New York State’s top banking regulator is investigating whether Credit Suisse Group AG’s private banking practices resulted in the evasion of state taxes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
New York state Department of Financial Services superintendent Benjamin Lawsky sent the Zurich-based bank a demand for documents last month, said the person, who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential.
Lawsky also petitioned the US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for material gathered during that panel’s probe of Credit Suisse’s private banking and wealth management business, the person said.
On March 25, by unanimous consent, the Senate approved resolution No. 398 “to authorize the production of records by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.”
That resolution came in response to Lawsky’s petition, the person said.
Switzerland’s bank secrecy began to erode in February 2009, when the US charged UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, with helping US citizens cheat the nation’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS). UBS avoided prosecution by paying US$780 million, admitting it fostered tax evasion and handing over data on thousands of US accounts.
US federal prosecutors have been investigating Credit Suisse’s alleged role in helping US citizens cheat the IRS for three years. Last month, a former banker at a Credit Suisse unit pleaded guilty to helping US-based clients evade taxes, implicating his superiors.
Andreas Bachmann, 56, a Swiss citizen, entered his plea in US federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where he and six other Credit Suisse bankers were indicted in 2011 on a charge that they helped US clients hide US$4 billion in assets from the IRS.
Bachmann said superiors at his unit condoned violations of US law.
In February, the Senate subcommittee, headed by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, presented the findings of its investigation into offshore tax evasion, focusing on Credit Suisse’s private banking and wealth management business.
Chief executive Brady Dougan deflected blame for helping clients hide billions of dollars from the IRS toward a small group of employees during his testimony at the hearing.
The subcommittee said in its report that 1,800 Credit Suisse employees helped US-based clients open 22,000 accounts, most of which were hidden from US tax authorities. The report criticized the bank for failing to discipline senior executives and chastised the US Department of Justice for not using all of its legal tools and for failing to get the names of individual account holders.
The report said Credit Suisse used a branch office at Zurich airport as well as a remotely controlled elevator and other tactics to avoid detection.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last