Disgraced French minister lied to Swiss bank over evasion

French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac claimed funds had already been declared Disgraced former French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac lied to a Swiss bank when it accepted his assertion that funds paid into his account had been declared to tax authorities, a newspaper report said Saturday. The Zurich-based Tages Anzeiger said the politician presented a "bogus tax certificate" to the Julius Baer bank.
According to a report by French newspaper Le Monde, Philippe Peninque, a longtime friend of Cahuzac, paid the controversial untaxed €600,000 ($775,000) into an account at a Geneva branch office of Swiss bank UBS in 1992 in his own name.
A few months later Cahuzac changed the account into his name during a visit to Geneva, according to the report.
In 2000, Geneva-based Reyl & Co, now a private bank which at the time did not have a banking license and was therefore not bound by strict banking regulations such as providing the names of account holders, opened a so-called omnibus account at UBS that included Cahuzac's funds.
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After Switzerland pledged to cooperate with foreign authorities in cases of tax evasion in 2009, Cahuzac asked Reyl & Co to transfer the money to an omnibus account at a Julius Baer bank branch in Singapore.
But Tages Anzeiger said a wary Julius Baer asked Reyl & Co for a so-called A Form that would include the name of the account's fund holder.
Realising that the holder was a politician the bank also demanded a document certifying that the funds had been declared to tax authorities.
According to Tages Anzeiger, Cahuzac "presented a bogus tax certificate" and claimed that the €600,000 were made through his work as a plastic surgeon.
Based on the assertion, Julius Baer authorised the transfer of the funds.
Cahuzac -- the minister responsible for cracking down on tax evasion until he resigned in mid-March -- was charged Tuesday with "laundering the proceeds of tax fraud" after he admitted to having the foreign bank account, following weeks of denials.