There now may be a matter of trust in other parts of this banks business by what this article may be implying. I see it says its accounting practices came under scrutiny before and some involved have to stand trial on tax fraud charges.

"Talk about a gaffe: Last month a Milan judge ordered 20 bankers and former managers of Barclays and the Italian bank UniCredit SpA to stand trial on tax-fraud charges. The tax probe was linked to a complex investment plan arranged by Barclays known as Brontos, where interest payments on deposit accounts allegedly were made to look like dividends, which were taxed at lower rates, according to a June 5 article by Bloomberg News.

Barclays in a statement last month said it didn’t violate any laws. Members of Parliament at this week’s hearing also noted that Barclays’s accounting practices have come under regulatory scrutiny before -- particularly the bank’s use of a Cayman Islands company called Protium in 2009 to transfer several billion pounds of troubled assets off its balance sheet."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-05/barclays-corrupts-libor-and-maybe-a-lot-more.html

I am kinda surprised to see a bank may be involved in what could be looked at as tax evasion by holding money in off shore accounts. It states in the link below;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_bank

"Offshore banking has often been associated with the underground economy and organized crime, via tax evasion and money laundering; however, legally, offshore banking does not prevent assets from being subject to personal income tax on interest."

Also, here is a list of the most common off shore banks ;

http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/swiss-bank-account6.htm

I guess the couple out of the wiki link should be added also as more and more things get revealed to the public, it may help interested investors to know beforehand how this stuff works. Here is the couple from the wiki link;

" including Swiss banks and those of other landlocked nations such as Luxembourg and Andorra."

And here is a little more about Luxembourg;

Following September 11, 2001, there have been many calls for more regulation on international finance, in particular concerning offshore banks, tax havens, and clearing houses such as Clearstream, based in Luxembourg, being possible crossroads for major illegal money flows.

This stuff gets more interesting everyday, and at this rate, how much more corruption will be revealed to the public in the near future? We are only starting to hear this about 1 major bank yet, there are many more named to see what their part, if any may be in this. It doesn,t seem fair when big guys can avoid some taxes by having stock held in off shore accounts while the muppets can,t afford those liberties and get a measly TFSA here that the stock market manipulation has almost decimated for me putting me further behind than ahead.If I would have had an off shore account, I could buy and sell stock and not worry much about the very little tax that would be paid or some of the other rules and could build a portfolio much quicker in a volitile market by trading. But, I wouldn,t feel right, seeing others that didn,t have that benefit and less tax dollars coming back into the country to help with health care for our seniors, for example. Everyone should pay their share in this world and help out the less forunate when they can. Its sad to see many of our seniors barely having enough money coming in, living from paycheque to paycheque.

IMO