HSBC offshore accounts under investigation by US tax authorities
HSBC account holders in America targeted as US justice department widens clampdown on tax evasion
The US government has begun a criminal investigation into whether clients of HSBC are evading tax by putting money in undeclared bank accounts in Singapore and India, widening a crackdown on offshore secrecy that began with a successful prosecution of Switzerland's UBS.
A senior official at the US department of justice, Kevin Downing, has written to certain US residents with accounts at HSBC asking for details of their offshore holdings.
The move has sparked speculation that HSBC has handed over clients' personal information to the authorities.
The US internal revenue service has been tightening the screw on alleged tax cheats who hide money overseas. Last year, UBS paid a $780m (£515m) fine and agreed to disclose the names of 4,450 account holders in a landmark softening of Switzerland's banking secrecy tradition.
HSBC refused to comment today. But Robert McKenzie, a tax lawyer at Arnstein & Lehr in Chicago, said several of his clients with HSBC offshore accounts had received enforcement letters.
"It appears there's been some compromise to the security of information at Asian HSBC branches," McKenzie told the Guardian. "I don't know whether HSBC has co-operated with the authorities."
He said the department of justice's action appeared to be a broadening of its attack on secret Swiss bank accounts: "I don't believe the US government's purpose is to give up after one victory. They're not going to stop here." International banks must strike a delicate balance in co-operating with increasingly aggressive investigations by US authorities while protecting customers' privacy. The government's foray into Swiss accounts caused a political storm in Bern and created a rift in US-Swiss relations.
In an effort to claw back some of the billions of dollars believed to be lost to the US through offshore banking, tax authorities offered a deal last year under which Americans who disclosed secret accounts could settle for an agreed penalty. US residents voluntarily disclosed 14,700 offshore accounts under the deal, ranging in value from $10,000 to more than $100m.
Marketing practices by banks offering offshore accounts have come under scrutiny. UBS was accused of sending staff to visit wealthy Americans to trumpet the virtues of private accounts. A former UBS employee turned whistleblower told a court he had even smuggled diamonds into the US on behalf of a client.
C Evan Stewart, a partner at law firm Zuckerman Spaeder in New York, said HSBC fell into a different category: "HSBC doesn't have the same sort of secrecy laws as the Swiss banks invoked – there will be a question of whether it was trying to market [secrecy] as a competitive advantage in the US."
Downing has made it clear he envisages broader prosecutions. He recently toured Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing to meet regulators and bankers.
According to Bloomberg News, he told a conference of tax lawyers in New York last month that banks in Asia were well aware of the issue, saying: "Neither the banks nor the governments want to have a UBS-type situation. They want to do it nice and quiet. They don't want to be the focus of attention. The department of justice and IRS are devoting a ton of resources to this issue."
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