Tom Burroughes reports:
The UK government is to acquire the Swiss bank account details of up to 6,600 wealthy UK citizens suspected of evading tax after information was stolen from HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland by a software engineer, the Sunday Times (of London) reported.
The report comes shortly after it was reported that the Swiss authorities are to investigate the matter. HSBC’s private bank has apologised to clients about the theft, which affected a total of 24,000 accounts, of which 15,000 were in use at the time of the theft about three years ago.
HSBC told WealthBriefing that it has fewer than 6,000 UK clients of its Swiss private bank – a figure which is at odds with the newspaper’s report. The bank said it was unable to make further comment at this stage.
The UK tax authority declined to comment on the matter.
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