The Real Housewives of New Jersey stars Teresa and Joe Giudice are facing very real trouble after pleading guilty to several charges of their 41-count indictment on various fraud and tax charges, according to US Weekly. Originally, the couple had pled not guilty to two charges in November. “Teresa and […]
It’s been awhile since we devoted a post on this blog to tax issues relating to implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known on Obamacare). As we noted in our December 17 post last year, the IRS is deeply involved in this implementation. This involvement goes well beyond […]
Political tension could rise if it becomes widely known that under diplomatic agreements instigated by the U.S. targeting tax evasion, U.S. financial firms will be required to share information on foreign-born U.S. residents with foreign governments. According to the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, foreign financial institutions will be […]
Political commentators sometimes opine that in a democracy, we get the government we deserve. As a broad sociological statement, perhaps there is some truth in this statement. For individual taxpayers, however, it is difficult to understand why the IRS fails to provide better customer service. In this post, we will […]
This is a follow-up to our post two weeks ago on the hearing in Congress on the status of U.S. investigations into alleged offshore tax evasion facilitated by Swiss banks. As we noted in our February 20 post, the large bank at the center of the current controversy is Credit […]
Switzerland’s finance minister told a Swiss newspaper that the country planned to adopt a much more friendly position in regards to sharing bank client data with foreign tax authorities much more quickly than originally thought and cannot hold back until all other countries have introduced the practice. Forty-two countries have […]
With the recent global crackdown on tax evasion in full swing, Standard Chartered PLC is seeking a buyer for its Swiss private bank put on the block by Italian insurance giant Assicrazioni Generali SpA. While Standard Chartered still has plans to grow its private banking in other financial hubs including […]
A federal judge ruled today that Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution. Federal judges in three other states have issued similar rulings in the last three months. In that sense, today’s ruling in Texas could constitute a contribution to a cultural tipping point. For our purposes of […]
The multi-front effort by U.S. authorities to enforce reporting requirements for offshore accounts is taking place on a complicated international stage. As we discussed in our September 6 post last year, there has been considerable pushback by U.S. taxpayers against the stepped-up enforcement. Surprisingly large numbers of those taxpayers have […]
Swiss banks seeking non-prosecution agreements ran out of time to apply for the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) amnesty program on December 31, 2013. Before the amnesty program closed, the DOJ announced that 106 banks sent letters of intent to participate. Banks that made it into the program will be […]