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Second Special Voluntary Disclosure Initiative

March 2, 2017

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The IRS announced on February 8, 2011, a second voluntary initiative inviting taxpayers with hidden offshore assets to come forward. This initiative is intended to help people get current with their taxes related to offshore assets and will remain in place until August 31, 2011. Participants may face penalties ranging from five percent to 25 percent. Doug Shulman, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner, said, “This is a fair offer for people with offshore accounts who want to get right with the nation’s taxpayers.” (From the IRS website.)

Failure to participate by coming forth voluntarily could put a renegade asset owner at risk of criminal prosecution. Taking advantage of the second special voluntary disclosure initiative, on the other hand, shields participants from criminal prosecution as well as from huge civil penalties which would ordinarily be much more than five to 25 percent.

The first such special voluntary disclosure initiative transpired between March and October of 2009. Information that the IRS gathered through this process may assist the agency in ferreting out other offenders. Furthermore, foreign governments, such as Switzerland, are cooperating in ways they did not before in helping the IRS discover hidden assets of would-be American taxpayers. The IRS’s efforts to get asset owners to disclose their assets, as well as efforts to prosecute offenders, are not going to go away. Rather, the risk of not disclosing offshore assets will become greater. Prosecutions are very likely.

Contact an Experienced Offshore Tax Evasion Attorney

For cutting edge legal counsel and representation regarding offshore assets and unpaid back taxes on those assets, contact an experienced tax law attorney. Lawrence Brown offers clients the benefits of his insights gained as a former trial lawyer for the Department of Justice Tax Division. With more than 20 years of experience, he is knowledgeable and ready to aggressively represent your best interests before the IRS in relation to disclosure of offshore assets.

Brown, PC, serves individuals and businesses in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, statewide in Texas, and nationwide. Contact Lawrence Brown at 888-870-0025 to arrange a confidential consultation about how to take advantage of the second special voluntary disclosure initiative, avoiding excessive penalties and prosecution.

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