Phil Gramm, McCain's Financial Advisor, Is Vice Chair of a bank that set up "secret" offshore accts:

[elehhhhna]

Tax scandal leaves Swiss giant reelingUBS could lose its licence in America after an official confessed to illicit tactics that helped clients avoid the Revenue. Nick Mathiason reports
Nick Mathiason The Observer, Sunday June 29, 2008
Article history
It was an offer the Californian real-estate billionaire Igor Olenicoff couldn't refuse. For several years, the US Internal Revenue Service had been on his tail. Suspecting serial tax evasion running into tens of millions of dollars, the IRS painstakingly amassed enough information to jail the Russian immigrant for decades.

In 2006, tax investigators offered Olenicoff, a man who has strong connections with Boris Yeltsin, a deal. In return for the identity of those who helped him evade taxes, his sentence would be slashed. It took Olenicoff, who owned 11,000 houses and a large collection of high-grade offices, less than 30 seconds to make up his mind.

After two years of further investigations, Olenicoff's evidence resulted this month in a dramatic development. UBS, the most powerful bank in Switzerland, is now on the edge of a steep cliff. Ten days ago, Bradley Birkenfeld, who between 2001 and 2006 was a senior UBS banker, signed a US court statement detailing how he smuggled diamonds in toothpaste tubes, deliberately destroyed offshore bank records on behalf of clients and helped Olenicoff evade taxes of $200m on offshore assets worth $7.26bn.

In an explosive seven-page deposition, Birkenfeld claims he was encouraged to win clients at UBS-sponsored tennis tournaments and major art events. UBS bankers, he said, assisted wealthy Americans to conceal ownership of their assets by creating 'sham' offshore trusts. Misleading and false documentation was routinely prepared to facilitate this, and the motivation, he concluded, was to ensure that UBS continued to manage a staggering $20bn of assets owned by wealthy US individuals, which generated the bank $200m in fees each year.

'By concealing US clients' ownership and control in the assets held offshore, managers and bankers... defrauded the IRS and evaded US income tax,' reads the statement. The US Department of Justice has scented blood and is moving in for the kill. UBS denies authorising or encouraging any breaches of applicable laws and regulations and has put out a statement saying it will fully cooperate with all authorities and address any issues raised by the investigation (see below). It is now faced with having to hand over details of its 20,000 US clients to the authorities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/29/ubs.banking

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Phil Gramm is also back advising the McCain campaign as reported today

So this is good news that damages McCain


http://www.politico.com/playbook/0708/playbook371.html

[elehhhhna]

2. One billion (9 zeros!) x 5% = 50,000,000

So a very conservative guess is that UBS alone helped shelter at least 50 million dollars in investment income per year from US taxes...and UBS is far from the only bank doing this. Heck, there are over 500 banks registered on Grand Cayman, an island that is roughly 2 miles long & 5 miles wide, tops.

[libnnc]

3. kick-a-reenie-roony

:kick:

[sinkingfeeling]

4. That's McSame's same Phil!

[librechik]

5. I wondered when the Phil Gramm asshole banker" and the "bank clerk outs massive fraud" story

would converge--Gramm is CEO of the fraudulent bank in quest, UBS.

[elehhhhna]

6. No word form the MSM yet. Hope the Obama campaign brings this up, stat!

[calimary]

7. More anti-phil gramm material!

WHAT. A. SCHMUCK.

[bluesmail]

8. There really is a large population of sociopaths

in politics. In power. Power corrupts. Power attracts the corrupt. They keep breeding away. Ho-hum. Is this one of the real reasons they're anti-abortion? Something to ponder. Ho-hum.

[brentspeak]

9. That's nothing compared to what Gramm has done to the American economy as a whole

His Commodity Futures Modernization Act legislation of 2000 (aka, the "Enron loophole") is the germ from which almost the entire collapse of the housing market can be attributed, not to mention a very big reason why food and energy commodities have skyrocketed.

Phil Gramm is basically an economic terrorist.

[ryanmuegge]

12. He should replace Osama bin Laden atop the FBI's most wanted list, as far as I'm concerned.

Seriously. He's a fucking terrorist.

[Virginia Dare]

10. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Cindy McCain's tax returns..

to be unveiled.

[Bluebear]

11. kick