U.S. tax authorities are playing hardball and their current opponents are Swiss banks.  With formal U.S. tax investigations focused squarely on numerous Swiss banks - including Credit Suisse - Switzerland has had second thoughts about cooperating.  This means they're currently set to hand over the names of suspected tax dodgers to U.S. authorities shortly after Swiss general elections at the end of October - according to reports by newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, which didn't cite sources. The U.S. has been pushing for Switzerland to supply information on bank clients who may have evaded taxes.  Just last year, Swiss authorities broke a long-time tradition of protecting the privacy of its banking clients in order to save UBS AG from criminal charges.  Switzerland allowed UBS to bend bank secrecy law and reveal details of around 4,450 clients, to avoid criminal charges.  Of course, UBS had to pay hundreds of millions in penalties along with revealing those names. Current U.S. Targets. Besides Credit Suisse, U.S. authorities presently are looking into whether HSBC and smaller Swiss private banks and cantonal banks - e.g., Basler Kantonalbank, Wegelin and Julius Baer - have helped wealthy Americans dodge taxes.  Just last week a secret meeting between the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF) took place last week with the banks that allegedly are involved.  During this meeting, the banks were told to prepare dossiers of their U.S. clients. "Talks with the United States are continuing.  We are not disclosing any details," Mario Tuor a spokesman for the SIF told Reuters.  A first set of data is expected to be delivered at the end of October, and a second set in the middle of November, according to the Tages-Anzeiger.   [Reuters, 10/7/11]