By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel

After years of secrecy, and the ongoing investigations about offshore accounts, the Swiss desire to be more transparent. Gosh, we’re so privileged. To make this cheese even more pungent, they suggest a global tax on offshore accounts.

What a sweet deal. One thing for certain is they must be seriously hurting to make this overture to the world.

A universal withholding tax? A universal type tax into a universal institution? Are they holding a gun to our head? Could this be the beginning of seamless nation-state-less banking? Attention, socialists, tea party sippers, and nationalists. The Swiss, the banking leaders of the world, are tunneling into your main street bank.

Or are they? The world cannot take this seriously. While many benefit from Swiss banking confidentiality, this seems to be a seismic shift in their outsider philosophy. Their bank books will be examined as they’re being done at this moment by our investigative agencies, here and abroad.

No matter how we slice this cheese, though, there will be holes in the rules as long as Swiss banks protect client confidentiality. It’s part of their history and they see the need to be different.

Smile for the transparency commercial…or mug shot depending upon your tax return...