Swiss authorities will meet some of Washington’s demands to transmit information on accounts held by US citizens in the country, local media reported yesterday.
According to Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, Swiss State Secretary for International Affairs Michael Ambuehl was to transmit by yesterday evening information on the number of accounts and the total sum held by US citizens in Switzerland.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority surveyed a number of Swiss banks and determined that between US$20 billion and US$30 billion was held by “tens of thousands” of US customers, the newspaper said.
According to the weekly SonntagsZeitung, the US has asked for detailed information on US nationals who have hidden their money in Switzerland, basing its report on a letter from the US Deputy Attorney-General James Cole dated last Wednesday, addressed to Swiss authorities.
The letter mentioned Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, Credit Suisse Group AG, as well as about another 10 banks, notably Julius Baer Group AG, Wegelin & Co and the cantonal banks of Zurich and Basel, the Sunday paper said.
US authorities want all the data concerning private customers and US foundations which have deposited at least US$50,000 in Switzerland between the period of 2002 and July last year, it said.
Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said on Monday on Swiss television that she disagreed with the ultimatum.
“This is not how to deal with other states,” she said.
“We have suggested to the Americans how to solve ... the problem,” she said, adding that a solution would have to be based on existing fiscal agreements between the US and Switzerland or on recent agreements with Germany and the UK.
This latest request is not the first by US officials.
Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS AG was forced to disclose the names of 4,450 US clients for whom it had offered to conceal funds from the eyes of the US tax inspectors.
Widmer-Schlumpf added the use of emergency laws, as was the case for the UBS affair, was excluded.
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day