UBS Names Names

Tax cheats beware: Swiss bank UBS, accused by the U.S. of helping 17,000 Americans hide their cash from the IRS, is giving up the names of secret account holders as part of a deal to avoid prosecution that also includes paying a $780 million settlement. The Swiss bank account has been synonymous with shady accounting for hundreds of years, but the UBS deal threatens to wipe away that tradition. “The Swiss are saying that this is the end of Swiss banking as they knew it,” an offshore tax expert told the New York Times. “Nobody will trust the security of the Swiss bank account.”