Rahn+Bodmer, Zurich’s oldest private bank, admits to helping U.S. taxpayers hide offshore accounts from IRS...

The Deferred Prosecution Agreement is absolutely savage but then again not at all unexpected- to those who said I was wrong about Credit Suisse -your apology is not accepted

Mar 12, 2021

Rahn+Bodmer (R+B) 1Enters into Deferred Prosecution Agreement for Criminal Misconduct; Agrees to Pay $22 Million. R+B admits to its unlawful conduct in assisting U.S. accountholders in violating their legal duties. R+B’s admissions are contained in a detailed Statement of Facts attached to the Agreement2. Nearly eight years.

From at least in or about 2004 and continuing until at least in or about 2012, R+B conspired with certain of its U.S. accountholders and others to defraud the United States with respect to taxes, file false federal tax returns, and commit tax evasion.
requires R+B to provide ongoing assistance to the Department of Justice and to pay a total of $22 million in restitution, forfeiture, and penalties
opened “numbered” or “pseudonym” accounts for U.S. accountholders in order to reduce the risk that U.S. tax authorities would learn their identities.
opened and maintained accounts for U.S. accountholders in the names of non-U.S. corporations, foundations, trusts, or other legal entities, thereby helping U.S. taxpayers conceal their beneficial ownership of the accounts.
…hold bank statements and other account-related mail in Switzerland, rather than send them to the U.S. accountholders in the United States, which helped ensure that documents reflecting the existence of the accounts remained outside the United States and beyond the reach of U.S. tax authorities.
Liechtenstein and the United States signed a Tax Information Exchange Treaty in December 20083

HOLY SHITTLESTIX - 340 US TAXPAYERS

R+B admitted to holding undeclared accounts on behalf of approximately 340 U.S. taxpayers, who collectively evaded approximately $16.4 million in U.S. taxes between in or about 2004 and in or about 2012.
assets under management that R+B held for undeclared U.S. accountholders increased from approximately $391 million in 2004 to approximately $550 million in 2007, its peak year for undeclared assets under management.
R+B transferred the undeclared assets of certain U.S. taxpayers from accounts held in the names of sham foundations organized under the laws of Liechtenstein to new accounts held in the names of new sham foundations organized under the laws of Panama, in an effort to further conceal the accounts from U.S. tax authorities. (via a complex web of both shell and shelf companies)
R+B allowed U.S. accountholders and third-party asset managers to make withdrawals by check from undeclared accounts in amounts of less than $10,000, in an apparent attempt to conceal transactions from U.S. authorities. (FTR this is called stacking)
R+B opened accounts for U.S. taxpayers who were exiting UBS AG and other Swiss banks, and allowed these U.S. taxpayers to continue to conceal their undeclared assets at R+B. R+B additionally opened “escrow” accounts on behalf of a Swiss attorney to facilitate the transfer of undeclared assets of U.S. accountholders that had been converted to gold and other precious metals held in a vault at UBS. (FBAR say what?)
R+B helped U.S. accountholders to repatriate funds to the United States in a manner designed to ensure that U.S. tax authorities did not discover the undeclared accounts, including by transferring the funds of one U.S. accountholder in increments of approximately $100,000 to another Swiss bank before the U.S. accountholder routed the funds to a diamond dealer in Manhattan, where the U.S. accountholder ultimately received them.
R+B, through its bankers, made regular visits to the United States to solicit, open, and service undeclared accounts of U.S taxpayers.

Penalty aggregated into three parts:

Amazingly the DOJ agreed to couple the forfeiture amount and restitution and afforded a 55% discount for “cooperation” - total penalty R+B will pay a total of $22 million.

pay $4.9 million in restitution to the IRS, which represents the estimated unpaid taxes resulting from R+B’s participation in the conspiracy.
forfeit $9.7 million to the United States, which represents the approximate gross fees that R+B earned on its undeclared U.S.-related accounts between 2004 and 2012.
R+B has agreed to pay a penalty of $7.4 million.

The penalty takes into consideration that R+B conducted a thorough internal investigation and provided the DOJ with a large volume documents as part of the ongoing investigation.

Continuing Cooperation

While most of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement is pretty much standard - subsection (c) caught my attention, which reads in part - specifically the date range of closed accounts:

“…provide, as soon as practicable, transaction information called for by Part II.D.2.b.vi of the Swiss Bank Program, to include accounts closed in the period from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2019, in the format requested by the Department in the Swiss Bank Program…”

Good lord …the ongoing cooperation clause is freaking brutal …I do think it’s interesting the “non-target letters” and the disclosure of account closures Jan 2009 to Dec 2019 - given the dates of the criminal conduct appear to be 2012 - this is pure speculation on my end but I’d hazard a guess that the 20!2 to 2019 gives prosecutors a little bit more time on the stature of limitations clock - for (hypothetically speaking) the 340 freaking tax evading FBAR non disclosure Americans. But hey that’s just an educated guess

Oh did you overlook this tiny fact-nugget? Yes in general I have zero sympathy for tax evaders. And I can not stand purported “patriots” who haven’t filed a freaking federal tax return since 2015. But that’s a discussion for another day

“….assets under management that R+B held for undeclared U.S. accountholders increased from approximately $391 million in 2004 to approximately $550 million in 2007, its peak year for undeclared assets under management”

A message from Christine from the Internal Revenue Service -

Pay your taxes or the IRS will come knocking and certainly if you’ve gone five plus years and not filed taxes but you’re still raking in money -sooner or later the will want to collect the money you owe them.

I mean the notion that super wealthy get special treatment- well duh of course they do I told you that weird Liechtenstein foundation was super interesting July and Oct 2020, here here or here - meh most of the research is gone…and only tiny fragments remain online but yes I am actually proud about calling this correct in July and October of 2020, respectively- so chew on that…

“The more you know snort” -Filey

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