Carl Levin

Instead of enforcing the grand jury subpoenas in a U.S. court to obtain the U.S. client names in Switzerland, the Department of Justice put the subpoena on hold.

If the banks will not cooperate, citing Swiss secrecy laws, then we simply have to use our own domestic laws to force cooperation from the banks.

UBS' actions sent a powerful signal that U.S. tax cheats using offshore accounts better pay up or face prosecution.

Swiss secrecy protections is preventing us from going after behavior which is criminal behavior, allegedly, and is this going to be cured by the treaty?

Is it correct that your Swiss bankers worked with both of these outside intermediaries to help U.S. citizens set up offshore shell entities?

Even though this document is on its face very clear, you say----

I hope that you should get tons of accounts.

The purpose, though, of this chart was to show, according to its title, how spread out this was across the whole organization.

A total of 800. All right. Now, you are saying that these were the people who had special training?

Did you find that some Swiss bankers advised U.S. customers to secure transactions under $10,000 which would then avoid triggering cash transaction reports?

There is a big loophole in this treaty which you continue to say we ought to ratify.

That is totally unacceptable, and I just hope that our Department of Justice understands that...

You cannot hide behind the laws of your own country.

The value is very limited. It has loopholes in it which will be used, I am sure, by banks to avoid ponying up the names.

We are going to put a lot of pressure on our Justice Department to enforce the laws here.

We need the cooperation of the banks in order to do that.

Responses of Credit Suisse to supplemental questions for the record from Senator Carl Levin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much.

The reason was Swiss secrecy laws.

The American public is angry about offshore tax abuse--efforts by well-off Americans to evade their U.S. tax obligations by hiding money offshore.

Responses of the Department of Justice to supplemental questions for the record from Senator Carl Levin.

We believe they did get these reports.

You don't want to be in the dirty business any longer of helping U.S. clients cheat on their taxes.

I think it is an important tool in the tool chest and I am very much in support of microlending programs.