150 American UBS clients are investigated - Times Online .

The US Government is investigating more than 150 American clients of UBS whom it suspects of hiding assets in secret Swiss bank accounts.

Details of the investigation were revealed in a document filed in a Florida court that is due to decide on the prison term for Bradley Birkenfeld, a former UBS banker who pleaded guilty last year to helping rich customers evade tax.

Which sounds worryingly low until you read that:

In the filing, Jeffrey Sloman, the Acting US Attorney, said that the 150-plus people across the US being investigated were among the 250 names handed to the Inland Revenue Service (IRS), America’s tax authority, by UBS in February.

That's 60% already in progress. That's good news.

And clear indication of the scale of the problem that is unfolding.

And in the meantime rumour reaches me that the number coming forward to confess, and not just UBS clients, is growing steadily.

We'll never stop tax evasion, I know. But we can have a darned good go at containing it.