Credit Suisse accused of helping clients evade US taxes

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Switzerland's second largest bank, Credit Suisse, used elaborate measures to find wealthy clients and help them evade US tax authorities, a scathing report from a Senate inquiry said on Tuesday.

The report contains the results of a two-year Senate investigation and comes a day before the heavily-anticipated questioning of Credit Suisse chief Brady Dougan and other top bank figures before the panel.

As of 2006, Credit Suisse had over 22,000 US customers with Swiss accounts whose assets, at their peak, exceeded 12 billion Swiss francs ($13.5 billion).

Among the bank's cloak-and-dagger practices, Swiss bankers were sent to the United States to secretly find clients, leaving no paper trail, at events sponsored by the bank -- such as at golf tournaments in Florida.

The bank also helped its clients find "intermediaries" who could help them create offshore shell companies to hide the money trail from the Internal Revenue Service.

Third-party companies were also engaged by the bank to provide credit cards permitting clients to secretly use their hidden funds.

From 2008 to 2011, after the break of a tax evasion scandal at fellow Swiss bank UBS, Credit Suisse starting putting an end to its evasive practices, asking clients to close their accounts or declare them.