Archive for Michael DeBlis, III

Beware of The Consequences of Avoiding U.S. And Foreign Taxes

The catch phrase in the movie Jerry McGuire was “Show Me the Money!”

It now looks like prosecutors are adopting the same mantra and are enjoying success in courts indicting those that attempt to hide money and avoid paying taxes either in the U.S. or abroad.

In the past, it was a given that an individual or organization that stayed within the parameters of its country’s tax laws wouldn’t be prosecuted by another country. For example, an expat whose business was abiding by all the laws in France wouldn’t get any flak from the IRS or the U.S. Department of Justice for violations of U.S. laws.

Think of this as “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Ahh … The Sweet Taste of Victory

Withers Wins Victory on Behalf of U.S. Clients Seeking to Renounce Citizenship

In a press release dated March 3, 2015, the Withers Law Firm announced that it was successful in persuading the U.S. Department of State (DOS) to abandon its long-standing position of treating a U.S. citizen who is attempting to renounce his citizenship as being ineligible for a visa to visit the U.S. for business or for pleasure. As a way of background information, while a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) letter is pending, a person attempting to renounce his citizenship remains a U.S. citizen and is thus ineligible for a visa to visit the U.S. either for business or for pleasure (U.S. citizens are not eligible for visas). Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA

Ex-Casino Owner, Nevada Businessman and Former NFL Player ‘Bite the Dust’ In Massive Tax Fraud Scheme

If it wasn’t so serious, it has all the makings of a joke with a hilarious punch line: “So this ex-Casino owner and former NFL player are sitting at a bar sipping their gin and reminiscing about old times when …” Only it is.

A former casino owner, a former businessman from Las Vegas, and a former NFL punter were recently sentenced in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas for conspiring to promote a fraudulent tax product through the now-defunct National Audit Defense Network (NADN).

Alan Rodrigues, NADN’s former general manager and executive vice president, was sentenced to serve 72 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $2,000 special assessment by the judge. Rodrigues must also Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

A Point To Ponder

Most of us remember the good old days of the 1990s – a seemingly decisive victory in the First Persian Gulf War, the dot-com bubble that transformed computer geeks into nouveau riche millionaires, and a string of world championships that made the New York Yankees appear seemingly unbeatable. President Bill Clinton did a good job of manning the wheel during most of the decade, although truth be told, almost anyone can sail a ship when the seas are calm and a gentle but steady breeze is filling the sails.

Mr. Clinton did have his shortcomings, most notably his interaction with a certain intern which led to. . . well, we’ll skip all the sordid details. He was certainly not the first President to behave in such a manner, and he will not be the last one, but he was the only one to be caught in such a dramatic fashion. After he appeared before a federal grand jury, Read More

Written by | Posted in Expatriate • FBAR • Income Tax • Tax Tips

Don’t Make Yourself A Target

Almost everyone knows the story of William Tell. Back in the days when the Austrian Hapsburgs were the bully of the block, one of the family’s lackeys ran an arrow through a hat and stuck it to a tree with the strict edict that all good Swiss in Uri should remove their hats in the presence of their overlords. William Tell, either because he was a nationalist or because he had a receding hairline, refused to doff his capuchin.

The enraged Duke of Someplace – whose name no one seems to remember – stood Billy’s son against a tree and placed an apple on his head. The pressure was on. If William could not shoot the apple off the boy’s head with a single arrow at 120 paces, it would not be a pleasant ending for either of them. But the task was mere child’s play for our intrepid hero. “Your life is now safe,” the Duke admitted. Yet, he was curious. “Kindly Read More

Written by | Posted in Income Tax • IRS • Tax Tips

Former UBS Client Sentenced To Prison For Hiding Offshore Bank Accounts From IRS

Another former UBS client has bit the dust. The Department of Justice recently announced that Gregg A. Kaminsky, an internet entrepreneur who served as CEO of Circlenet LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia was sentenced for willfully failing to file a Foreign Bank Account Report. Unlike Raoul Weil and a few others who have held the government to its burden, Mr. Kaminsky chose not to fight, but instead to lay down his sword and enter a guilty plea.

Between 2000 and 2009, Mr. Kaminsky owned and controlled a foreign bank account with Union Bank of Switzerland AG (“UBS”), Switzerland’s largest bank and one of the largest wealth managers in the world. By 2006, Mr. Kaminsky’s UBS account reached a high watermark amount of roughly $1.1 million. During this time, Mr. Kaminsky Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR • Individual • IRS

What Do You Do Next After You’ve Been Pre-accepted Into OVDP?

You’ve submitted your OVDP letter and attachments to the Voluntary Disclosure Coordinator and are reclining in your arm chair watching the “big game” while opening up the day’s mail. The upper left-hand corner of one of the envelopes in your pile is adorned with the IRS’s logo. You open it up. The letter is but a few paragraphs long and as you start glancing at it you breathe a sigh of relief. It says that your disclosure has been preliminarily accepted by CI as timely.

It provides instructions for the second phase: completing and submitting the full voluntary disclosure package to the Austin Campus within 90 days of the date of the timeliness determination (and cooperating with the examiner in resolving all civil liability). You’ve made it this far, but you are uncertain about what is meant by a “full voluntary disclosure Read More

Written by | Posted in OVDP

Raise Your Hands In The Air Like You Just Don’t Care

One of the classic Paper Chase cases, albeit from a different first-year course than the one that the late, great John Houseman taught, is 1891’s O’Brien v. Cunnard S.S. Co., Ltd. Mary O’Brien, an Irish immigrant on board a ship from Queenstown to Boston, held up her arm to be vaccinated against smallpox, a duty which the ship’s surgeon dutifully performed. She later claimed that the vaccination was an assault because the doctor “used force on the plaintiff against her will” and that he was “negligent” during the procedure, although the facts are a bit hazy as to exactly what this learned physician did, or did not, do. Although Ms. O’Brien was a new citizen, she apparently knew enough about the system to call a lawyer and sue everyone in sight.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court eventually ruled that Ms. O’Brien consented to the Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR

Beyond The FBAR – Everything You Never Wanted To Know About All of The Other International Reporting Forms (But Must)

With all of the focus on FBARs and Form 8938s these days, it’s sometimes easy to forget about the other IRS international reporting forms. Below is a list of other important international reporting forms that relate to foreign asset reporting along with their penalties.

(1) Form 3520, Annual Return to Report Transactions With Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts: Under IRC § 6048, taxpayers must report various transactions involving foreign trusts, including creation of a foreign trust by a United States person, transfers of property from a United States person to a foreign trust, and receipt of distributions from foreign trusts. This return also reports the receipt of gifts from foreign entities under IRC § 6039F. The penalty for failing to file each one of these information Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR • International

Corporate Tax Reform: An Illusion Or A Reality?

It has been a rallying cry that is as old as time and that rivals that of the standing ovation that the Rangers receive after scoring a power play goal: “Corporate tax in this country needs to be reformed.” Who is leading the charge? America’s chief executives. What is responsible for catapulting this into the public eye? None other than the nation’s aging tax code, which has been blamed for putting U.S. multinational corporations at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.

As tax reform chatter grows louder, chief executives have become more outspoken. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, told lawmakers, “Apple has recommended to the Obama administration and several members of Congress — and suggests to the subcommittee today — to pass legislation that Read More

Written by | Posted in Corporate • IRS • Tax Policy

How Do You Spell ‘Relief’?

This commercial always perplexed me as a child, because I was pretty sure that “relief” was not spelled as “r-o-l-a-i-d-s,” despite what the actors and TV announcers said. I finally took my concerns to my mother, because she always had all the answers. She assured me that I was right, and that the intentional misspelling was just the product slogan. In retrospect, I believe that my young mind was thrown by the fact that both “relief” and “Rolaids” begin with “r.”

Today, if you speak to a random IRS agent, he or she may spell “relief” as “F-A-T-C-A,” the unfortunately-named acronym that is only one letter shy of “fat cat.” As you probably already know, lingering effects of the Great Recession have led to a great deal of worldwide belt-tightening, as well as no small amount of political animosity towards Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA

Staff Reductions & Insufficient Funding Will Dramatically Impact IRS in 2015 And Beyond

Last Tuesday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen addressed the New York State bar Association Tax Section in New York. His comments provide keen insight into the going-on’s at the IRS. Mr. Koskinen’s most important announcement centered on the agency’s anticipated reduction in the number of rulemaking projects as a result of budgetary constraints.

Although releasing guidance is one of the agency’s core functions, there are simply not enough attorneys in the Office of Chief Counsel to shoulder the burden. Nor are there any plans on the horizon to hire more workers, in light of the agency-wide hiring freeze.

“Our office of chief counsel continues to make every effort to issue guidance in a timely Read More

Written by | Posted in Audit • Corporate • Federal • IRS • Partnership
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