Here is another quote, this time from an email that has been circulating on the Internet for at least two years. “India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined! ...Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries: India, $1,456 billion; Russia, $470 billion; UK, $390 billion; Ukraine, $100 billion; China, $96 billion... In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970s.” The media has freely swallowed the $1400 or $1456 billion figure, a number also referred to in the Advani press release. Nor is the BJP the first political party to mention this figure. It has been cited by other non-Congress parties too and the original source seems to be a Swiss Banking Association.

There doesn’t seem to be anything called a Swiss Banking Association. There is a Swiss Bankers Association, which builds on its USP of bank-client confidentiality. In public domain reports and surveys, there is certainly no 2006 report I can track down. So is this a figment of someone’s imagination? While on the Swiss Banking Association, let’s also have facts of the UBS case right. UBS was prosecuted in Florida for tax evasion and, in 2008, IRS (Internal Revenue Service) requested information on 19,000 (later increased to 52,000) UBS clients. Swiss criminal law prohibits release of this information. Nor does the double taxation agreement between the US and Switzerland cover such general requests for information. No doubt with some arm-twisting, and pressure through the Swiss Financial Market Advisory Authority (FINMA), there was an agreement to part with information, with the Swiss drawing a distinction between tax fraud and tax evasion. Let’s also not forget that in Florida, an ex-UBS employee provided evidence, establishing tax fraud. Extrapolation of the UBS case to suggest that the Swiss are about to give up their USP of bank-client confidentiality seems far-fetched, even if there are such pressures emanating from elsewhere in Europe.

... contd.