MIAMI — Days before a high-stakes trial with implications for bankers worldwide, the U.S. and Swiss governments said Friday that they reached a hard-fought settlement in the U.S. effort to get names of tens of thousands of wealthy Americans suspected of evading taxes by hiding billions of dollars with Swiss banking giant UBS AG.
Both governments and UBS said details would remain confidential until a written settlement was finalized, likely within the next week. A trial scheduled to begin Monday was canceled by U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold, who set an Aug. 7 conference call to go over a proposed final agreement.
“The parties have reached an agreement in principle on the major issues,” U.S. Justice Department tax attorney Stuart Gibson told Gold in a telephone conference Friday. “There are some other issues that need to be resolved.”
The case, in which the Internal Revenue Service is taking on centuries of Swiss banking secrecy tradition, involves about 52,000 U.S. taxpayers believed to be hiding $15 billion in assets in UBS accounts. The IRS wants the Zurich-based bank to turn over those names so it can collect taxes — and so the Justice Department can prosecute them for tax evasion.
