Credit Suisse is the next big bank blamed for large tax-evasion scheme

Large banks continue to find themselves embroiled in tax evasion investigations. When the second largest bank, in a country's as important in the world of finance as Switzerland, comes under suspicion, you know there is significant underlying tax-optimization issue among investors.

Late March 2017, Credit Suisse was suspected of having more than 55,000 bank accounts linked to tax evasion, and this is not a small number. Despite Switzerland's attempts to prove itself as something more than offshore business destination in the hearth of Europe, tax authorities continue to investigate the country and find personal and corporate accounts which remain undeclared.

Estimated tax losses amount to millions of euro for the Union. This investigation involved raids of Credit Suisse offices in major financial centres in EU, including bank branches in Netherlands, UK and France. This puzzled the Swiss public ministry, as the same was excluded from the investigation and kept aside during the raids lead by the Dutch Government and tax authorities.

All this being said, Switzerland is a reputable country and important financial centre, globally. While there may be difficult corporate and personal bank accounts linked with tax evasion, Healy Consultants agrees that the majority of new businesses in Switzerland remain with high integrity and follow strictly local and regional tax regulations. Furthermore, Swiss banks increase their compliance and global AML regulations to fit global trends in minimizing tax evasion and undeclared income schemes.