U.S. authorities hunting in Swiss banks for suspected tax cheats have a new weapon that is backed by court judges. Federal prosecutors are issuing subpoenas, official papers which compel the recipients to provide potentially damning evidence, to taxpayers of the United States who are suspected of holding hidden accounts at Swiss and other offshore banks, according to criminal defense lawyers whose clients have received the papers.
“This is a very hot issue right now,” said Nathan Hochman, former assistant attorney general for the Tax Division of the Justice Department and now in private practice at the law firm Bingham McCutchen.
Jeremy Temkin, a criminal tax lawyer at Morvillo Abramovitz in New York, called the subpoenas on bank clients “an extension of the pressure on the Swiss to pressure on the American taxpayer. It’s a very aggressive position.”
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