AFP – The United States and Switzerland will begin negotiations to amend their bilateral income tax treaty to provide for improved transparency, the US Treasury Department said Monday.

The announcement came following Group of 20 pledges last week to clean up tax havens and fight tax fraud and as bilateral relations have been strained by a massive tax fraud case involving Swiss banking giant UBS.

The negotiations to amend the 1996 treaty are expected to begin April 28 in Berne, Switzerland, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

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Times Online – Secretive hedge funds will eventually be subject to the same supervisory rules as banks, under a tightening of Britain’s system of regulation.

The changes, which will require banks and other lenders to build up their reserves in healthy economic times, could become the basis for international efforts to overhaul regulation at the G20 summit in London on April 2. The moves will be proposed on Wednesday in a report by Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, who will call for an overhaul of the tripartite links between the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury.

They follow repeated pledges from Gordon Brown for a crackdown on the “shadow banking system”.

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