Swiss bank Banque Pictet admits hiding $5.6 billion of Americans' money from IRS

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC5-DFW/CNBC

Published 5 hours ago


A major Swiss bank admitted to conspiring with U.S. taxpayers and others to hide over $5.6 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice announced Monday. Banque Pictet, the private banking division of the 218-year-old Pictet Group, will pay about $122.9 million in restitution and penalties as part of an agreement with prosecutors.

Between 2008 and 2014, the bank had 1,637 accounts on behalf of American clients, who collectively evaded approximately $50.6 million in U.S. taxes, the DOJ said. The accounts held more than $5.6 billion of the roughly $20 billion in total assets from U.S. taxpayers that the bank managed during the relevant period.

If the bank complies with the terms of its deal, the Justice Department has agreed to defer prosecution for three years and then dismiss a charge of criminal conspiracy to defraud the IRS. As part of the deal, the bank also agreed to cooperate with ongoing investigations into hidden bank accounts.

"Rooting out financial malfeasance remains a priority for this Office," Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "We encourage companies and financial institutions to come to us to report wrongdoing before we come to you," he added.

Read more: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/money-report/swiss-bank-banque-pictet-admits-hiding-5-6-billion-of-americans-money-from-irs/3403106/

[TeamProg]

1. Sweet! No one is above the law, all laws. nt

[RussBLib]

5. I wonder

...if anyone named Trump was stashing money there? We really should get to learn the names of the tax cheaters so they can be shamed and charged.

[Ray Bruns]

17. No, you have to actually have money to hide it from the IRS.

Now excuse me, I have to make some overseas transactions.

[republianmushroom]

2. Do we now nail the 1,637 accounts with income tax evasion and those that have hidden bank accounts ?

That averages approx. $330,000 per account.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Here is an idea.

How about reporting the names of those evading taxes and the amounts?

[FakeNoose]

4. I hope the Sackler family is on that list, also Alex Jones too

For them it's not just tax avoidance, they're also hiding money that's been awarded to victims of their misdeeds.

[rubbersole]

6. Publishing their names would be like the Panama Papers.

Maybe some serious consequences this time. The wealthy don't worry about consequences.

[ancianita]

7. Here's the Justice Department's announcement. It's a deferred prosecution agreement.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Stuart M. Goldberg, the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Matters of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and Jim Lee, the Chief of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”), announced today the filing of criminal charges against Swiss Bank, BANQUE PICTET ET CIE SA (“BANQUE PICTET” or the “Bank”) for conspiring with U.S. taxpayers and others to hide more than $5.6 billion in 1,637 secret bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere and to conceal the income generated in those accounts from the IRS.

As part of today’s resolution, BANQUE PICTET entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (“DPA”) and agreed to pay approximately $122.9 million to the U.S. Treasury. Today’s resolution is one of a series of cases brought by the Department of Justice in connection with its investigations since 2008 into facilitation of offshore U.S. tax evasion by foreign banks. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos....

The $122.9 million BANQUE PICTET agreed to pay to the U.S. Treasury pursuant to the DPA consists of (i) $52,164,201 to the United States, which represents gross fees (not profits) that the bank earned on its undeclared accounts between 2008 and 2014; (ii) $31,844,192 in restitution to the IRS, which represents the unpaid taxes resulting from BANQUE PICTET’s participation in the conspiracy; and (iii) a $38,950,998 penalty. The penalty considers the nature and seriousness of the Pictet Group's conduct, the Bank’s extensive internal investigation, the Bank’s substantial provision of documents to the Justice Department, and the Bank’s facilitation of witness interviews. The Bank further implemented remedial measures to protect against the use of its services for future tax evasion.

In addition to the payment, BANQUE PICTET also agrees under the DPA to accept responsibility for its conduct by stipulating to the accuracy of an extensive Statements of Facts. BANQUE PICTET further agreed to refrain from all future criminal conduct, implement remedial measures and cooperate fully with further investigations into hidden bank accounts. Specifically, the Bank is required to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations and affirmatively disclose any information it may later uncover regarding U.S.-related accounts. The Bank is also required to disclose information consistent with the Justice Department’s Swiss Bank Program relating to accounts closed between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2022. The agreements provide no protection from criminal or civil prosecution for any individuals.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/swiss-private-bank-banque-pictet-admits-conspiring-us-taxpayers-hide-assets-and-income


They cooperated but in terms of restitution, they got off with a slap on the wrist.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Banks can hide anything

I still wonder where all the money in Reichsbank ended up. Or did they lend it to Hair Fuehrer?

[DFW]

12. A lot of it ended up in Stalin's hands

The Russians hauled off an immense quantity of gold from the Reichsbank. The old coins alone numbered in the tens, if not hundreds of millions of gold coins. The Soviet Union had five immense gold depots. Four were in European Russia. They were for bars and ingots, plus modern Soviet gold coins, such as the Chevronyetz restrikes if the 1970s (not the originals of 1923). The fifth depot, in the Urals, is where the old couns were stored. This includes what they carted off from the Reichbank, what was left from the czars, and what Stalin stole from the Spanish Republic in 1936, which was just about everything they had.

A rogue group of KGB guys saw the writing on the wall as the Soviet Union collapsed, and spirited the whole thing awsy, first to the UK, and then on to the USA. They were selling some of it into the world market starting around 1991. They told their main US distributor that his „children were already too old to see the end“ of the gold coins they had made off with. If you combine what Stalin took from Spain and Germany, I‘m not surprised. They stopped sales, at least temporarily about ten years ago. I guess the group of them already had more money than they knew what to do with. I know two ex-employees of that US distributor, and I saw tiny portions of the stash. It was mind-boggling. An official of the post-Soviet Russian state bank laid out for me all the info on the Russian end, even still had the name and phone number of the ex-KGB guy in San Francisco who was managing the hoard at the time.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. That amount of money - out of the banking system and off the books - could fund almost anything /nt

[DFW]

19. It was on the record, at least for a while.

The gold was imported legally into the UK and then into the USA. There is no import tax on gold, so there was no incentive to hide it. The European and US distributors who wholesaled out the coins all did it above board and on the books, all by check or wire. What the KGB guys did with the money, or where they ultimately parked it, I have no idea. If they were citizens of Russia (or Costa Rica by then), all they had to do was declare everything, and the US government would have had no problem. You are a non-resident citizen of a friendly country wanting to buy a few McMansions for a few hundred million? By all means! But this would have been in the multi billions, and who the hell knows what you do with that kind of cash if you can already buy everything you want?

[moonshinegnomie]

9. banks shouldnt get these defered prosecution or no contets deals

they committed a crime. dont just fine them, put them out of business. lock the top execs up

[JT45242]

10. Why defunding the government is a rethugs priority

So their white collar criminal overlords can crime away.

Shocking that a swiss bank is laundering money.

[3Hotdogs]

11. See? What'ja don't get is that society is made up of makers and takers. Makers make things happen and

provide jobs. Yeah, they get a lot of money but that money trickles down to you and me in the form of jobs for mowing their lawns, changing the oil on their Bentleys so's they do't blow up at toll booths and cleaning the cabins on their Lear jets.

Takers -- well they take government handouts that are taken from the makers and use it to buy Colt 45, Annie Greenspring, lottery tickets and stuff like that.

That is why the makers should pay no tax.

[LittleGirl]

13. As a resident

of Switzerland, this pisses me off to no end. You see, we have to report every fucking penny in our bank accounts to the IRS and every fucking penny we earn (nothing like these billionaires). They will audit our ass so fast that we cannot and do not live here comfortably. It's the most expensive place to live and it costs more to live here than SF CA. These cheats make it hard for us little middle class Americans that live here. When we tried to open a bank account (employer transfer) they freaking locked our accounts for 3 weeks before the US IRS could verify who we were and we had to use credit cards for months to get over this locking down of our accounts. There was nothing we could do and we had to borrow money from family in order to pay our apartment deposit (which was 3 months rent)! I'm so mad reading this shit. This is why we can't have nice things. (shakes fist).

Thanks for sharing.

[live love laugh]

14. $50m on $5b? Sounds like .... 10%?? Very low

[cotdom]

18. 1 percent

50 million is 1% of 5 billion. So in between being discovered, and the fine being paid, there is quite a profit in just the growth... The fine is never a punishment in these situations. They are just cost of doing business.

[live love laugh]

20. It literally pays to break the law. Republicanism in a nutshell.

[John Shaft]

15. So who is going to jail for this?

*crickets*