The Swiss Account

About the Book

To be published March 2026 by Rare Bird Books

 

Switzerland’s majestic peaks and remote valleys lend it storied beauty and set it off as a natural fortress at the very heart of Europe, insulated from the rivalries and armed tumult of the surrounding countries. Thus blessed, the industrious and prosperous Swiss people have collectively long kept a singular secret—the identity of hordes of foreigners who have stashed some or all of their wealth, whether honestly earned or ill got, in Swiss banks, protected by the government’s complicit secrecy laws.

Though few countries forbid these international depositors from maintaining Swiss accounts, they are required to report their overseas assets and pay taxes on what they earn. Which is why the account owners, disdainful of domestic tax collectors, wish their accounts to remain hidden. Leo Beckwith, a highly successful American entrepreneur, was one such Swiss account owner. Upon his death, he willed the account to his daughter Lynn, the least favored of his three children. A hard-working real estate agent in Bucks County, PA, Lynn is stunned to discover her father’s Swiss fortune is enough to put her, husband Jerry Hazeltine, who earns a respectable but modest salary as an art history professor, and their family on Easy Street for life. Except for one slight problem: During all the years he kept his Swiss account, Leo had—oops—neglected to notify the U.S. Treasury, or anyone else, of its existence.

To the Hazeltines, upright, public-spirited citizens, the golden albatross suddenly hung around their necks presents a profound moral dilemma. If they report their Swiss booty, the IRS is likely to confiscate it all to pay Leo’s long overdue tax bill. If they keep it, enjoying lush creature comforts and lifetime financial security, they become chronic tax evaders in constant peril of apprehension by federal agents and a long stay in their offended Uncle Sam’s lockup.

In The Swiss Account, Phyllis and Richard Kluger narrate the Hazeltines’ ever-growing danger as they try to circumnavigate the hazards of their anguishing quandary without losing their self-respect. The result is a wayward romp that veers off law-abiding society’s straight and narrow path and asks whether the Hazeltines are fallen angels trapped by snarky fate or scheming rogues protesting their righteousness all the way to the bank.