Senator: Tax havens are ‘economic warfare’

Charging that the United States loses as much as $100 billion a year to “tax havens” like Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., today called on Congress to enact legislation that would make it easier to tax U.S. citizens who transfer assets to such shelters. A 114-page report was released today at a hearing held by the committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, the result of a six-month investigation into UBS AG of Zurich, Switzerland, and LGT Group, a private bank owned by the royal family of Liechtenstein and based in Vaduz. The report found that the two banks engaged in secretive schemes to enable their high-net-worth clients to escape U.S. taxes. “Tax havens are engaged in economic warfare against the United States and honest, hardworking American taxpayers,” Mr. Levin said at the hearing. A tape-recording of LGT employee Henrich Kieber was played at the hearing, in which Mr. Kieber described LGT practices designed to hide assets to avoid payment of U.S. taxes. Mr. Kieber now has a different name and is in a witness protection program after Liechtenstein issued a warrant for his arrest for divulging business secrets. Mark Branson, chief financial officer of UBS Global Wealth Management and Business Banking of Zurich, apologized for his company’s actions and pledged that UBS would no longer provide offshore banking or securities services to U.S. residents through its branches outside the United States.