offshore / swiss banks

[drogo]

Anyone has experience with offshore or swiss bank accounts?

Can you help me with tips or links to useful sites?

Swiss banks seem to talk to you only if you have over 50-100 k $ you want to invest. I was interested in something smaller.

Thank you!

[Pendimethalin]

What is your purpose for wanting a Swiss bank account? If you want one because you believe it is more private then a US bank account then what you want is known as a numbered account. Information concerning such accounts is restricted to senior bank officers, rather than being accessible to all the employees of a bank. However, the information required to open such an account is no different from that of an ordinary account; completely anonymous accounts are prohibited by Swiss law. Should a criminal investigation take place, law enforcement has access to information related to a numbered account in the same way it has access to information about any other account. Also a Swiss bank or any other business isn’t going to go through the trouble of setting you up with a numbered account if you’ve only got a couple thousand to deposit. If you’re looking for something along these lines then I would suggest checking out this site. If however, you’re just looking for a good Swiss bank to open an account with then both UBS and Credit Suisse are excellent Swiss banks that operate in the US and have many local branches.

[bav]

If you put >= $10K into an offshore account you are required to check the box on the Federal 1040 form that states you have offshore accounts. From http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Artic...mbling-tax.htm

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The quickest and surest way that I know of to have your return audited by the IRS is to declare a foreign bank account on Schedule B and/or Form TD F 90-22.1. Based on my experience in dealing with the IRS, the audit rate is close to 100% the first time you make such a declaration.

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Still want an offshore bank account?

[iversonian]

Well, it don't matter if they won't report your account to the IRS. I believe the deal with the numbered accounts is that you can either own up to it and be exempt from Swiss taxes on the interest (being a non-Swiss citizen) or keep it under wraps and pay the taxes to the Swiss government.

[bav]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, it don't matter if they won't report your account to the IRS. I believe the deal with the numbered accounts is that you can either own up to it and be exempt from Swiss taxes on the interest (being a non-Swiss citizen) or keep it under wraps and pay the taxes to the Swiss government.

[/ QUOTE ]
And eventually pay very large penalties and interest to the US govt and perhaps go to jail for tax evasion once you get caught. Failing to check the box if you have overseas accounts is a crime.