"President Hans-Rudolf Merz regrets this procedure. The list does not specify the criteria on the basis of which it was drawn up. Switzerland is not a tax haven," the finance ministry said in a statement late Thursday. The three-tier list categorising tax havens and financial centres by their degree of cooperation was endorsed by the G20 leaders meeting in London Thursday. Switzerland was placed in the middle tier of countries, which have adopted the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development's standards on exchanging tax information but not yet "substantially" implemented them. The government formally decided on March 13 to ease the country's banking secrecy and fully adopt OECD tax standards.
Bank secrecy was invented by the 1934 Swiss Banking Act following a public scandal in France, when MP Fabien Alberty denounced tax evasion by eminent French personalities, including politicians, judges, industrialists, church dignitaries and directors of newspapers, who were hiding their money in Switzerland.
