Two people familiar with the matter had told Bloomberg that Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd's advanced talks with the US government regarding charges of helping Americans evade taxes said that the financial institution is hoping to settle the charges without pleading guilty.
Israel's second-largest bank has reportedly alloted 950 million shekels ($275 million) to resolve the probe. One of the two people had added that the settlement will involve matters related to its Swiss unit and those that were outlined in criminal charges against several US taxpayers in a Los Angeles federal court.
The two refused to be identified as they said they were not authorized to discuss the case in public.
If that would be the case, Bloomberg said Leumi would be the first Israeli bank to settle a tax probe with the US Justice Department. The federal agency has already secured a guilty plea from the main bank subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group AG last month, and who had already agreed to pay a $2.6 billion penalty. The news agency said that the settlement would resolve Leumi's activities on behalf of the American taxpayers between the years 2002 and 2010, the Israeli bank sad yesterday in a statement.
"(Leumi is) working towards a resolution with the DOJ, in accordance with the outline and the sum proposed by the DOJ," the bank stated.
Bloomberg said the case against Leumi came amid a US crackdown on offshore tax evasion, which picked up steam in 2009 after the largest bank in Switzerland, UBS AG, had agreed to settle charges by paying $780 million and handing over the names of 4,700 of its US account holders. Over 70 American taxpayers and three dozen enablers overseas has been reportedly charged in the crackdown, while 106 Swiss banks and 43,000 US taxpayers had sought for settlement with the Justice Department by providing details on how the scheme worked.
