Switzerland Tax Evasion Cooperation - The Swiss government said Friday, March 13, it would cooperate on cases of international tax evasion, breaking with a long-standing tradition of protecting wealthy foreigners accused of hiding billions of dollars in the Alpine nation.

The government insisted it would hold onto its cherished banking secrecy rules, but said other countries could now expect Swiss cooperation in cases where they provide compelling evidence of tax evasion.

Switzerland passed its banking secrecy laws in 1934 during a worldwide depression and under the threat of espionage by France and Nazi Germany, which aggressively courted Swiss bank employees to divulge the names and data of customers. Strict penalties were imposed for violating bank confidentiality.

“We want assistance to be restricted to individual cases to prevent fishing expeditions,” President Hans-Rudolf Merz told a news conference, referring to the practice of seeking information about many individuals in the hope of discovering a few tax evaders.

A number of countries are hoping to avoid being blacklisted by world powers when they meet in April to discuss stepping up their fight against tax cheats. Austria and Luxembourg also said Friday they would step up cooperation on tax probes. But the greatest pressure has been on Switzerland, which is embroiled in a dispute with the United States over wealthy Americans that have stashed money in its biggest bank, UBS AG.

Swiss authorities have provided the U.S. with the bank details of up to 300 wealthy Americans suspected of tax fraud, but refuse to identify about 50,000 more U.S. account holders Washington wants.

The bank, and the government, have said further cooperation would violate Swiss law, which makes an unclear distinction between the serious crime of tax fraud and the minor offense of tax evasion.

“Banking secrecy does not protect tax crimes,” Merz said. The change, he added, “will increase the acceptance of the (Swiss) financial center and give customers greater confidence” and safeguard jobs in a sector that employs tens of thousands of people in Switzerland.

He said, however, that Switzerland will maintain banking confidentiality for clients unless foreign governments produce concrete evidence of tax evasion. Switzerland’s new cooperation will come into force after agreements with other governments that provide Swiss banks with new financial opportunities, he added.

Switzerland Tax Evasion Cooperation - Switzerland has been struggling to come up with a strategy for preserving banking secrecy while satisfying the demands of the United States, France, Germany and other foreign governments looking to crack down on tax evaders. The confidentiality of bank accounts is a sacred cow in the country, comparable to its long-standing neutrality, and has helped the country become one of the world’s richest.

The Swiss government also said Friday it would take part in a U.S. civil case against UBS, which is being accused of facilitating massive tax evasion by wealthy Americans. The Swiss will protect their “sovereign interests,” according to a statement.

The UBS case represents the most serious crisis in the Swiss banking community since the uproar in the 1990s over Jewish accounts left unclaimed after World War II. After reacting slowly, Swiss banks eventually agreed on a $1.25 billion out-of-court settlement with the descendants of Holocaust survivors.

UBS is the world’s largest private bank and Switzerland is the world’s largest offshore tax haven, with trillions of dollars in assets.

Tax evasion is not considered a crime in Switzerland. However, disclosing client names is a criminal offense under Swiss law and can expose bank executives and officers to fines, prison terms and other penalties.

The lawsuit accuses UBS and Switzerland’s financial regulator, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or Finma, of violating Swiss bank secrecy laws and of conducting what Swiss law considers illegal activities with foreign authorities. It also named Peter Kurer, the chairman of UBS, and Eugen Haltiner, the chairman of Finma, as defendants.

The suit stems from UBS’s agreement last week to turn over to U.S. authorities the names of 250 wealthy Americans suspected of using secret UBS offshore accounts and entities to evade taxes. See our previuus article…UBS Admits Tax Evasion Scheme

The suit, filed by a lawyer in Zurich, Andreas Rued, underscores the growing clash between Swiss banking secrecy laws and those of the United States. Mr. Rued could not be reached for comment.

Pictures from Switzerland - Discover Switzerland through this collection of beautiful pictures.

Click on Pictures from Switzerland to view more pictures of beautiful Switzerland…

Hans Erni Turns 100 - Hans Erni, the Swiss Abstract Painter, designer and sculptor was born on February 21, 1909.

Hans Erni was born in Lucerne in 1909 and studied at the École des Arts et Métiers and then at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1928-1929.

Before the second World War Hans Erni formed artistic friendships with Picasso and Braque who are considered to have influenced his work.

Erni is a master of various kinds of printmaking, including etching and lithography. He is particularly known for illustrating postage stamps, activism, lithographs for the Swiss Red Cross, and participation on the Olympic Committee. Hans Erni has a museum dedicated to his works in Lucerne, the city he calls home.

Hans Erni Turns 100 - A look back on the work of Swiss artist Hans Erni…

The series, directed by leading Swiss filmmakers, profiles 25 outstanding researchers from a wide range of disciplines. We find out which projects top researchers are working on and what scientists are pondering in the 21st century.

The series was produced by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) in collaboration with the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Episode 10 The Quest for Other Worlds… (SNSF).

Episode 10 The Quest for Other Worlds - In 1995, two Swiss astrophysicists at Geneva University made a discovery that was to revolutionise modern astronomy. Michel Mayor, Professor of Astrophysics, and doctoral student Didier Queloz, observed the first planet outside our solar system, revolving around a star 42 light years away from earth. Twelve years later, they discovered Gliese581 c, a large terrestrial extra solar planet orbiting the red dwarf star, Gliese 581. They’re now trying to find out whether the potentially Earth-like planet is habitable.

Click on The Quest for Other Worlds to watch the video.

This year’s Zürich Carnival or Fasnacht is from Friday, 27 February - Sunday, 1 March.

The city centre comes alive as the people of Zurich dress up and jump on floats to show off their fabulous and ridiculous costumes for the annual Zurich Carnival. The carnival celebrations and masked balls culminate in a grand and spectacular street parade on Sunday afternoon.

UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, agreed on Wednesday to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also reached an agreement to resolve claims that UBS acted as an unregistered broker-dealer and investment adviser to U.S. citizens who held accounts directly or in the names of others.

The US Justice Department announced late Wednesday:

“UBS admitted to conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the IRS,”

“in an unprecedented move” based on an order by Swiss authorities has agreed “to immediately provide the U.S. government with the identities of, and account information for, certain U.S. customers of UBS’s cross-border business”.

The Justice Department had accused UBS of conspiring to defraud the U.S. by helping 17,000 Americans hide accounts from the Internal Revenue Service. UBS will immediately turn over names of about 250 clients, according to people familiar with the matter.

By gaining those names, the U.S. will pierce the veil of Swiss bank secrecy. The IRS, which has sought the names of all U.S. account holders since July, has met resistance from the Swiss government. The final number of account holders which UBS must disclose will hinge on future legal battles, according to the agreement.

UBS Chairman Peter Kurer, 59, said in a statement after the accord was unsealed yesterday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

“UBS sincerely regrets the compliance failures,”

“Client confidentiality, to which UBS remains committed, was never designed to protect fraudulent acts or the identity of those clients, who, with the active assistance of bank personnel, misused the confidentiality protections.”

Settlement Estimates - The $780 million is lower than previous settlement estimates, which exceeded $1 billion. The U.S. government agreed to the lower amount because of the bank’s eroding financial condition, according to a person familiar with the matter.

UBS posted the biggest ever annual loss for a Swiss firm last Tuesday and is cutting some 2,000 jobs as it reported reported a 8.1 billion Swiss franc ($7 billion) net loss in the fourth quarter…UBS Makes Record Loss

As soon as the first snow falls, Verbier transforms into a winter sports paradise. With 410km of pistes and more than 90 lifts, the ski area of “Les 4 Vallées” (the four valleys) is one of the largest in the world.

Learn all about travel destinations in Switzerland with eHeinz, a tourism expert. And surprise your friends with top insider tips. If you follow the new eHeinz video clip carefully, you could collect 7 Days Free in Verbier for two inclusive of a SWISS flight.

Credit Suisse Reports Huge Loss -Today, it’s the turn of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank after UBS, which reported a 4th Quarter net loss of SFr6 billion ($5.2 billion) - its worst ever result - and a full-year loss of SFr8.2 billion ($7.09 billion).

The results are far worse than the 3.72-billion-franc loss analysts had excepted. Analysts had been forecasting a full-year net loss of around SFr6 billion and a loss of SFr4 billion for the fourth quarter. A year earlier Credit Suisse (nyse: CS - news - people ) had reported a full-year net profit of 7.8 billion francs.

Chief executive Brady W. Dougan blamed the result on a poor trading performance and restructuring charges and said in a statement today that the results were disappointing but noted that the Zurich-based bank had had a profitable start to 2009.

“While our full-year results are clearly disappointing, we entered 2009 with a very strong capital position, a robust business model, a clear strategy and well-positioned businesses,” commented CEO Brady Dougan.

Unlike its rival UBS, Credit Suisse hasn’t accepted any aid from the Swiss government, and CEO Brady Dougan told analysts Wednesday that it has remained a net provider of liquidity to the market throughout the credit crisis.

Credit Suisse shares dropped 6.3% in early Swiss trading. Most other European banking stocks also declined after Wall Street reacted negatively on Tuesday to the U.S. bank bailout plan.