MANHATTAN (CN) - A Liechtenstein bank will pay $23.8 million for helping U.S. citizens duck taxes for a decade, federal prosecutors said.
Under a nonprosecution agreement, Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, of Vaduz, will forfeit $16.3 million it made from undeclared accounts, pay $7.5 million in restitution to the IRS, and will not contest another civil forfeiture action filed by the United States, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
More than 200 U.S. citizens held more than $340 in undeclared assets at the bank in more than 900 accounts from 2001 to 2011. Some accounts were held directly, and some through sham corporations.
According to the U.S. attorney's statement: "Specifically, LLB-Vaduz admitted that it knew certain U.S. taxpayers were maintaining undeclared accounts at LLB-Vaduz in order to evade their U.S. tax obligations, in violation of U.S. law. In addition, LLB-Vaduz admitted that it knew of the high probability that other U.S. taxpayers who held undeclared accounts did so for the same unlawful purpose because significant numbers of U.S. taxpayers employed structures to hold their accounts, instructed LLB-Vaduz to use code names or numbers to refer to them on account statements and other bank documents, instructed LLB-Vaduz not to mail such documents to them in the United States, and instructed LLB-Vaduz not to disclose their identity to the IRS, among other things."
The Principality of Liechtenstein, 61 square miles with a population of 36,000, has a per capita income of $143,000, much of it derived from banking and corporate tax dodges, though it also produces ceramics, sausage casings and false teeth.
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