Tax dodgers scramble to come clean amid crackdown

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A deal with Switzerland settling U.S. demands for the names of suspected tax dodgers from a Swiss bank has a lot of wealthy Americans with offshore accounts nervously running to their tax advisers -- and the Internal Revenue Service.

"They are very frightened," said Richard Boggs, chief executive of Nationwide Tax Relief, a Los-Angeles-based tax firm that specializes in clients with tax debts exceeding $100,000. "You have the super rich who are not used to being pushed around and they are finding themselves in unfamiliar territory."

The U.S. and Swiss governments announced a court settlement last week in efforts by the IRS to force Zurich-based UBS AG to turn over the names of some 52,000 Americans believed to be hiding nearly $15 billion in assets in secret accounts.