In an earlier post, I explained why the Canada Revenue Agency assisted the IRS in collecting a penalty on a Canadian resident. The bottom line was that he was presumably NOT a Canadian citizen and therefore did NOT have the benefits of the tax treaty. This post is to explain where the penalty came from in the first place.

It has been widely reported that a U.S. citizen residing in Toronto, Canada since 1971, paid a $133,000 U.S. dollar penalty for failing to file IRS forms disclosing that he was running a business through a Canadian corporation. How did this fly get caught in the spider’s web? Read More

For many U.S. expats who are delinquent in their expat tax filings, the Streamlined Procedures offer a great solution for catching up with limited or no penalties.  Due to the Streamlined program’s qualification requirements, however, American citizens living in Canada, or other countries, who regularly visit the U.S. may find it particularly difficult to participate in the program. Read More

Ephraim Moss

Recently, the IRS announced that it will focus its audit efforts this year on 13 particular compliance issues, which touch on large business and international activities. This issue-focused effort contrasts with the more broad-based approach that the IRS has previously taken with respect to auditing taxpayers.

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TaxConnections Member Larry Stolberg

The updated Streamlined Program that was revised in June 2014 is a simplified method of allowing delinquent U.S. taxpayers to become tax compliant. If certain conditions are met, tax and information return penalties could be waived. Refer to my article on the website and the IRS site for additional information on the program.

On December 17th at the George Washington University Law conference on international taxation, the Commissioner of the IRS John Koskinen said, “At some point, we will have assumed that people have had enough notice that they should have become voluntarily compliant,” “At that point—after some period of time and you’re not compliant—it will be assumed that logically you are purposely not compliant”. Read More