PayPal and the IRS
 

...and so it begins: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/11/paypal.suit.ap/index.html

At least for offshore accounts.....

This is just a proof-of-concept for a larger scan under the guise of looking for illegal activity.

I may be missing something (probably) but if you're going to the trouble of hiding money in an offshore account, wouldn't you go to the additional trouble of using a different name? And why would you give your SSN to a foreign bank? As long as you have the debit card and PIN, it really doesn't matter what name is on the card.

Exactly. The people who are are really hiding serious sums of cash in offshore accounts are not earning selling grandma's knick-knacks on ebay; they're ex CEO's of defense contractors and the like.

This is a just a warm-up excercise to set some precedents.