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Alfred Mettler
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Finance
When
Alfred Mettler’s phone rang in early March, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf
Merz was on the other end with a request. Would Mettler serve on a task
force advising the government about how to respond to mounting global
pressure that it allow other nations access to data about their
citizens’ investments in Swiss banks? Mettler, a clinical associate
professor of finance at Robinson and a dual citizen of Switzerland and
the United States, said yes.
The task force has met almost a
dozen times thus far to grapple with the issues of tax law, bank
secrecy rules, and the threat that Switzerland could land on the “black
list” of uncooperative tax havens kept by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Although mum about the
group’s conversations and recommendations, Mettler avers that
Switzerland has made considerable progress toward removal from OECD’s
“gray list” of countries that have committed to but not yet
substantially implemented the international tax standard.
“The
Swiss government announced in March that it would negotiate at least 12
double taxation agreements by year’s end, a number already reached that
includes – importantly – the United States. This is quite an
accomplishment,” Mettler notes, adding that “the next step will be to
send the treaties through the ratification process.”
Ratification
hinges to some extent on what eventually transpires with the U.S.
government’s suit against banking giant UBS AG. When State of Business
went to press, both parties had announced that there would be an
out-of-court settlement, but the details were not yet public.
“A
lengthy court battle was in neither party’s interest,” says Mettler,
who believes that “the settlement will be advantageous to both sides.
The IRS will get client data and UBS will not have to violate Swiss
privacy laws.” Meanwhile, Switzerland will continue its efforts to be
placed on OECD’s “white list” of countries compliant with international
tax standards.
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