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.

Offshore banks have long provided a haven for people in the United States to keep their money and enjoy privacy.  This is no longer the case and has not been for a long time as the Department of Justice has been aggressively going after banks that facilitate tax evasion.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice have been aggressively moving forward with enforcement efforts to prevent U.S. citizens from keeping money in offshore accounts. The tax division of the DOJ has entered into a myriad of agreements with financial institutions, with some institutions voluntarily coming forward under the Swiss Bank Program and others negotiating settlements to resolve pending criminal charges.

Schaffhauser Kantonalbank (SHKB) is a regional bank in Switzerland that was founded in 1883. The financial institution has recently become one of many banks to take advantage of the Swiss Bank Program. The Swiss Bank Program allows banks to voluntarily report activities they engaged in to help U.S. citizens to evade tax obligations. In exchange for coming forward and for fulfilling certain criteria, including providing information on accountholders, the bank is able to avoid being prosecuted criminally and can limit fines and penalties.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires all U.S. citizens to file annual reports of their financial accounts held outside of the United States.  This is true even of people who live outside of the U.S. and have accounts in the country they currently consider home.  The goal of FATCA is to make sure that U.S. accountholders are reporting all income and complying with all U.S. tax obligations.