UBS Told by U.S. Judge to Give IRS Data on Wegelin

A U.S. judge said the Internal Revenue Service can demand information from UBS about U.S. clients of Wegelin & Co., the Swiss bank that pleaded guilty this month to conspiring to help cheat the IRS.

Bloomberg reports that U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III signed an order in Manhattan federal court that authorized the IRS to serve a summons on UBS, the largest Swiss bank. The tax agency seeks records of Wegelin’s correspondent account at UBS, according to the January 25th order announced Monday.

Those records will allow U.S. authorities to determine who held assets at Wegelin and other Swiss institutions using the UBS account, according to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Wegelin admitted on January 3rd that it helped U.S. taxpayers hide more than $1.2bn in assets from the IRS.

'Today’s summons is the latest step in our efforts to identify and prosecute U.S. taxpayers who think they can evade their legal responsibility to pay taxes by secreting their money away in anonymous offshore accounts at Wegelin and other banks', Bharara said in a statement.

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UBS Told by U.S. Judge to Give IRS Data on Wegelin

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