Swiss Banks Start to Come Clean

According to the New York Times editorial, Switzerland Starts to Come Clean, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) forgoes about $100 billion a year in uncollected taxes from businesses and wealthy individuals that keep their money in offshore secretive accounts. This is a crime! It has also proved notoriously difficult to stop because of the bank secrecy statutes in tax havens around the world.

Recently the Swiss Parliament’s approval of a deal to give the I.R.S. the names on 4,450 American accounts at UBS is believed to be an important victory. And with international tolerance for this grubby business running out, other tax havens are taking a hard look at their policies.