Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe
Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:53am EST

ZURICH, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country's biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.

The populist SVP, the country's biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.

Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement.

The SVP said gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of U.S. funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators.

The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.

The comments came after UBS agreed on Wednesday to pay a fine of $780 million and to disclose about 250 names of U.S. clients it said had committed tax fraud to settle U.S. criminal charges that it had helped rich Americans dodge taxes.

U.S. tax authorities said on Thursday they were still pursuing a civil case against UBS seeking access to thousands more names of U.S. citizens it says are hiding about $14.8 billion in assets in secret Swiss bank accounts. [ID:nN19534438]

The SVP also said it would call for an urgent debate in parliament on ways to protect Swiss banking secrecy from "further foreign blackmail". (Reporting by Emma Thomasson)

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSTHO15017420090221

About time these tax dodgers were caught, I still would love to see the list.

I bet a lot of wealty/famous people would be on that list..and some that would be surprising..

It will be interesting to see for sure, and then the squirming begins .

I have always found the Swiss puzzling, probably great to live there, i don't know history of the country that well, so i may be off track, but they as far as i know don't help in fighting wars, like to stop Hitler, and so forth, always knew the banks there were havens, with this , they do represent us in countries we don't have ambassadors in, i guess they put the money coming in over the ethics of a crime committed in the sending of the money from another country's, i hope heads roll .. sometimes it irks me when the wealth bitch on taxes like Clinton raising 35 percent to 39 on over 250,000 but this swiss thing sounds like probably more wealthy ppl, and the clinton tax will be allowed to come back as the change on it expires, in i forget a year or so. all i know is i watched the vote on it, when Clinton first had a majority in congress, it passed by one vote, the vice president broke the tie i believe, i remember senator dole,coming on after it saying it would destroy our economy, and be our down fall, well we all know money poured in and we had balanced budgets, of course i think we reduced the debt, but it may just have been a point in time of prosperity, but regardless were some good days , as i remember, but the Hillary acting in private on health care Clinton lost in the mid term elections, and lost all that time, in his stupidity in the Lewinsky thang, as i remember the economy was on the down turn as Clinton left office but not sure, the economy always goes through up times and down times, but this thing now was mistakes made by many things and partys, and im to lazy to google Switzerland lol,,

"...we had balanced budgets, of course i think we reduced the debt, but it may just have been a point in time of prosperity..." // Eggzackly and you iz a smart dude for recognizing that.