A U.S. court on March 4, 2013 sentenced Wegelin & Co, the oldest Swiss private bank, to pay an additional $58 million after it admitted to helping wealthy Americans evade taxes.The amount was in addition to the $16.3 million in forfeitures already obtained by authorities after the federal government accused Wegelin of conspiring to assist U.S. taxpayers hide $1.2 billion in secret Swiss bank accounts; bring it’s total combinedPenalty to $74.3 million.
The case marked the first time U.S. authorities had indicted a foreign bank and subsequently obtained a guilty plea and sentence for facilitating tax evasion.
The government previously obtained a $780 million settlement with UBS AG in 2009, and tax probes continue of other Swiss banks including Credit Suisse Group AG and Julius Baer.
Wegelin, which according to the indictment had $25 billion in assets at the end of 2010, said at the time of its guilty plea in January said it would close.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority required Wegelin to reserve 100 million Swiss francs ($107 million) to resolve the U.S. investigation, in order for them to approve its sale of assets.
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Source:
Read more at: Tax Times blog
