Bank Accounts

The Bush Administration, in a two-pronged approach to the sticky question of Manuel A. Noriega's fate, said Tuesday that it is working through diplomatic channels to gain custody of the deposed Panamanian dictator and through legal channels to freeze his foreign bank accounts, which it believes may contain as much as $10 million. Secretary of State James A.

After searching 10 years for the missing loot of a Medi-Cal fraud ring, state investigators have recovered $9.4 million from hidden bank accounts in the European principality of Liechtenstein. The illegal haul is being returned to California just as the leader of the ring, Marcus Fontaine, is finishing a 10-year federal prison term for mail fraud and money laundering convictions. Authorities suspect Fontaine planned to retrieve the stash after his release.

Dear Liz: My husband and I have been happily married for a year but have reached a disagreement on how to handle our finances. I think that we should have a joint bank account only to pay bills, with each of us putting in a percentage of our income into it while retaining separate accounts for everything else. He thinks that we should have just a joint account. I'm the main breadwinner, so it's primarily my money that would be going into the account, and I'm just not comfortable having only a joint account.

With no pomp, no ceremony and no press, in an unmarked office building in suburban Miami, history was made this year in the global war on drugs. In late February, at the Drug Enforcement Administration's regional headquarters in south Florida, an official from this tiny eastern Caribbean island and the president of one of its largest offshore banks quietly handed over a check for more than $3 million made out to the U.S. government. The money was part of a vast cocaine fortune amassed on U.S.

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin stunned high-level officials Wednesday by proposing restrictions on their ability to possess Western bank accounts and own real estate abroad. Putin, in his first state-of-the-union speech since returning to the presidency, focused largely on domestic issues, saying that fighting corruption is one of the key priorities of his third presidential term and that Russia should look for guidance in its own history. Putin said at a gathering of government ministers, lawmakers, regional governors and spiritual leaders in the Grand Kremlin Palace that he wanted their support in limiting the rights of bureaucrats and politicians to hold foreign bank accounts and stocks.

A Los Angeles federal judge has frozen $320 million in Swiss and Hong Kong bank accounts that were secretly set up by late Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos. U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real imposed the freeze last week after lawyers representing Philippine torture victims in a lawsuit persuaded the judge that the money might be spent by Marcos' widow and children before the suit concludes.

A Clinton administration program designed to prod banks into offering no-frills accounts to the poor has signed up just 700 people nationwide during its first year of operation, a disappointingly slow start to those who hoped the program would rescue families from high-cost check-cashers. The federally subsidized electronic transfer accounts were supposed to draw about 6 million low-income Americans into the mainstream financial industry by paying U.S. banks $12.

Los Angeles City Council members Wednesday gave enthusiastic backing to the creation of a controversial city identification card that could be used by illegal immigrants to open bank accounts, borrow library books and pay utility bills. Councilman Ed Reyes called it a way for the city's poorest workers to "come out into the light. " While the federal government has failed to pass immigration reform, the city of Los Angeles is able to manage its own affairs, said Councilman Richard Alarcon, who along with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a chief sponsor of the card plan.

Fueled by a crackdown on the use of overseas bank accounts as tax havens, about 7,500 people have voluntarily disclosed such accounts to the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay back taxes and penalties, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said this morning. Thursday is the deadline for wealthy taxpayers with overseas accounts to come forward under an IRS tax amnesty program. The IRS agreed to not pursue criminal charges against those people who apply for the amnesty program and voluntarily disclose their overseas accounts.

Los Angeles officials are considering a plan to turn the library card into a form of identification that the city's large illegal immigrant population could use to open bank accounts and access an array of city services. The City Council last month voted unanimously to study the plan, which would have Los Angeles join the growing number of cities across the nation that offer various forms of identification to undocumented workers and others who cannot get driver's licenses because of their immigration status.