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Journalism of Courage
Miami-Dade county in southern Florida is accustomed to playing a starring role in world history. Most famously,by far the most momentous US presidential election in recent memory was decided by a few hundred swing voters from the district. And now,in a local courtroom,a trans-continental drama is playing out that might have massive repercussions for the grey area where personal and international finance overlap. Judge Alan S. Gold of the Federal District Court,Miami,is hearing a case in which the US tax agency,the Internal Revenue Service or IRS,is battling the behemoth Swiss bank UBS. The disagreement: whether the bank has to turn over to the agency the names of thousands of its American clients that the IRS suspects of tax evasion.
Swiss bank secrecy is a byword,a plot point in a thousand bad airport novels,a common complaint where one or more honest taxpayers are gathered together. Could the tenor of the times indeed be so different from a few short months ago that a centuries-old tradition so entrenched that even the Asterix comics could treat it as a Swiss national characteristic is close to cracking? After all,Switzerland has revised its tax treaties with some countries,including the United States,to say that information will be provided on individual cases where a specific and justified request has been made.
