William Byrnes' Tax, Wealth, and Risk Intelligence

William Byrnes (Texas A&M) tax & compliance articles

Posts Tagged ‘Julius Baer Group’

William Byrnes presents for Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland (LATCAM) and San Diego County Bar Association (SDCBA)

Posted by William Byrnes on July 23, 2013


Link to the story at the faculty page of Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Following on his lunch time CLE presentation for the San Diego County Bar Association with Procopio tax partner Patrick Martin, Associate Dean William Byrnes was invited in April to Zurich, Switzerland to deliver a week-long series of workshops on the implications of FATCA for large financial institutions on the LATAM market.  The series of lectures and workshops began with a breakfast conference of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland, and continued through the week with banking workshops for HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, Hinduja Bank, among others.

Professor William Byrnes’ workshop series was sponsored by Amicorp, a global company service provider, via an invitation by Thomas Jefferson international tax alumni and Swiss office managing director, Geralda Buckley.

William Byrnes stated, “I was intrigued to engage with the banks’ FATCA compliance teams in an open discussion format. The rush of back and forth Q&A and thinking on my feet felt like sixteen years ago when I was a Senior Manager with Coopers & Lybrand leading in-house workshops.  Very complex issues but I’ve since been invited for other workshops so must have been well received.”

He continued, “But the best part of this lecture series was that I shared the floor with an international tax program alumni, and former federal IRS prosecutor, Robert Payne.  It’s wonderful to see the positive impact that the international tax program has played in an alumni’s career.”

“After the workshops, I fielded questions from participants about Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s distance learning pedagogical leadership via video conference specific to a bank’s tax department.”  William Byrnes said “I will continue to introduce Thomas Jefferson to a wider financial community via my alumni outreach, publications and subscribers, and invited lectures with the hope that embedded externships for the current JD and Master students may be established over the coming years.”

Conference information is available at:

San Diego County Bar https://www.sdcba.org/index.cfm?pg=events&evAction=showDetail&eid=11009&evSubAction=listAll

LATCAM http://www.puntolatino.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6240%3A160413-seminar-the-foreign-tay-compliance-act-fatca&catid=345%3Acamara-latinoamericana-de-comercio-en-suiza&Itemid=487&lang=de

Posted in Courses, FATCA | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Wikileaks To Release Details of Secret Swiss Accounts

Posted by William Byrnes on March 1, 2011


Wikileaks is set to release confidential Swiss banking documents, and although the scope of information included in the documents isn’t yet clear, the release could pave the way for a new IRS surge against tax evaders.  Similar disclosures by bank insiders were at the heart of the Justice Department’s UBS investigation.   This most recent leak came from a former senior private banker and chief operating officer of Julius Baer’s Caribbean operation.   He’s currently on trial in Switzerland for allegedly leaking client documents in 2005.

… the statute of limitations for criminal tax offenses is generally three years, but there are a number of exceptions that extend the statute to six years, including “willfully attempting to evade or defeat any tax.” Leaked documents from prior to 2002 would reveal activities that would generally fall outside the six-year statute of limitations; however, the six year statute only begins to run on the day the last affirmative act is committed by the defendant, so criminal prosecution of accountholders revealed by the leak may still be viable.  Read this complete analysis of the impact at AdvisorFX (sign up for a free trial subscription with full access to all of the planning libraries and client presentations if you are not already a subscriber).

For previous coverage of the IRS’s offshore enforcement efforts in Advisor’s Journal, see Offshore’s Limited Shelf Life (CC 10-47), IRS Proposed FATCA Guidance Expands Offshore Compliance Initiatives (CC 10-52), and IRS Planning New Voluntary Disclosure Program for Offshore Assets (CC 10-118).

Posted in Money Laundering | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
%d bloggers like this: