Be Careful What You “Fix For” – Mr. Kentera Meets Mr. FBAR

John Richardson

The “unfiled FBAR” continues to be a problem for certain Homeland Americans with “offshore accounts” and all Americans abroad, who continue to “commit personal finance abroad”.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Kentara

The facts (as reported by Virginia La Torre Jeker in her outstanding analysis):

In Kentera v. United States, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12450 (ED WI 2017), the US District Court dismissed a complaint filed by a husband and wife living in California. The Kentera’s were seeking review of FBAR nonwillful penalties asserted by the IRS. The nonwillful FBAR penalties were assessed pursuant to an audit after the couple withdrew from the IRS’ 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI).

The facts of the case are taken from the plaintiff’s complaint, which can be read here. In summary, they are as follows:

In 1984, after the death of his father, the plaintiff-husband, Milo Kentera, inherited a Swiss foreign bank account at Banque Cantonale de Geneve (Swiss Account). The account was automatically transferred to the plaintiff at the death of his father, so the plaintiff did not take any action in creating this account. Sometime soon afterwards, Milo added his wife’s name to the Swiss Account. The balance in the account was under $10,000USD through 2004 but increased somewhat in 2005-06 going over the $10,000USD FBAR filing threshold. The Swiss Account increased significantly in 2007 upon the sale of the plaintiff’s parents’ Montenegro real property. Some of the sales proceeds were distributed to plaintiff Milo and deposited in the Swiss Account, with the balance paid to Milo’s siblings.

Neither of the plaintiffs were well-versed in US tax matters. The husband was a pharmacist and his wife was a homemaker. Since 1984 when the account was inherited, the plaintiffs always disclosed the Swiss Account to their various accountants on tax organizers and always disclosed the account on their federal income tax returns (Schedule B). However, when the account first exceeded $10,000USD in 2005, their first accountant failed to prepare or file an FBAR for the plaintiffs. Their second accountant continued this FBAR failure for a number of years despite the fact he clearly knew of the existence of the account from the prior tax returns given to him by the plaintiffs; he also failed to ask if any foreign interest was earned on the account, and consequently, interest income was omitted. In 2010, a third accountant acknowledged the existence of the Swiss Account on the plaintiffs’ return and included interest income from the Account, but she also failed to prepare or file an FBAR. Please note, certainly a tax professional should have been well aware of the FBAR filing rules by the time a 2010 FBAR should have been filed (i.e., June 30 2011). At this time the first IRS OVDI had been in full swing, having been initiated in 2009 and many professional and non-professional articles were written about the problems with FBAR.

Sometime in approximately September 2011, the plaintiffs entered the recently announced IRS 2011 OVDI program. They amended tax returns to include omitted interest income from the Swiss Account and filed completed FBARs for the 6 year period, 2005-2010. In August 2013, the IRS provided Plaintiffs with a Form 906, Closing Agreement assessing a miscellaneous penalty of $90,092. The complaint stated that plaintiffs “withdrew” from the OVDI program the following month. I believe the plaintiffs “opted out” of the program, but am not sure. They were soon the subject of examination by an IRS agent. The IRS agent recommended that plaintiffs be assessed non-willful FBAR penalties under the Bank Secrecy Act, and later proposed assessing the penalties as follows:

1) As to the husband, Milo Kentera: $500 for calendar year 2006; and $10,000 per year for calendar years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, for a total penalty of $40,500.

2) As to the wife, Lois Kentera: $500 for calendar year 2006; and $2,500 per year for calendar years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, for a total penalty of $10,500; and

Plaintiffs protested the penalties at IRS conferences, but their protests fell on deaf ears and the IRS sent each of the plaintiffs a letter of an “appeals determination,” upholding the IRS’ proposed FBAR penalties against each of them. The plaintiffs then filed the complaint in District Court. In their complaint, plaintiffs asserted that the IRS incorrectly assessed the FBAR penalties. First, on grounds that the Bank Secrecy Act prohibits the imposition of an FBAR penalty if the violation was “due to reasonable cause.” 31 U.S.C. § 5321(a)(5)(B)(ii)(I). [I note here that the statute requires not only “reasonable cause” but also that “the amount of the transaction or the balance in the account at the time of the transaction was properly reported”.]

My Initial Thoughts

The facts suggest that Mr. and Mrs. Kentera were people who believed in compliance with the law. The history of their tax filings suggests a conscious effort to comply with the applicable laws. They also (like everybody) were completely at the mercy of their tax advisers. The “offshore account” (which was not opened by them) was disclosed to their tax preparers. The tax preparers failed to advise Mr. and Mrs Kentera to file their FBAR (a requirement that few in 2011 knew about).

This series of events took place during the “2011 IRS Reign of FBAR Terror“. At this time many lawyers and accountants strongly recommended that people (1) correct their mistakes (the nonwillful ones that were the result of not knowing about Mr. FBAR) and (2) correct those mistakes by agreeing to the OVDP/OVDI penalty program (that is/was analagous to a form of “Civil Forfeiture“).

The evidence strongly suggests that Mr. and Mrs. Kentera were ordinary people, trying to do the “right thing”. They were victimized by advice to enter OVDI and then victimized by the IRS because they entered OVDI.

How could the IRS possibly assess this kind of FBAR penalty?

All “armchair quarterbacks” must remember the context in which individual decisions were made. In 2011, there were NO streamlined compliance procedures. There were no delinquent FBAR submission procedures. There were no Delinquent Information Return Procedures.

That said, there was also NO requirement that people enter OVDI!!

Tragically those who tried the hardest, and acted most quickly, to fix their non-compliance problems were the most harshly treated. (In fact, the history of the IRS assault on Americans abroad has shown that that those who did NOT rush to fix their problems fared much better. You may remember the “This is your last best chance to come into compliance” threats directed to those (including Americans abroad) with offshore non-U.S. bank accounts.)

To put it simply:

The Kenteras were victims of their desire to be in compliance with the law. It is regrettable that their law abiding sentiments coincided with the 2011 atmosphere of threats from the IRS and fear mongering from the compliance industry.

Dealing with noncompliance with the U.S. tax system

For U.S. tax purposes, Americans abroad are:

Treated as though they live in the United States. This means that their day-to-day lives are treated as though live in the United States even though they don’t.
Their assets (that are local to them) are treated as though they are “foreign to the United States. This creates the potential for large penalties for not reporting those assets to the IRS.
The simple truth is that Americans abroad can never be sure that they are in full compliance with the U.S. tax system. The best they can hope for is “defensible compliance”.

Why entering OVDP (to fix compliance problems) is extremely dangerous

To enter OVDI or OVDP is to enter a program where you interact with the IRS outside the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. You agree to interact with the IRS outside the framework of the existing laws. OVDP is appropriate for ONLY the very small group of people who may face serious penalties and (criminal) punishment.) OVDP is completely inappropriate for Americans abroad (where all of their assets are foreign and all assets are therefore subject to penalty assessment).

But, once you enter OVDP

In my humble opinion, Mr. and Mrs. Kentera were subjected to their outrageous FBAR penalty because they entered OVDI. Because, they entered the program, there must have been a presumption that they somehow “deserved to be in OVDI” and were deserving of punishment. As Virgina La Torre Jeker points out:

The point to be taken is the IRS’ apparent lack of sympathy with the taxpayers’ arguments concerning “reasonable cause”. It will be remembered that the IRS has discretion to assess FBAR penalties after taking into account all the facts and circumstances. See the IRS Manual regarding FBAR penalties here. Current IRS procedures state that an examiner may determine that the facts and circumstances of a particular case do not justify asserting a penalty and that instead an examiner should issue a warning letter. The IRS has established penalty mitigation guidelines, but examiners may determine that a penalty is not appropriate or that a lesser (or greater) penalty amount than the guidelines would otherwise provide is appropriate. Examiners are instructed to consider whether compliance objectives would be achieved by issuance of a warning letter; whether the person who committed the violation had been previously issued a warning letter or has been assessed the FBAR penalty; the nature of the violation and the amounts involved; and the cooperation of the taxpayer during the examination.

What happened was that Mr. and Mrs. Kentera “signed up” to pay an FBAR penalty when there is a good chance that one would never have been imposed in the first place!

Incredible! What should/could have resulted in a “warning letter” resulted in a full blown FBAR penalty (plus the professional fees to attempt to reverse the penalties).

Why did people do it? Why did people enter OVDI in the first place?

The problem of people being “ushered into OVDI/OVDP” by their advisers has been the subject of much discussion.

Presumably, the couple entered OVDI on the advice of an attorney and, ultimately, were assessed an FBAR penalty. What do you suspect the actual likelihood (not potential) of an FBAR penalty would have been had the non-willful couple never entered OVDI — and just filed corrected FBARs with an explanation that a mistake had been made?

I’m a bit curious why there was omitted income, given that the account was (we are told) consistently disclosed on the taxpayers’ return, but mostly I’m curious why they were in OVDI in the first place. Presumably the taxpayers and their counsel could have predicted from the outset that they would need to opt out if they were unwilling to pay the 25% offshore penalty; and I generally see little merit in going into OVDP if you know (or should know) in advance that you’ll be opting out. Obviously, the compete set of facts (most of which we don’t know) is critically important, so I’m certainly not purporting to reach any conclusions, but I think it’s fair to at least wonder if a non-program disclosure might have been more appropriate in this instance. I do vividly recall that some practitioners were vehemently opposed to the whole notion of a “quiet disclosure,” although I do not recall any coherent reason ever having been advanced for such opposition.

Conclusion: “Look Before You Leap!”

I certainly agree with Virgina La Torre Jeker’s conclusion which states:

The IRS disposition of the case was disappointing, to say the least. One has to ask why, on these facts, the taxpayers joined OVDI in the first place? My guess is that the fear factor was ramped up significantly and they may not have been given full detailed advice by their tax advisor as to all of the possible options, risks with each one and so on. One must also remember that at the time the taxpayers joined OVDI, the Streamlined options did not exist. The case demonstrates that one must be very careful in taking actions. Get a second or even third opinion.

Yes, yes and yes!!

If you have FBAR problems, get a second or third opinion! Be careful what you fix for!

The Reality of U.S. Citizenship Abroad

My name is John Richardson. I am a Toronto based lawyer – member of the Bar of Ontario. This means that, any counselling session you have with me will be governed by the rules of “lawyer client” privilege. This means that:

“What’s said in my office, stays in my office.”

The U.S. imposes complex rules and life restrictions on its citizens wherever they live. These restrictions are becoming more and more difficult for those U.S. citizens who choose to live outside the United States.

FATCA is the mechanism to enforce those “complex rules and life restrictions” on Americans abroad. As a result, many U.S. citizens abroad are renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Although this is very sad. It is also the reality.

Twitter 

Subscribe to TaxConnections Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.