insurance policies (known as polizza mantello in italian) and numbered bank accounts.

Rossella Orlandi, Director of the Agency, has announced on Thursday to send very soon to Swtizerland collective requests for taxpayers who didn’t seize the opportunity offered by the first voluntary disclosure and didn’t comply with the tax authorities.

India has approached Switzerland for banking details of at least ten persons and entities suspected to have kept untaxed money in Swiss banks. These include two listed textile companies, while others are associated with an art curator and his carpet export business.
There are also some companies incorporated in tax havens like Panama and British Virgin Islands. Most of the companies and individuals are associated with a carpet export business and an art curator with operations across several countries.

Credit Suisse extended its global charm offensive on Monday insisting it has "zero tolerance" for tax evasion after hundreds of its clients and top employees became the target of an international fraud probe.

The Zurich-based bank took out multiple adverts in British newspapers over the weekend as part of a damage-limitation effort after law enforcement agencies descended on three of its European offices Friday in a coordinated raid related to a tax evasion and money laundering probe.

"Credit Suisse applies a strict zero tolerance policy and wishes to conduct business with clients that have paid their taxes and fully declared their assets," Monday’s ad said. The bank complies "with all applicable laws" in areas where it operates, it added.

Credit Suisse, surprised by a five-country tax evasion and money laundering investigation, said it has a “zero tolerance policy” on tax evasion in advertisements taken out in the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Observer, U.K. newspapers on Sunday.

The Swiss bank’s two-page ads, which included seven bullet points in response to the probes disclosed last week, also said a 2011 internal compliance review caused it to terminate relationships with clients who didn’t prove they paid their taxes.

“This led to very significant asset outflows as we do not want to do business with clients who are unwilling to provide the required evidence,” said the ads. “Credit Suisse applies a strict zero tolerance policy on tax evasion.”

Australia has identified more than 340 individuals with links to Swiss banking relationship managers alleged to have actively promoted and facilitated tax evasion schemes, a federal minister said on Friday.

The Serious Financial Crime Taskforce said the joint investigation had identified 346 nationals with links to Swiss banking relationship managers alleged to have promoted and facilitated tax evasion schemes.

Authorities in the Netherlands said the probe related to as many as 55,000 suspect accounts held at a Swiss bank, which officials refused to identify however Credit Suisse later released a statement to confirm its involvement in the investigation.

The statement did not identify the bank but Credit Suisse’s London, Paris and Amsterdam offices were contacted by local authorities over client tax matters, the Zurich-based banks confirmed on Friday, after Dutch prosecutors said they had seized assets and arrested two people in an international hunt for tax evaders, as Financial Times reported in the morning. Credit Suisse spokeswoman Anna Sexton declined to comment further.