For those with offshore funds, privacy was often one of the leading reasons for investing in foreign countries. Unfortunately, the long traditions of banking privacy in many offshore financial meccas is quickly coming to an end.  Because of the Swiss Bank Program, many banks from Switzerland are making deals with U.S. authorities for banks to avoid criminal prosecution by providing account holder info to the U.S. government. An increasing number of countries are also entering into agreements to exchange information about offshore accounts in order to try to stop tax evasion.

Throughout the world, investors have always been interested in using offshore bank accounts in countries other than the ones they live in. There are a lot of reasons for wanting to keep money offshore, with privacy of the offshore accounts often one of the major driving forces for keeping money in other countries.  Certain locations in particular, like Switzerland, were known for strict banking privacy laws which would prevent accountholder information from being shared.

The Panama Papers refer to documents leaked from a Panama law firm which provide insider details about how offshore accounts are used to move money around, protect financial privacy, and sometimes evade taxes.  The Panama Papers contain more than 11.5 million documents from a Panama law firm. The data in the documents was leaked from a source who remains anonymous, but who indicates that the leak created substantial personal risk.

Many U.S. citizens opened offshore Swiss accounts because of the strong privacy laws in Switzerland that were supposed to help these accountholders keep their identities confidential and their information from the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, the Swiss privacy laws turned out not to have really provided much protection at all. As the IRS and Department of Justice have begun aggressively cracking down on banks and bankers, many are entering into plea deals that often involve giving up information on their clients.

U.S. citizens who have $10,000 or more total across all foreign accounts at any point during the year must file annual Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs). Offshore accounts and money earned from those offshore accounts must be declared to the IRS, or serious consequences can arise.