Tax Evasion

Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld would do just about anything for the wealthy Americans who entrusted him with millions of dollars they wanted to hide from the Internal Revenue Service. He'd help them set up phony companies to conceal their deposits. He'd give them credit cards to access their hidden cash. On one occasion, he converted an American client's money into diamonds, then smuggled the gems across the Atlantic Ocean in a toothpaste tube. Those actions, detailed by Birkenfeld in court documents, were part of a coordinated -- and illegal -- effort by his employer at the time, Swiss banking giant UBS, to help wealthy U.S. clients evade taxes.

Two members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government quit their jobs Sunday after a succession of scandals over lavish spending. Christian Blanc, secretary of state for the greater Paris area, who ran up a $15,000 Cuban cigar bill charged to taxpayers, and Alain Joyandet, secretary of state for overseas development, who hired a private jet at a cost of $143,000 for an official trip to the Caribbean, submitted their resignations Sunday...

Wesley Snipes is hoping that the arrest of his former financial advisor could help reverse the actor's tax-charge conviction on which he has been sentenced to three years in prison. Kenneth I. Starr, who was arrested Thursday and charged with fraud and money laundering in federal court in New York, was Snipes' financial advisor in the 1990s. Starr, a prosecution witness in Snipes' 2008 tax-evasion trial, testified then that he told the movie star he needed to file tax returns, despite contrary advice the actor obtained from an anti-tax outfit.

The United States is one of the last places in the world where the excesses of capitalism can be witnessed in all their bipolar glory. Like the mad creative genius that it is, our system every now and then whips itself into such a manic froth that sooner or later it crashes, seemingly hell-bent for depression. Our recent financial crisis was one of those periodic nervous breakdowns. What's going on in Europe today is a remake of that movie, only this time filmed by a socialist director.

When several Beverly Hills investors told stories of being conned by a suave, heavy-set man who claimed to be former Mexican President Vicente Fox's brother in media reports a few years ago, a sternly-worded notice appeared on the man's website. "Just as power abhors a vacuum, modern journalism apparently abhors any type of due diligence and fact checking before scurrilous allegations are repeated as fact," said the notice posted on the "official site" of Alfredo Trujillo Fox, threatening legal action against his accusers.

A suspected financial swindler who allegedly boasted he was the brother of former Mexican President Vicente Fox pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of stealing more than $600,000 through bogus investment plans, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Alfredo Trujillo Fox, 66, was arrested Saturday on a felony complaint and was being held in lieu of $1-million bail, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. He was arraigned Monday on 15 counts of grand theft, 15 counts of unqualified sales of securities, 15 counts of misrepresentation in sales of securities and two counts of tax evasion.

If your secret Swiss bank account did not contain too much money or generate too much income, you can breathe easier: A landmark deal between the United States and Switzerland to expose U.S. tax dodgers does not call for the Swiss to blow your cover. But if you exceeded the threshold and failed to disclose the account to the Internal Revenue Service, don't count on Switzerland's legendary tradition of bank secrecy to protect you any longer. It may be just a matter of time before your account details are in the hands of U.S. tax collectors and prosecutors.

Robert Salgado, the long serving, colorful and often controversial leader of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, was arrested by FBI agents today on charges that he accepted more than $250,000 in bribes from vendors and hid his income from the Internal Revenue Service. Salgado, 67, surrendered to authorities after being told that he had been charged in a 36-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. "The indictment alleges a long-running scheme in which Mr. Salgado lined his pockets with money from companies hoping to do business with the tribe," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.