In a case that is likely to have a chilling effect among tax professionals, a Kentucky judge has ordered accounting giant Grant Thornton to pay $100,200,000 to a former client, for selling what is being referred to as an “abusive tax shelter.” The scheme, which would purportedly allow the client […]
Author: Lawrence Brown
“Let them eat cake” was the notorious phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, the queen who was beheaded during the French Revolution. In the field of tax law, there is a similarly short saying that reflects comparable hubris. That saying is: “Only the little people pay taxes.” It is attributed to […]
Manny Pacquiao performed well in his recent fight against Brandon Rios, but unfortunately for Pacquiao, it appears he will be heading into another bout almost immediately – a bout with the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS claims the boxer has failed to paid taxes from 2008-2009 with back taxes amounting […]
Raoul Weil, a former UBS banker who was charged by US authorities five years ago for helping rich Americans evade taxes with the aid of secret Swiss bank accounts, has agreed to stand trial in the US after being arrested in Italy. US authorities issued an international arrest warrant for […]
Strident anti-tax arguments have increasingly gained a hearing in the U.S. in recent years. Political scientists make careers out of the tracing the roots of this. From Ayn Rand’s influential novel “Atlas Shrugged” to more recent Tea Party protests, the issue of excessive and arguably unjust taxation has been much […]
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak made it clear that to avoid paying taxes is a treasonous act that deters a country’s development. Instead, he insists that to pay your taxes is a patriotic act which allows increased government and infrastructural growth. In an attempt to justify the implementation of […]
A Charleston attorney has been charged with tax evasion Wednesday along with mixing up his client’s money with his own. This federal charge against Harold S. Albertson mirrors ethics charges filed against him earlier this month by the State Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Prosecutors say Albertson tried to avoid […]
The United States continued construction on what appears to be a wide net designed to catch tax evaders on Thursday by cooperating with France in the fierce global tax battle. The agreement was signed in Paris by Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and the United States ambassador, Charles H. Rivkin. China, […]
Pressure on U.S. tax evaders intensified on Friday as a US District Judge in New York issued an order authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to issue summonses requiring Mellon, Citibank, JP Morgan, HSBC Bank USA and Bank of America to produce information in connection with undisclosed accounts at The Bank […]
Tax audits are one of our most frequent themes in this blog. Most recently, in a two-part post on October 29 and November 4, we discussed how errors by the IRS in scanning and cataloging documents from taxpayers have affected the correspondence audit process. In this post, let’s look at […]