Canadian tax authorities have beenin talks with UBS about tax evasion. Canadian authorities could take UBS to court if the Swiss bank refuses to disclose the names of Canadian clients who might be evading taxes using Switzerland-based UBS accounts, according to a report by Reuters.

With UBS lawyers in talks this week with officials at Canada Revenue Agency (formerly Revenue Canada) over wealthy Canadians' use of offshore bank accounts as tax shelters, attention has turned to Canada's ability to force the Swiss bank to name its Canadian clients.

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Canada may in fact need to have stronger laws in place to enforce compliance by UBS.

The standoff between UBS and Ottawa coincides with a U.S. probe into UBS' use of Swiss bank secrecy laws to help U.S. clients hide assets from the IRS. After volunteering to hand over information on a few hundred accounts this past winter, UBS efforts to resist U.S. demands for details on more accounts failed last month, when the Swiss government agreed to compel the bank to share information on more than 4,400 Swiss-based accounts held by U.S. clients.

Now Revenue Canada is looking to UBS for similar information on Canadian-held Swiss accounts, says Reuters. -FWR

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