Switzerland has not delivered any further data on possible tax cheats to the United States, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said on Wednesday, as the government resists pressure to bend its banking secrecy laws again.
Newspapers reported on Sunday the United States had set a Tuesday ultimatum for Credit Suisse and nine other banks to hand over information on US tax evaders using Swiss accounts or face charges. The Tagesanzeiger newspaper said Switzerland would provide an estimate of the amount of assets held by US residents in secret accounts at Swiss banks by Tuesday's deadline.
Micheline Calmy-Rey echoed comments made by Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schumpf on Monday, saying Switzerland had not yielded to US demands. "No bank client data has been transferred to the United States. Switzerland will not give any other details on the ongoing negotiations," Calmy-Rey said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Switzerland has so far resisted reverting to emergency legislation as it did to settle a US investigation against UBS when it bent bank secrecy laws to reveal the details of some 4,450 UBS clients so that UBS would avoid criminal charges. The government is keen to find a solution that would not need approval from parliament, which only reluctantly agreed to the UBS treaty under emergency law last year.
Last month Switzerland tried to kick-start talks to settle its impasse with US authorities, offering to hand over data on groups of clients under a pending new bilateral tax treaty. The United States appears to be pushing for more information than currently allowed under Swiss law, seeking details of all US clients with accounts worth at least $50,000 between 2002 and 2010 at banks including Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and Wegelin as well as the Zurich and Basel cantonal banks.
Joerg Mueller-Ganz, chairman of the Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB), however, rejected claims it is being investigated by the US Justice Department. The United States has ratcheted up pressure on Switzerland in recent months, targeting Credit Suisse in a formal investigation and indicting a number of Swiss bankers, alleging they helped former UBS clients shift assets to other Swiss banks rather than coming clean to the taxman.
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