Ricardo Echegaray said he expected HSBC "to redress the grievances caused to the finances of Argentina" by allegations revealed in the SwissLeaks scandal.
He was speaking at Argentina's embassy in London shortly before HSBC's chief executive Stuart Gulliver appeared in front of a committee of British lawmakers to give evidence about the controversy.
In November, Argentina's tax agency, AFIP, charged HSBC with helping 4,040 Argentines avoid paying taxes by stashing money in secret Swiss accounts on their behalf.
"We would like to know firstly if HSBC Holdings PLC supported the behaviour of the Argentine branch and secondly, we expect the repatriation of funds by HSBC Holdings PLC that, to our knowledge, amount to $3.5 billion," Echegaray said.
The SwissLeaks scandal broke earlier this year after documents stolen from HSBC in 2007 by a disgruntled bank employee, Hervé Falciani, and handed to the French authorities were published in the media.
The cache was used to support claims that HSBC's Swiss private banking arm helped clients in more than 200 countries evade taxes on accounts containing $119 billion.
Argentina's economy has slowed in the past year, shrinking 0.8 percent in the last four months of 2014.
ARGENTINA
Argentina seeks billions from HSBC over taxes
The head of Argentina's tax authority demanded Monday that HSBC bring back $3.5 billion (€3.2 billion) in assets claiming the Swiss branch of the London-based bank helped Argentinian clients move offshore to dodge tax.
TAX EVASION
Switzerland’s banks remain among the world’s most secretive
Despite the progress made over the years, the Swiss financial sector continues to be one of the least transparent in the world. But there is good news too.
Switzerland is in the third place in the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index released by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Tax Justice Network (TJN), which rates 133 nations based on their financial transparency.
Two other European countries, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, are also ranked among the top 10 least transparent nations on the TJN’s list.
Despite being in the third place, Switzerland ranks better this year than it did in the previous edition of the Index, which is released every two years — it slipped from the first to third place. The Cayman Islands and the United States took the first and second spots, respectively.
Switzerland reduced its risk of being an offshore haven for tax cheats by 12 percent, “finally improving enough to move off the top of the index”, TJN said.
READ MORE: Switzerland's strangest taxes – and what happens if you don't pay them
This improvement is mainly due to Switzerland extending its international network for the automatic exchange of customer information to more than 100 countries.
Also, in a referendum held last year, Swiss voters accepted the Federal Act on Tax Reform and AVS Financing (TRAF). This legislation introduced major changes in the Swiss tax system by ending some preferential tax schemes and replacing them with new regulations which are in line with international standards.
This tax reform prompted the European Union to change Switzerland's status from ‘tax haven' to one which is EU-compliant, removing strict controls on transactions within the EU.
So why, despite all the reforms, does Switzerland still rank among the world’s least transparent nations?
According to a Swiss NGO Alliance Sud, wealthy people from poor countries can still hide their money here from the tax authorities of their home nations.
Alliance Sud noted that despite the progress made in the past years by Swiss financial institutions, “the fight against tax evasion remains insufficient”.
Switzerland is the world’s biggest centre for managing offshore wealth, with a quarter of global assets invested here.
For years, it has been placed on various lists of tax havens where wealthy foreigners could park their money. Faced with widespread criticism for this practice, Switzerland passed an anti-money laundering law in 1997 and introduced strict regulations against tax evasion.
Please whitelist us to continue reading.
Member comments