Swiss Bank Accounts

The NYT published an editorial a few days ago entitled "If Switzerland Can ..." which included a few statistics I found interesting.

American and Swiss officials have jointly agreed to a system to identify 4,450 accounts — out of 52,000 — that are most likely to have been set up to evade taxes. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that at their peak these accounts held $18 billion. American officials are keeping secret the criteria used to identify these accounts — hoping that nervous evaders will turn themselves in voluntarily before a September deadline to get a reduced fine and avoid criminal prosecution.

Let's see.  That's about $4 million per account.

That $18 billion is a rather small percentage of the holdings of America's top 1%.  The 2007 SCF (Survey of Consumer Finances, from the Federal Reserve Board) says that the top 1% of us had Net Worth of $21.864 trillion.  $18 billion is less than 0.1% of their holdings.  A trivial figure, no?

Well, it might be worth considering that $18 billion is 1.11% of the aggregate net worth of the bottom 50% of us -- $1.611 trillion.

It is also about 0.82% of the 2006 income of the bottom 50% of us.

The article goes on to say,

The Tax Justice Network, a research and advocacy organization, estimates there are $11.5 trillion in global assets hidden in offshore havens.

I wonder how much of that is holdings of Americans, and, more important, where those dollars came from.  Rent?  Natural resources?