Homework Question re Swiss Accounts?

Question

What are the benefits for anybody in U.K. having a Swiss Bank Account please?

Answer 1

As far as I know the British tax laws, you would not have to pay taxes in GB for interests or capital gains earned outside the country. And Switzerland does not tax interests of non-domiciled persons (except a withholding tax which can be avoided).

Furthermore, Switzerland has two categories of tax fraud. International legal assistance is granted only in a qualified case including either forgery of documents or other illegal activities as money laundering, corruption or drug dealing and so on.

If one simply "forgets" to mention Swiss capital in any kind of declaration, no legal assistance is granted by the Swiss authorities.

Answer 2

Secrecy is the main reason. A typical swiss bank account or "numbered bank account" means that the customers name does not appear on a statement or on the bank's computer, so if a statement is lost or stolen, it is not immediately obvious who is behind the account - a handy feature that makes ordinary cybercrime quite difficult - a customers identity is only known to a few individuals in the bank on a "need to know" basis.

Numbered accounts can be used to hide the proceeds of crime or for tax evasion, but these loopholes are being closed, and even Swiss banks now have to co-operative with authorities investigating any wrongdoing.

The only prerequisit to opening a fully fledged numbered swiss bank account is the amount of money one can put in it - you don't need to be a millionaire, but you do need to make a sizable deposit and have a minimum balance of 100,000 swiss francs (about £43,000!) so it's not for the poor!

Answer 3

No taxes and outside U.K. juristictions as not in the E.U. but the same can be said for the Maldives, The Cayman Islands etc. Also you need huge minimum balances to get one.