MI­A­MI–US tax­pay­ers who stashed mon­ey in one of the Caribbean's largest banks with­out telling the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice could be in trou­ble.The US gov­ern­ment has ob­tained a court or­der to col­lect the names of tax­pay­ers who had an ac­count with CIBC First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank over an eight-year pe­ri­od end­ing De­cem­ber 31 with­out dis­clos­ing it to the IRS.

It is too soon to say how many US cit­i­zens held un­de­clared ac­counts at First­Caribbean or what penal­ties they may face, Jus­tice De­part­ment spokes­woman De­na Iver­son said.The US ob­tained the or­der from a judge Tues­day af­ter an IRS rev­enue agent re­viewed in­for­ma­tion from 129 peo­ple who vol­un­tar­i­ly came for­ward to dis­close off­shore ac­counts and de­cid­ed fur­ther scruti­ny of First­Caribbean was war­rant­ed.

US au­thor­i­ties have is­sued such blan­ket sub­poe­nas, known as a "John Doe sum­mons," to seek out tax cheats in the past, most no­tably in the case of UBS AG, the largest bank in Switzer­land. Iver­son said this was the first for a Caribbean bank.The gov­ern­ment's ac­tion should prompt con­cern for any fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion in the re­gion with a "will­ing­ness to be dis­hon­est," said David Marchant, own­er and ed­i­tor of the in­flu­en­tial Off­sho­re­Al­ert newslet­ter based in Mi­a­mi.

"The Unit­ed States seems to be go­ing from ju­ris­dic­tion to ju­ris­dic­tion with a big broom sweep­ing up and pre­sum­ably they are work­ing their way around the globe as it were," Marchant said. "And it seems to be the Caribbean's turn."CIBC First­Caribbean, based in Bar­ba­dos, has 100 branch­es in in 17 coun­tries in the Caribbean, about 3,400 em­ploy­ees and more than $11.5 bil­lion in as­sets, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny's 2012 an­nu­al re­port.

AP