Banks, Taxes | featured news

Luxembourg says it will exchange information with the rest of Europe to help fight tax evasion. The initiative, which is to start in 2015, follows international pressure on Luxembourg to end its policy of banking secrecy that critics say has helped people hide money from tax authorities. Luxembourg, a tiny country of half a million people, boasts a huge financial industry with more than 3 trillion euros ($4 trillion) in assets.

For decades, Switzerland was the place where money went to hide. Cash sent to its mountain aeries was protected by some of the strictest secrecy laws in the world.

A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

President Obama’s proposal for a direct tax on banks to pay for future bailouts is gaining momentum in Europe.

OECD confirms the country will go off their grey list following the signing of a 12th agreement on Thursday.

Negotiators initial settlement that averts legal showdown over U.S. government's landmark challenge to Swiss bank secrecy, lawyer says.

U.S. has been seeking data on depositors suspected of using UBS bank accounts to hide cash from IRS.

The government said it would seize the bank’s client data, which U.S. authorities have demanded to settle a tax case.

Swiss bank UBS AG "systematically and deliberately" violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

Banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $780 million and turn over once-secret Swiss banking records to settle allegations it conspired to defraud the U.S. government of taxes owed by thousands of American clients.