You buy that one, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Today, the hot tax story is that almost 15,000 American crooks – I mean taxpayers – have disclosed their offshore accounts to the IRS and will now pay back billions of tax dollars. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman was absolutely ecstatic in reporting the good news.

This comes as the U.S. and Swiss governments announced an agreement that outlines how Swiss bank UBS will hand over data on U.S. citizens hiding money in foreign bank accounts. To listen to some of the news reports, you would think that the IRS just won the Super Bowl.

Don’t believe it. In reality, Shulman’s declaration of victory is the biggest overstatement since “Mission Accomplished!”

I do feel sorry for the Commissioner, though. He probably got as much Swiss bank information as the State Department would let him get – which is pretty much bupkis. And I have no doubt that he will pursue citizens who cheat on their taxes as vigorously as he can.

But betting that this agreement between the U.S. and the Swiss ends bank secrecy as we know it is a sucker’s bet.

I listen to Senator Carl Levin because he knows the score. In a statement today he said that the agreement now getting so much hype “shows the Swiss Government trying to preserve as much bank secrecy as it can for the future, while pushing to conceal the names of tens of thousands of suspected U.S. tax cheats. It is disappointing that the U.S. government went along.”

Disappointing indeed.