The so-called “Panama Papers” have continued to spell trouble not only for the Panamanian law firm alleged to have created illegal tax havens for clients to shield assets from American tax liability, but also for the countless law-abiding expatriates, foreign nationals and U.S. citizens with international banking accounts. The scandal […]
Audits by the taxman are scary things. No Texas business or resident likes the idea of facing off with the IRS. However, what readers may be surprised to learn is that the IRS doesn’t much care for audits, either. Its own studies reveal that audits are time consuming for the agency […]
Texas, Florida, Nevada and Wyoming are a few of the states that have no state income tax. U.S. territories also have different tax policies. A long-standing agreement between the Virgin Islands and the U.S. allows territory residents to pay their taxes to the Islands. As retirees know when they split […]
Uncle Sam has been hard up for cash for many years. On a national level, the scale is staggering: an estimated deficit this year for the U.S. government of $544 billion. Not surprisingly, with so much red ink, various proposals to put more collection capabilities in the IRS’s toolkit have […]
Let’s resume our discussion of the closely watched tax evasion case involving Lionel Messi, the famed soccer star. As we noted in part 1, Messi contends he signed tax returns and contracts without really knowing the contents. He told the Spanish court that he did so because he trusted his […]
A strange story involving a Canadian baby who also has U.S. citizenship, her bank, the Canadian Revenue Agency and the IRS raises legal issues that will be important to other U.S. citizens living in Canada (and in other countries) with (and without) dual citizenship. iPolitics reported in April that a […]
Most people only remember April 15 when thinking about taxes. For those with an aggregate interest of at least $10,000 in foreign accounts, June 30 is another date to remember for one more year. It is the filing deadline for Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts […]
Soccer star Lionel Messi is one of the most celebrated athletes in the world, with an income to match. His position on the field is forward, not defender or goalie. But he now finds himself playing defense against criminal tax-evasion charges in Spain. In this two-part post, we will take […]
For over seven years, U.S. authorities have been cracking down aggressively on unreported offshore accounts. The crackdown has proceeded on multiple levels, across continents, with surprisingly effective results. A key moment came in 2009, when the Swiss banking giant UBS agreed to pay $780 million to resolve allegations by the […]
In the past, being selected for an audit used to be a death knell for a business. Given the pervasive power of the IRS to investigate and review records, and then to institute penalties and interest that could cripple a business. To make things worse, businesses can’t always predict when […]