Do Swiss banks owe your accounting clients money?

“Offshore bank accounts, notably but not exclusively in Switzerland, were a common feature of tax evasion until the fairly recent push by the US Department of Justice and by some European tax authorities to hold Swiss banks accountable for aiding and abetting tax fraud,” says Toronto-based tax lawyer David Rotfleisch. “The use of Swiss bank accounts by Canadian taxpayers to evade Canadian tax liabilities is a known and documented phenomenon.”