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WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today released the 2011 IRS Data Book, a snapshot of agency activities for fiscal year 2011 – Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011. During the year, the IRS collected $2.4 trillion and processed more than 234 million tax returns.

In addition to information on taxes collected and returns processed, the report also includes information about enforcement, taxpayer assistance, and the IRS budget and workforce, among others. 

e-File
Taxpayers e-filed more than 133 million business and individual income tax returns, including 77 percent of all individual income tax returns.

Refunds Issued
More than 119 million individual income tax returns, about 83 percent of all individual returns, resulted in refunds, totaling almost $338 billion.

Enforcement
The IRS examined 1.1 percent of all individual income tax returns and 1.5 percent of corporation income tax returns (excluding S corporation returns).

Taxpayer Assistance
The IRS provided taxpayer assistance through 319 million visits to IRS.gov and assisted nearly 83 million taxpayers through its toll-free telephone helpline or at walk-in sites.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bankers are on the defensive with their secretive industry under sustained attack for sheltering tax dodgers.

Zurich overtook Tokyo as most expensive according to a new ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit because of the soaring Swiss franc. The currency is up 30 percent since 2008, despite a cap imposed last year by the central bank, because investors view it as a safe haven in global economic turmoil.

The same factors make the country's banks attractive despite the gradual erosion of bank secrecy: political stability and neutrality, low government debt and an economy which has been relatively resilient through the financial crisis.

Although Swiss banks - especially the country's biggest UBS have shared in the pain of the crisis, they have retained an image for solidity, particularly in contrast to their euro zone rivals, bolstered by new capital rules that are the world's strictest.