US tax authorities are probing Indian expatriates who may have hid money offshore in HSBC Bank to evade US taxes, the Justice Department said Thursday. In an expansion of its mounting offensive against overseas tax evasion, the Internal Revenue Service is seeking data on clients of two HSBC India offices in the United States The offices allegedly encouraged Indian nationals to open accounts back in their native land, telling them that they could hide the accounts and not pay US taxes on earnings from them, the department said in a statement.
The government has now asked a federal court in San Francisco for authorisation to ask HSBC Bank USA for information about those clients, "many of whom are believed by the government to have hidden their accounts from the IRS."