Tag Archive for Tax Crimes

5 Tax Crimes And Their Penalties

5 Tax Crimes: Venar Ayar

Knowingly not filing your taxes, providing false information, and other tax crimes can have serious consequences for taxpayers. While some penalties may come in the form of fines, some punishments can be as severe as prison time. Take a look at five tax crimes and their penalties and learn why you need a tax attorney to represent you.

Key Insights We Will Discuss
-Consequences of filing a fraudulent return
-Tax evasion charges
-Penalties for not filing your taxes
-Charges for knowingly not paying your taxes
-Penalties for willingly not disclosing offshore bank accounts
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Written by | Posted in TaxConnections

An End Of Summer Troubling Tax Tidbit

Summer is swiftly coming to an end.

It’s time to think about getting the kids back to school. And what a relief, there’s been little to no thought about taxes. Sure, we think about the sales tax breaks we get buying back to school items and clothing this time of year, but that’s actually enjoyable. Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS

FBAR In The Homeland: The Willful FBAR Penalty Requires Proof

John Richardson

This is one more in a series of posts discussing the FBAR rules. The FBAR rules were born in 1970, laid virtually dormant until the 2000s and then were then unleashed in their full “ferocity” on U.S. persons. 

Mr. FBAR has not visited Canada, but he has visited Canadian citizens Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR

“Where’s My Refund?” – IRS Changes

John Stancil

So you get all your tax information together early and go to your preparer so you can file your tax return early and get the refund quickly. Not so fast. Certain refunds will be delayed and will not be released by the IRS until February 15. This is due to a provision in the PATH Act, enacted by Congress in 2015, prohibiting the IRS from releasing certain refunds prior to February 15. This provision takes effect this year. Note that the 15th is the release date, so it will take a few more days for you to receive the refund.

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Written by | Posted in IRS

Ex-Swiss Banker Heads To Trial For Conspiracy To Evade Taxes

Ron Marini

We posted 144 Offshore Banks & Now Financial Advisors Are Turning Over Your Names To The IRS where we discussed the Government has added 47 more banks and financial advisors to this list bringing the number to 144 total banks and foreign financial advisors. Included in this list as #137 is Stefan Buck (effective 11/15/16).

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Written by | Posted in International • Offshore • OVDP

Bank Secrecy, Exchange of Taxpayer Data, Search, And EU Law: The Case Of K.S. And M.S. v. GERMANY

William Byrnes

In 2006, the German secret service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) bought a data carrier from a certain K. for a considerable amount of money. The data carrier contained financial data from the Liechtenstein L. Bank relating to 800 people. K., who had formerly been an employee of the L. Bank, had illegally copied the data. The data carrier was submitted to the German tax investigation authorities, which subsequently instigated proceedings against, inter alia, the applicants, in relation to tax evasion crimes.

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Written by | Posted in Europe • Tax Law

Facing The Music

When I was a young, fresh-faced criminal defense attorney, there was an aged judge on one of the local benches. Courthouse rumor persisted that this gentleman, whose name I cannot recall, was a finalist to serve as Alf Landon’s running mate in 1936. The judge would occasionally say that his particular fiefdom should be called “County Dumb Court” instead of “County Criminal Court.” While his rhetoric was a bit overblown, at least in my humble opinion, his underlying point was valid. Almost all the defendants who approached the bench were there not because they had done something malicious, but because they had made a poor decision under pressure, misunderstood the law or been trapped on a technicality.

In a way, tax court is much the same. The petitioners are certainly not “dumb” in any way, Read More

Written by | Posted in Federal • Income Tax • IRS • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Man Convicted of Threatening To Assault And Kill IRS Agent And Torture The Agent’s Family Over Audit Proceedings

While death and taxes are always certain, take lesson from Andrew A. Calcione that you should never mix them together.

In May 2014, a federal judge found 49-year-old Andrew A. Calcione of Cranston, Rhode Island, guilty of threatening to assault an IRS Revenue Agent, rape and kill the agent’s wife and injure the agent’s daughter while the agent watched before murdering the agent. The reason? Mr. Calcione didn’t want to pay his tax bill of $330,000.

According to government testimony as reported in United States of America v. Andrew A. Calcione, U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island (Providence County), Case No. 1:13-mj-00291-LDA, Mr. Calcione was selected for audit for the years 2008, 2009 Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Walking The Sawdust Trail

Those who responded to the altar call after one of Billy Sunday’s sermons (see video below) were said to walk the sawdust trail, because the temporary venues he preached in back in the 1910s and 1920s often had sawdust on the floor as a deodorizer.

Before he became a travelling evangelist, and possibly even before he became a Christian, depending on what source you believe, Mr. Sunday played eight seasons of Major League Baseball between 1883 and 1890. During that time, he roamed the outfield for the Chicago White Stockings, Pittsburgh Alleghenys and Philadelphia Phillies. Mr. Sunday left the game with a lifetime .248 batting average, which was pretty good for the pre-modern era. He was also a speedy player who finished in the top ten in stolen bases three times and led the league in outfield putouts in 1888. Read More

Written by | Posted in OVDP • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Is the Justification for the United States’ System of Worldwide Taxation A Hoax? – Part II

In Part I, I argued that the benefits rationale – in terms of the public benefits received by citizens – was an unpersuasive justification for the U.S.’s system of worldwide taxation.

I continue my rant in Part II, examining the practical effects of worldwide taxation on non-resident U.S. citizens. Through a labyrinth of “credits, deductions, exclusions, and non-deductibility,” the Internal Revenue Code treats similarly situated U.S. citizens who live abroad differently. How so? Such persons pay different U.S. taxes depending upon the types and amounts of the taxes imposed by the countries in which they live.

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Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

How To Avoid Becoming The Next “Cooked Goose” Gracing The IRS’s Offshore Tax Evasion Table This Thanksgiving – Part III

III. Shorthand Formula for a Criminal Offshore Bank Account Tax Case

At the end of the day, an offshore account tax fraud case comes down to proving two key elements:

(1) A substantial tax deficiency, and

(2) Badges of fraud (i.e., acts of concealment concerning the non-reporting of the offshore bank account).

The larger the tax deficiency and the more badges of fraud it can prove, the stronger the government’s case becomes. Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA • OVDP • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

How To Avoid Becoming The Next “Cooked Goose” Gracing The IRS’s Offshore Tax Evasion Table This Thanksgiving – Part II

II. Essential Elements of Tax Crimes

a. Willfulness

One small word is all that distinguishes a civil tax matter from a criminal tax matter. That pestilent word is called “willfulness.” It is the cornerstone to any criminal tax matter.

In the criminal setting, the government carries the heavy burden of proving – beyond a reasonable doubt – that the taxpayer acted willfully. Willfulness is defined as an “intentional violation of a known legal duty.”

i. Proving Willfulness For Purposes of the Crime of Failure to File a FBAR Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA • OVDP • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes
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