避税天堂瑞士遭围剿，海外逃税者何去何从

    威廉•夏普是在苏黎世、旧金山和佛罗里达州坦帕执业的税务律师。他说，瑞士和美国的这项协议“将迫使瑞士银行要求行为不当的美国客户要么主动披露，要么自己走人，而后者可能会把资金转移到其他避税天堂，比如新加坡或库克群岛。”

    如果拥有或控制的外国银行账户中的资金达到或超过1万美元（6.17万元人民币），美国纳税人就必须在今年6月30日前提交名为《海外银行和金融账户报告》（Fbars）的特别披露报表（以美国财政部收到报表的时间为准，而不是邮戳日期）。到去年为止，这些纳税人还得提交一份新的海外金融资产报表，称为form 8938。如果未能提交Fbars，纳税人就可能面临罚款，数额是其银行账户实际资金的数倍。

    2007年，美国司法部首次将针对瑞士最大银行瑞银集团（UBS）的重大犯罪调查扩展到瑞士其他银行。此后，已经有大约3.8万名持有保密账户的美国纳税人主动进行了披露，并缴纳了逾55亿美元（339.35亿元人民币）的税款、罚金和利息。

    但美国政府暗自估算，仍有许多美国纳税人在瑞士、卢森堡、开曼群岛和新加坡等海外避税天堂拥有未经披露的账户。

    一位资深美国消息人士在简要介绍情况时表示，在纳税人向美国国税局进行申报方面，“可以认为有15%或20%的纳税人还没有这样做。”

    美国财政部反洗钱机构金融犯罪执法局（FinCen）提供的数据显示，到2011年底，披露海外账户信息的美国纳税人数量已增至618,134人，和2006年美国开始调查瑞士私人银行时相比翻了一番还多。不过，美国政府官员和税务律师表示，在国外生活和工作的美国人可能有600万，因此还有数十万美国纳税人尚未坦白交代，而且这个数字只会增加，不会减少。

    瑞士和美国达成协议后，税务律师的电话已经被持有瑞士银行账户的美国人打爆。

    卡茨博格说：“现在还看不清形势，还没有紧迫感、不打算立即披露账户信息的美国纳税人简直就是法盲。”（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie  

    William Sharp, a tax lawyer in Zurich, San Francisco and Tampa, Fla., said that the deal "will force the Swiss banks to mandate errant American customers to undergo voluntary disclosure or walk the "exit" plank" and potentially move funds to other offshore havens like Singapore or the Cook Islands.

    Americans owning or controlling foreign bank accounts holding at least $10,000 had until June 30 this year to file special disclosures known as Fbars, or reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. (Post-marking the forms June 30 doesn't count -- the Treasury must receive them by that date). As of last year, taxpayers also had to file a new, similar disclosure, known as form 8938. Failure to file Fbars can result in penalties equal to a multiple of what a taxpayer actually has in his bank account.

    Since 2007, when the Justice Department first broadened its seminal criminal investigation of UBS AG (UBS), Switzerland's largest bank, to cover other Swiss banks, some 38,000 American taxpayers with hidden accounts have come forward to fess up and fork over $5.5 billion in taxes, fines, and interest.

    But American officials quietly estimate that scores of American taxpayers still have undisclosed accounts, in Switzerland and in other offshore havens such as Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore.

    Of the IRS disclosures, "you can imagine that's maybe 20% or 15% of the total out there," said a senior American source briefed on the matter.

    From 2006, when scrutiny of Swiss private banks first began, through 2011, the number of American taxpayers disclosing offshore accounts more than doubled, to 618,134, according to data from FinCen, the U.S. Treasury branch that deals with money laundering. Still, government officials and tax lawyers say that with perhaps six million Americans living and working overseas somewhere in the world, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, if not more, have yet to come clean.

    The deal is already leaving telephones of tax lawyers ringing off the hooks from Americans with Swiss accounts.

    "Any non-compliant U.S. taxpayer who can't read the handwriting now on the wall as an emergency signal to come forward," said Katzberg, "is legally blind."