Russian citizens and companies keep assets worth several hundred billion dollars in Swiss banks. What does the announced deoffshorization course threaten them with?

Russian citizens and companies are believed to have hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets in Swiss banks. In total, the assets of foreign (actual offshore) companies and citizens in Swiss banks are estimated at about $3 trillion, and, according to the Swiss National Bank, up to a quarter of them may belong to funds and citizens of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. What does the announced deoffshorization course threaten them with?

Russian government agencies only recently became able to obtain information about the accounts of Russian residents in Switzerland, after an amendment to the double tax treaty came into force in 2013. But already today, tax authorities can, for example, tax on the territory of the Russian Federation income paid into Swiss accounts if this income was received from shares of investment funds or from the sale of shares of companies controlled by Russians. The capital of these companies, however, should consist of half or more of real estate located in Russia. And these opportunities will continue to grow.

Of course, taxes on individuals in Russia are still low, and tax officials have little experience working with foreign banks.

However, access to information about bank accounts of Russians in Switzerland and income to these accounts is already open - a correctly completed request from Russia is sufficient.

This largely contradicts the Swiss bank secrecy law of 1934 and other acts that apply in the country, which still restricts other governments from obtaining data on their taxpayers. But if the Americans or Germans are already overcoming this Swiss law, then over time the Russian authorities can do the same.

The United States was the first to obtain from Switzerland the issuance of information about the assets of its citizens, who automatically fall under the suspicion of the US IRS when opening accounts in this country. Other countries (France, Germany) still have to provide the Swiss authorities with evidence that their tax residents are using Swiss banks for tax offenses. And the bankers have not yet completely surrendered to the Americans - the Swiss parliament in 2013 rejected a law obliging banks to disclose all information on accounts to the US authorities.

But if in Europe there is a lawyer and client lobby that supports the Swiss “right” in the fight to maintain banking secrecy, then the Russian elite in Switzerland has no support. There is only money, mostly legalized in haste.

Interestingly, since 2013, Russians who are tax residents of the UK began to receive questions from their Swiss bankers: “Do you prefer that the bank reports income to your account to the British tax authorities, or that British taxes are withheld by us for remittance to the UK?” Swiss bankers do not yet ask such questions to Russian tax residents, since they do not yet have a sufficient legal framework and instructions on how to behave in relation to clients who indicate a Russian address when opening an account. At the same time, some banks have stopped sending account reports to Private Banking by email, insisting that the client provide a postal address in a specific country, that is, removing responsibility from the bank for certain components of banking secrecy. In addition, if in the UK you are already asked to submit a Russian tax return to credit money to a local bank account from a personal account in Russia, then this will soon become possible in Switzerland.

With the advent in 2013 of a new version of the law “On Combating the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime and the Financing of Terrorism,” the opportunities for collecting information about the foreign assets of Russians have increased. The law states that banks in the Russian Federation have the right (in fact, they must) demand from clients information about the ultimate beneficiaries of foreign companies - owners of assets in Russia. This gives the police the right to ask questions of citizens on the topic “Are you a business owner? How much money was it created with?” and so on.

This puts a powerful information search tool in the hands of the police (and through it, other law enforcement agencies and tax authorities).

And based on the data obtained, you can write reasonable requests to Switzerland and other countries.

Where will requesting organizations seek cooperation first? Obviously, not in offshore zones protected by English law and operating extremely slowly. Attention will focus primarily on Switzerland, as well as Austria, Luxembourg and other EU countries where banks that hold Russian assets operate.

Open data: why it is dangerous to keep money in a Swiss bank