The registration deadline for interests in foreign bank accounts is June 30. This means it is now less than a month away. For holders of foreign accounts, this date is akin to the filing deadline in April for individual tax returns. You’ve got to get FBAR on your radar or […]
Category: Offshore Accounts/International Tax Disputes
Life, as the saying goes, is full of choices. For holders of foreign bank accounts, those choices continue to require up-to-date information and an awareness of effective tax strategy. Offshore account enforcement is a key area of emphasis for the IRS. The agency recently joined with European countries in an […]
The IRS is going after assets held in foreign accounts like never before. First it was not one but two iterations of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI). Coming soon is a new law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA is an offshore account enforcement law passed […]
The Internal Revenue Service issued new guidelines in early June regarding its voluntary disclosure program to mitigate penalties for failing to report income in Swiss bank accounts and other offshore locations to avoid tax liability. Some U.S. taxpayers will have 90 days beyond the August 31, 2011, deadline to disclose […]
With the rollout of the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI), the Internal Revenue Service is offering “incentives” through reduced penalties to those who have either knowingly or unknowingly failed to report income from monies in foreign bank accounts. This is the second such initiative in the last few years […]
Failing to disclose bank accounts and earnings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is generally a practice that can bring legal difficulties, particularly in recent years when the focus has been placed on investigating offshore accounts. The IRS has vast resources at its disposal and does not hesitate to use […]
According to a Reuters report, bankers with HSBC conspired with a New Jersey businessman to hide bank accounts in India and avoid detection from the Internal Revenue Service. The indictment is another indication of the widening probe into offshore accounts, and into HSBC, by federal investigators. Vaibhav Dahake, who has […]
In late 2009, officials with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began to examine the issue of foreign vessels operating on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico. The agency was concerned that these vessels were registering under foreign flags in an attempt to avoid paying the required […]
The U.S. Department of Justice recently dismissed a milestone criminal case against UBS, the Swiss-based bank that admitted to aiding U.S. citizens evade taxes on over 17,000 accounts. The case was dismissed-as negotiated-when UBS signed an 18-month probation agreement to hand over data on 4,500 accounts and pay a fine […]
In 2009, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced it would crackdown on offshore accounts. The DOJ would be dedicating more if its efforts and resources to finding individuals and companies who use offshore tax havens to avoid paying income taxes in the United States. The crackdown was announced, in part, because […]