Ex-Wives and Others Eagerly Await the UBS Tax-Cheater List

You know there's going to be some famous names to make it even more fun.

It's not just the U.S. government that wants to get its hands on the list of Americans who hold secretive Swiss bank accounts. Ex-wives, creditors and former business partners are also salivating over the idea that a settlement between the U.S., the Swiss government and a Swiss bank may lead to the public disclosure of as many as 4,450 U.S. individuals that used the foreign bank accounts to hide money. Prominent New York City divorce lawyer Raoul Lionel Felder says he is already getting calls from clients who want to know what they can do to get their portion of the money they always suspected their ex–loved one had tucked away overseas.

"You see allegations of Swiss bank accounts in divorce proceedings all the time," says Felder, whose clients have included Rudy Giuliani, Robin Givens and the former Mrs. Martin Scorsese. "A lot of divorces are going to get opened up."

Records sought at McCain advisor's bank

By Paddy


Oooooooh. Wonder if any of the reporters in the "nice journalist" section of the Straight Talk Express will ask him about this? Probably not.

This can't be good for the campaign of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

The IRS is trying to serve a summons on Swiss bank UBS AG seeking information on U.S. taxpayers who may have used the bank to gin up records to avoid billions in taxes on offshore investments.

Top McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm is vice chairman of UBS' U.S. division which already has drawn unflattering scrutiny for writing off big losses in subprime mortgage-backed securities.

(snip)

There's no indication that Gramm has any involvement in the tax-avoidance scheme, but his presence in the pilothouse of a global finance company under fire from U.S. regulators is precisely the sort of special interest coziness that McCain insists he represents a break from.

At least five top McCain aides have left the Arizona senator's camp because their lobbying or business involvements were judged to be more than a maverick, tell-it-like-it-is campaign could bear.

The RNC was quick to point out today that Barack Obama has his own ties to UBS in the person of Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas, who is a major fundraiser for the Illinois Democrat.

But Gramm's involvement in problematic economic policy issues benefiting UBS run to more than lobbying in the midst subprime mess. (Gramm successfully advocated defeat of a bill that would have given bankruptcy judges the clout to rewrite mortgage terms to prevent homeowners from losing their houses.)

John Sidney McCain + William "Phil" Gramm + UBS= avoid indictment

By GottaLaff

Via TPM:

On the McCain/Gramm/UBS front (noted in yesterday evenings posts), it seems that not only is Sen. McCain's top economics advisor, fmr Sen. Gramm, lobby and work for UBS, but according to today's Financial Times the company is advising members of its private banking team not to step foot in the United States in order to avoid indictment. [...]

But as a political matter, for McCain, having your top economics advisor be the vice chairman and (until recently) lobbyist for a company telling a class of its employees to get out of the country for fear of being indicted is simply not a good thing.

No, not a good thing at all. If he keeps this up, even Rachel Maddow will have to adjust her thinking.