How do I open a swiss bank account?
Answers
393 points
jester112358 answered 4 months ago …
Book a flight to Zurich. Walk into one of the private banks with your suitcase of gold, bearer bonds or cash and tell them you'd like to "have my money cleaned?" They'll understand you want to open a numbered, putatively untraceable account for tax evasion or "asset protection" purposes and then you just need to come up with a number and password for the account. I like the Fibinacci sequence as you can tell from my moniker. Oh-and you'll probably need some form of ID like a K-Mart gift card.
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677 points
Dragonsbane answered 4 months ago …
You don't actually have to go to Switzerland. UBS has just discontinued offshore banking for US residents, but you can still contact a private banker from Credit Suisse or any of a number of other private banks. With the recent scrutiny on Swiss Banking, you're probably better off looking for a bank in Bermuda or Singapore if you really are a very high net worth individual. In any case, you should shop for banks the same way you'd shop for a car. Call 3 or 4 different banks and ask them to send someone to see you, then determine what best suits your needs.
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Sensei answered 4 months ago …
If what you want is a foreign bank account with "secrecy", I strongly suggest you not look to Switzerland. Moreover, Bermuda is also not "safe" anymore. Try Turks and Caicos. Be advised that you still have to report the presence of the account. Tax laws in both the US and Canada require you to indicate the ownership of such accounts and failure to do so amounts to "tax fraud" - not pretty. You'll also have to report any interest you earn on the account for tax purposes. Failure to do so constitutes "tax evasion" - not as severe as tax fraud, but remember Al Capone.
If you think you can get away with it anyway, the following story may disabuse you. It was reported a number of years ago in CA Magazine (the magazine of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (what Americans call CPAs.)) ...
The IRS, frustrated by Swiss rules governing banking secrecy, was still interested in finding out who owned Swiss bank accounts. So they took a different tactic.
They sent letters to various Swiss banks asking them, "How do we open a bank account?" Obviously, the IRS wasn't interested in the answer.
Swiss banks don't send letters with return addresses on the envelope. Moreover there was the small problem of US laws governing the privacy of the mails. But they do send annual account statements to customers ... and they do put postage on those letters. And postage meters have unique numbers associated with the sender. The IRS collected the responses and recorded the postage meter numbers.
Apparently, all foreign mail comes through the postal station at Grand Central Station (or at least it did in those days.) The following January, all mail coming to the G.C.S. post office was separated if there was no return address and, if the postage meter number was one that appeared on the IRS list, the name and address of the recipient was recorded and sent to them.
I'll leave it to you to figure out what followed.
105 points
mouse85 answered 4 months ago …
Mark Nestman of soveirgn society.com has been studying asset protection for years. He recommends Panama as a safe haven for investors worried about losing their wealth.
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MALNICK answered 4 months ago …
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