Prime Partners SA Will Pay $5 Million in Forfeiture and Restitution; Receives Non-Prosecution Agreement As a Result of its Extraordinary Cooperation

Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Stuart M. Goldberg, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and James D. Robnett, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”), announced today that Prime Partners SA (“Prime Partners”) entered into a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and agreed to pay $5 million to the United States for assisting U.S. taxpayer-clients in opening and maintaining undeclared foreign bank accounts from 2001 through 2010. Read More

For this post, I will present some news about tax topics that may affect your current situation: earned income tax credit (EITC), delayed nonresident refunds, and expatriate income tax.

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I have to say today’s blog post was triggered by a phone call a few weeks ago. The would-be client wanted to report his foreign bank accounts. Apparently, this good citizen had all his I’s dotted & T’s crossed – so to speak – so what was the problem you ask? I hate to say this, but it happens more than you would think. He did not know there were additional reporting requirements involved when it came to bank accounts in foreign financial institutions. (More on FBAR thresholds in my post here)

You have to know that the IRS will not impose a penalty for the failure to file the delinquent FBARs if you “properly” reported the foreign bank accounts on your US tax returns, and paid tax on the income from these accounts and have not been contacted by the IRS for an income tax examination or a request for the delinquent returns has not been made by them. Read More

Former Congressman Barney Frank recently remarked that the financial reform law that partially bears his name is in a unique position, because “No program in American history could more clearly combine two elements: great success and absolute unpopularity.” While the jury is still out on the “great success” of Dodd-Frank, there is no doubt that everyone hates it.

Many Democrats, especially progressives like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, don’t think the law went far enough towards reigning in the big banks. There is even talk in some quarters about blowing the dust off the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which might effectively break up Wall Street banks the way the government broke up Ma Bell a generation ago. Read More

You Are Invited To Be Part of Internet History…
Join TaxConnections as we present incredible Tax Experts on Expatriate Day at the Internet Tax Summit on Monday, September 21, 2015 beginning at 7:30AM (PDT).

 

Listen to stories from Expatriates around the world and learn from these Tax Experts about what to do to stay compliant with U.S. Tax Laws. Learn about FBAR, FATCA, Amnesty or Quiet “Voluntary Disclosure” of Foreign Bank Accounts, Exit Taxes and so much more. Read More

Preliminary Introduction For TaxConnections Global Internet Tax Summit, September 21-25, 2015

The most recent IRS push to close “the Gap” between collected U.S. tax revenue and the total tax revenue which should be reported by U.S. citizens and alien residents of the United States has focused on offshore income concealed in foreign or offshore accounts.

U.S. citizens are liable for U.S. taxation on all income realized globally, regardless of the foreign jurisdiction in which their funds are deposited in foreign accounts.  U.S. citizens are not only liable for U.S. tax on such foreign sources of income, they are required to report all funds in excess of $10,000.00 on deposit in foreign accounts over which they have “signature authority” even if they only have a nominal “financial interest” in the Read More

What is this phenomenon known as double counting? Why is it important? If you are shepherding clients through the OVDP program, or you are going through the program yourself, it is critical that you understand what it means and the governing principles behind it. Otherwise, you could be paying an offshore penalty that is exponentially higher than what it ought to be.

This article will explain the principles behind double counting and what type of supporting evidence the taxpayer must produce in order to prove double counting to the satisfaction of the IRS. As is my ordinary practice, I will make use of a hypothetical.

As a refresher, the offshore penalty is determined by isolating the highest aggregate Read More

When looking for a picture for this post, I came across this one and remembered my college English Professor. She really loved the term, “Freudian Slip” for some reason! All I knew then was that Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis but I never quite understood how that related to a Business English class, unless that was the Professor’s way of telling us we were driving her nuts! Now I know that the term, “Freudian Slip” is a “mistake in speech that shows what the speaker is truly thinking” or “to do what one is truly thinking about”.

No, this post is not about defining psychoanalytic terms, dare I say more interesting than tax stuff? Not quite, but this post is about the latest buzz from the Internal Revenue Service, about some situations US taxpayers having foreign accounts might be in and their Read More

Overview

On March 18, 2010, the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” or “HIRE Act” was signed into law. Section 511 of the HIRE Act created I.R.C. § 6038D. This section requires specified individual taxpayers with an interest in “specified foreign financial assets” to file Form 8938 if the aggregate value of those assets exceeds the applicable reporting threshold. The applicable reporting threshold is generally $ 50,000, but higher asset thresholds apply to U.S. taxpayers who file a joint tax return or who live abroad.

Tax practitioners dread Form 8938 in large part because it means more, and often times duplicate, reporting. For example, a taxpayer with more than $ 10,000 in an offshore account already must file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) with the IRS. But in a post-Form 8938 world, that same taxpayer must file a separate Form Read More

My expression was a jaw dropping experience when a client of ours revealed their foreign bank account balances a month after we had filed their tax returns. A long lecture about foreign account balances, and an Amended Tax Return followed with required attachments. We quickly realized the need for the right questions in the December Tax Organizer. This was a few years ago and there have been many updates to those questions now.

Unfortunately there are many taxpayers out there who are still unaware of their filing/ reporting requirements. More details on the requirements in my post here. And many a time this is because they have not been educated of their requirements by their tax preparers. Read More

The United States is tracking down hidden offshore accounts, and the latest news is a report that shows which states have the most taxpayers disclosing such accounts (California is No. 1), and where they are located (Switzerland is tops).

Taxpayers in at least 45 states and the District of Columbia reported accounts in 68 countries and territories.

The new U.S. Government Accountability Office report: “IRS’s Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP): 2009 Participation by State and Location of Foreign Bank Accounts,” is a supplement to its March 2013 report, “Offshore Tax Evasion: IRS Has Collected Billions of Dollars, but May be Missing Continued Evasion.” Read More

Data Mining

Since 2009 with the inception of the first Internal Revenue Service Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), over 38,000 taxpayers have provided detailed information to the IRS which has been steadily fed into its E–Trak System. The information has come from those participating in the various IRS’s Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiatives and Programs (OVDI/OVDP). There have now been three separate programs with more and more taxpayers coming forward.

Some taxpayers entering the Programs have had face-to-face interviews with the IRS and/or Read More