Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG is a Swiss Bank that first formed in 2013 through the merger of two other Swiss financial institutions.  With branches in Geneva, Berne, Lucerne, Zurich, and Lugano, Safra Sarasin is a formidable presence in the offshore banking industry. It also just sold out its customers to the Department of Justice so it wouldn't be prosecuted for its own role in helping U.S. citizens evade their tax obligations to the IRS.

Everyone who is a U.S. citizen with an offshore bank account has to file an annual Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). Even if you live abroad, you have to file this report. If you don't file FBARs, you can face penalties. Those penalties could include prosecution and very substantial fines if the IRS discovers the account on its own and begins to take action. With many offshore banks providing information to the government, many offshore accounts are being discovered.

Money is rapidly moving out of Swiss banks as U.S. account holders look for other places to keep offshore funds. The exodus is occurring as 41 Swiss banks signed amnesty agreements with the United States Justice Department just in this past year alone. As part of these agreements, the banks were given immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for paying fines and providing detailed information on individual accounts and account holders.  The U.S. authorities are using the information from Swiss banks to pursue efforts to collect unpaid taxes and penalties from U.S.-affiliated individuals who were keeping money offshore and not reporting income.

In December, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) SA and Edmond de Rothschild (Lugano) SA (collectively EdR Switzerland) joined the long list of financial institutions participating in the Swiss Bank Program. This program provides amnesty from criminal prosecution for banks that pay financial penalties for their part in helping people in the United States evade their obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.  Banks that participate cannot simply choose to only pay fines, but they must also agree to cooperate with U.S. authorities in providing detailed information about accountholders and financial transactions.

On August 29, 2013, the Swiss Bank Program was announced. The program was aimed to entice banks to provide information on U.S. citizens and people connected to the U.S. who had funds kept offshore and were not fulfilling requirements to report their offshore accounts annually.  The deadline for banks to come forward and alert the Department of Justice that they wanted to participate was December 31, 2013.  Banks were encouraged to come forward and tell the DOJ by this date if they believed they had broken the law by helping U.S.-related accountholders evade tax obligations.