秘密帐户难保秘密

Not long ago, a rich person in the U.S. could be secure with the knowledge that their finances were, if not top secret, than at least private. Banks rarely asked questions. If you had a closely held company, few could determine your net worth (sometimes not even family members). Those who had overseas accounts in Switzerland, Liechtenstein or any of the other tax havens around the world knew that banks there wouldn't give up names. Hence the stock phrase 'secret Swiss bank accounts.'

Not any more. Today brings news that the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in Miami asking a federal judge to force Swiss bank UBS to give the Internal Revenue Service names of Americans with secret Swiss accounts.

The department alleges that as many as 52,000 U.S. customers hid their UBS accounts from the IRS. Roughly 20,000 of those accounts contained securities, while another 32,000 contained cash, prosecutors said.

The news will no doubt send a shock through the financial world. The rich especially the older rich will bemoan the great refuge for secret stashes. And the private-banking world will have the difficult PR job of convincing wealthy clients that their names and accounts are safe.

Yet the case is merely the latest example of a longer term trend the rich are losing their financial privacy. The post-9/11 'know your client' rules forced all U.S. banks to ask more questions of clients and their sources of funds. Crackdowns on overseas accounts by the IRS in the past decade were already limiting the business of Swiss or even Singaporean bank havens for rich Americans.

What is more, the Internet and legal system have combined to spawn all manner of newly available information about a person's net worth and investments. How many Madoff investors ever expected not only to lose their money but also to be outed publicly when doing so?

The fact of the matter is that wealth no longer is a big secret or at least it isn't as secret as it once was. As one private banker once told me: 'When it comes to offshoring and shelters, my advice to my clients is simple: How would it look if The Wall Street Journal wrote about it? If you wouldn't be embarrassed, it's OK to do.'

就在不久以前，美国富人还对知道自己的个人财务状况感到放心。他们知道，他们的财务状况即使不是最高机密，至少是很隐秘的。银行很少提出疑问。如果你拥有一家只有几个私人股东的公司，那没有几个人能判断你的净资产（有时甚至连家庭成员也搞不清楚）。那些有海外帐户──比如在瑞士、列支敦士登或世界其他任何一处避税天堂──的人知道，海外银行不会透露他们的名字。所以有所谓“瑞士银行秘密帐户”的说法。

但现在不行了。今天有新闻说，司法部在迈阿密提起诉讼，要求联邦法官迫使瑞士银行(UBS)向美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)提供有秘密瑞士帐户的美国人的名字。

司法部称，有52,000美国客户向国税局隐瞒了他们的瑞士银行帐户。检察官说，其中大约20,000个帐户上有各种证券，另外32,000个帐户上有现金。

这一消息无疑将给金融界造成冲击。富人们（尤其是那些较年长的富人）将对失去这个用于存放秘密资金的地方感到惋惜。而私人银行业公关人士会发现，要说服富有客户相信他们的名字和帐户信息是安全的，这个工作现在难做了。

不过，富人们逐渐失去财务隐私已是一个长期趋势，上述消息不过是它的最新实例而已。“911事件”后美国银行界制定“了解你的客户”规定，要求所有银行对客户和他们的资金来源多问点问题。国税局过去10年来针对海外帐户的打击行动，已经限制了瑞士乃至新加坡银行针对美国富人的秘密帐户业务。

而且，互联网和司法体系共同作用，催生出了各种各样了解个人资产和投资方面最新信息的渠道。马多夫的那些投资者中间有多少人曾想到他们不仅会损失钱财，而且这些事还会被公开披露出来？

事实上，财富已不是什么大秘密，至少现在不像过去那么保密了。一位私人银行家曾经告诉我：“谈到离岸帐户或所谓避税天堂，我给客户的建议很简单：想想如果被《华尔街日报》报导了会怎么样？如果到时候你不觉得难堪，那就去做好了。”
此文章由小虹提供，佳禾外语进行整理。　

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