TaxConnections Picture - Statue Liberty and FlagToday’s blog post completes the interview with Willard (Bill) Yates, who recently retired from the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service. During his tenure as a Chief Counsel Attorney, Bill was the recipient of 10 awards, including the Albert Gallatin Award, Treasury’s highest career service award. The Gallatin is awarded only to select federal employees who served twenty or more years in the Department and whose record reflects fidelity to duty. Bill received the Gallatin award for his work throughout his IRS career, including his work on implementation of some of the compliance requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

Most of Bill’s career at IRS focused on offshore compliance, including his participation in a massive overhaul of outdated foreign trust reporting requirements Form 3520, Annual Return to Report Transactions with Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts and Form 3520-A, Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust with a U.S. Owner). Bill was the principal drafter of the regulations under section 679, Foreign trusts having one or more United States beneficiaries, Notice 2003-75, RRSP and RRIF Information Reporting and Notice 2009-85, Guidance for Expatriates Under Section 877A.

Our focus for this series will be on Bill’s comments on the American Citizens Abroad working paper titled, RBT, Residence Based Taxation: A Necessary and Urgent Tax Reform (RBT Proposal), which recently was submitted to the International Tax Reform Working Group of the House Ways and Means Committee. Read More

TaxConnections Picture - Tax BriefcaseThis is a continuation from yesterday’s post of the interview with Bill Yates:

Yates: Everyone in the room who knew me turned and looked at me. I’ve been involved in horses since I was five. Believe me, no one makes $50 million raising bucking horses. That is patently ridiculous. What it shows is that LGT would accept any explanation regarding the source of a prospective client’s funds or assets. Then, the UBS scandal broke. That’s when things really got ridiculous.

La Torre Jeker: How?

Yates: Well, we started seeing how European governments were shocked, I mean shocked, really, to find out that any of their banks could be involved in promoting and facilitating tax evasion. Give me a break. How could you live in the EU and not know about what was going on in Switzerland, Lichtenstein and the Caribbean tax havens, many of which by the way are British protectorates?

La Torre Jeker: So, are you saying that foreign banks had it coming to them? I mean FATCA. Read More

TaxConnections Picture - AgentToday’s blog post is a continuation of the interview that provides valuable insight from Willard (Bill) Yates, who recently retired from the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service. During his tenure as a Chief Counsel Attorney, Bill was the recipient of 10 awards, including the Albert Gallatin Award, Treasury’s highest career service award. The Gallatin is awarded only to select federal employees who served twenty or more years in the Department and whose record reflects fidelity to duty. Bill received the Gallatin award for his work throughout his IRS career, including his work on implementation of some of the compliance requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

Most of Bill’s career at IRS focused on offshore compliance, including his participation in a massive overhaul of outdated foreign trust reporting requirements Form 3520, Annual Return to Report Transactions with Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts and Form 3520-A, Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust with a U.S. Owner). Bill was the principal drafter of the regulations under section 679, Foreign trusts having one or more United States beneficiaries, Notice 2003-75, RRSP and RRIF Information Reporting and Notice 2009-85, Guidance for Expatriates Under Section 877A.

Our focus for this series will be on Bill’s comments on the American Citizens Abroad working paper titled, RBT, Residence Based Taxation: A Necessary and Urgent Tax Reform (RBT Proposal), which recently was submitted to the International Tax Reform Working Group of the House Ways and Means Committee.

In general, the RBT Proposal offers an alternative to citizen-based taxation (CBT).

La Torre Jeker: Bill, please give us your general impression of the RBT Proposal. Read More