Remember how Romney would not release more than two years of his taxes? And how one of the theories wondering about his reticence might have been because he could actually have been a tax cheat in not reporting Swiss bank accounts?
He is not the only one who has been hiding money, and the US government has been continuing to put pressure on Swiss banks: In a new Swiss bill, good for one year only still protects the actual names.
But the new proposal, valid for a year only, would allow them to hand over so much information on customers' behavior that U.S. officials should be able to identify Americans who have used Swiss bank accounts to evade their taxes.
This may not catch any of the Romneys, who may have seen this coming, but it could catch a lot of other tax evaders. Here are some more details:
ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland aims to save its banks from heavier punishment in the United States for helping wealthy tax cheats by sidestepping its own famed secrecy laws to let bankers disclose data to U.S. prosecutors.
A government bill put to parliament on Wednesday would let Swiss banks hand over internal information to U.S. authorities in the hope of avoiding threatened criminal charges - though the banks still face fines likely to total billions of dollars.
Note that it is not a done deal; there's opposition in parliament.
Bankers welcomed the prospect of an exit from years of legal wrangling that has already cost them dear and driven one bank out of business but were disappointed ministers failed to win more clarity from Washington on what settlements they might now expect. Opposition in parliament could yet block the measure.
On the other hand, I don't think the opposition in the Swiss parliament is quite as backward as the opposition in the US Congress.
Perhaps that's how we balance the budget. Not by raising taxes. Simply by getting the rich to pay what they actually owe.
Do you think the US government would be putting this sort of pressure on the Swiss banking industry if Romney had won? Yeah, right.
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Tired of politics? Need to escape? Try one of my Greek mythology based novels, either the story of Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus or a trilogy about Niobe, whose children were murdered by the gods - or were they? or one of the first examples of civil disobedience, Antigone and Creon. Or, if you like mysteries and/or Jane Austen, treat yourself to
The Highbury Murders: A Mystery Set in the Village of Jane Austen’s Emma.