Cracking the vault

Swiss bank secrecy is under uncomfortable scrutiny again. A US Senate report goes after UBS and LGT Bank of Liechtenstein for helping customers to conceal money in offshore tax shelters. But the real targets appear to be the governments themselves, Switzerland in particular. The congressional investigators estimate offshore tax evasion costs the US $100bn a year. Probes by the US Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service into UBS’s practices are also gathering pace. The US lawmakers...