The US Department of Justice has received 106 requests from Swiss entities to participate in a US settlement program aimed at ending a long-running probe of tax-dodging by US citizens using Swiss bank accounts, a senior US government official said on Saturday.
Speaking at a legal conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Justice Department Tax Division Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally said that not all the entities might be banks and would thus not be eligible.
Under the US program the government of Switzerland signed in August last year, eligible Swiss banks will have to pay penalties and disclose account information about US customers to avoid or defer US prosecution.
The program is open only to banks not already under US criminal investigation.
According to the program, Swiss banks had until the end of last year to submit a letter of intent to the Justice Department to begin the settlement process. A number of Swiss banks already said publicly last year that they are participating in the program.
“We do not expect 106 non-prosecution agreements or deferred prosecution agreements,” Keneally said. “With those caveats we’re still pretty gratified by the response that we’ve gotten to the program.”
Under the program’s penalty provisions, a Swiss bank seeking nonprosecution must agree to a penalty equal to 20 percent of the total dollar amount of all hidden US customer accounts held by the bank on Aug. 1, 2008.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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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
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