DEBT FINANCING. USA tax statistics has 10 Swiss banks: report

Zurich (Reuters)-u.s. authorities now have statistical data on Switzerland ten banks being investigated by the United States to help customers evade taxes, from the U.S. to Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported on Saturday.
TagesAnzeiger, another Swiss newspaper, reported that the Swiss banks now had until 23 September to deliver customer-specific data.
Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), which is one of the banks under investigation, already had handed over at the beginning of the week, while nine other databases through an intermediary had delivered on Friday, said NZZ without citing all sources.
The newspaper also said the Swiss Government had given "abundance of rope" to do this.
Mario Tuor, spokesman for the Swiss Department for international financial affairs, refused to comment on the reports TagesAnzeiger, NZZ and but he said: "we are still going to a solution on the basis of existing legal standards in Switzerland".
At the end of Friday night, Reuters reported that the United States was drawing up legal documents, seeking to force nearly a dozen Swiss banks and Swiss branches with international banks to disclose the identity of clients tax evasion that Americans.
Also on Friday, the Swiss newspaper Blick said that Switzerland had given to the United States an estimate of the number of its citizens who used secret accounts to avoid paying taxes between 2002 and 2010.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy Rey said on Wednesday that Switzerland had given the U.S. statistical data on the extent of u.s. taxpayers, but had not delivered any data from the bank account.
Delivering statistical data is possible within the current law that protects Switzerland's banking secrecy.
Switzerland, a tax haven noted that is the world capital of offshore private banking, has been under attack from the United States Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service officials, conducting a criminal investigation in private banking services that u.s. authorities say enabled rich Americans evade billions of dollars in taxes.
The Justice Department served a target letter in July at Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest bank, notifying him that was the focus of a criminal investigation. US authorities are also probing HSBC (HSBA.L) and small private banks and the Swiss cantonal banks, including Basler Kantonalbank, Wegelin and Julius Baer (BAER.VX).
The Justice Department is trying to determine the total volume of undeclared accounts held in Swiss banks. Officials suspect that auditors hold assets in the tens of billions of dollars and possibly much more.
(Reports of Katie Reid; Edited by Toby Chopra)

Posted in: DEBT FINANCING. banks,report,statistics,Swiss