Swiss sign tax accord with UK and guard banking secrecy
Switzerland has signed a landmark withholding tax agreement with the UK. The accord will allow Swiss banks to collect taxes on UK nationals’ accounts and turn over the money to London—all the while preserving banking secrecy. Switzerland says it’s found a way around the objections of the European commission which had threatened to sue Britain if the accord wasn’t altered. Yet the announcement apparently took Brussels by surprise. All the more so because it came as the president Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and the foreign minister Didier Burkhalter were in town to talk about the future of bilateral relations. WRS’s Jordan Davis is in Brussels: