Tag Archive for tax evasion

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

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

An Unusual But Effective IRS Collection Tool: The Writ Of Ne Exeat Republica

Congress has given the IRS potent tools to collect taxes. The IRS can impose liens on a taxpayer’s property and can seize it through levy, all without prior judicial authorization. But for taxpayers who attempt to move or keep their assets offshore to circumvent IRS collections – beware of the writ of ne exeat republica.

The writ of ne exeat republica effectively prevents a person from leaving the Court’s jurisdiction and the IRS has demonstrated that where its efforts to seize a taxpayer’s property to collect his past due taxes, the IRS essentially seized the taxpayer instead.

Predictably, it takes some fairly serious misbehavior to lead a court to bar someone from traveling – and that is what happened to Charles and Kathleen Barrett of Colorado. Read More

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

Tools And Tactics That IRS Criminal Investigation Division Uses To Gather Information About You

A simple mistake, oversight, or your accountant’s malpractice may trigger an IRS criminal investigation. Specifically, unreported income, a false statement, the use of an impermissible accounting or banking service, or declaring too many deductions are things that could initiate an audit, which could then rise to the level of an IRS criminal investigation.

As you can imagine, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division (“CID”) uses a vast array of tools to investigate a suspected tax evasion case or while conducting a criminal investigation. If you think about it, every employee of the IRS has a single task of ensuring that the IRS tax collections are maximized. IRS Special Agents, who work on the criminal tax cases, are no different. If you file your taxes, their goal is to prove that you may have Read More

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

What’s In Your Wallet? Uncle Sam Wants To Know

Folks with Panamanian bank accounts may soon be getting some official-looking envelopes in the mail, as the Justice Department recently served John Doe subpoenas on FedEx, DHL, Western Union and a number of other shipping and wire transfer companies. These summonses require the targets to turn over any documents or material relating to their business with Panama-based Sovereign Management and Legal, Ltd.

With typical government bravado, Deputy AG David Hubbert warned that “the world is getting smaller for tax cheats, and we will work with our partners at the IRS to vigorously enforce the nation’s tax laws against those who seek to avoid paying their fair share.” Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

What Should A Swiss Banker Charged With Offshore Tax Evasion Do In The Wake of Raoul Weil’s Astonishing Acquittal?

The acquittal of Raoul Weil, the only Swiss banker to have prevailed over the U.S. government in an offshore tax evasion case, has become a source of inspiration for dozens of others who find themselves in a similar situation – indicted and living in Switzerland. As a result, many have become emboldened to come out of the shadows and start fighting.

Let’s set the stage. More than twenty so-called “enablers” are still “at large” overseas. As “fugitives from justice,” they have yet to answer charges leveled by the Department of Justice that they assisted U.S. clients in evading their taxes. Those that have had the misfortune of having their names added to this dreadful list have much to lose by way of reputation. Indeed, they are “professionals” in every sense of the word: bankers, lawyers, and advisers. Read More

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

Is FATCA Doing More Harm Than Good?

Few American laws have been as controversial as FATCA. FATCA stands for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a law passed in 2010 to clamp down on the use of foreign bank accounts by U.S. taxpayers to hide money that is otherwise subject to taxation in the United States. FATCA is the U.S. government’s newest enforcement tool in the fight against international tax evasion.

Those that denounce the law criticize its complexity, its expansive reach, and the high cost of compliance. Those that like it (and there are some) argue that it will blow the lid off of “the old way of exchanging tax information between countries on request,” which they view as too lenient on tax cheats. FATCA, they predict, will revolutionize the exchange of information, by making it “automatic,” thereby removing any safe harbors for those Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA

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

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

If your name was mentioned in the same sentence as Raoul Weil, Carl Zwerner, or Ty Warner, you can rest assured that you haven’t been nominated for an academy award or a Pulitzer Prize. Nor did you win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Award. Instead, you’d have joined a disgraced group of taxpayers who have had the misfortune of being targeted by the U.S. government in their crusade to stamp out offshore tax evasion.

In stark comparison is John Doe, a conflicted taxpayer who recently entered the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP). Neighbors and friends who run into John are a captive audience for him as he wallows in his self-pity. John regrets the decision to enter OVDP and tells his tale of woe to anyone who will listen: “I don’t know what I’m doing in this program. I know 500 people with foreign accounts like mine, and they’re not coming Read More

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

What You Need To Know About Tax Evasion

The most common federal tax crime is tax evasion, which is specifically defined in 26 U.S.C. § 7201 as a failure to report taxes, reporting taxes inaccurately, or failing to pay taxes. To establish a case for tax evasion under section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), the government must prove each of the following beyond a reasonable doubt: that the taxpayer attempted to evade or defeat a tax or payment of a tax; an additional tax was due and owing; and the taxpayer acted willfully. If the IRS proves its case for tax evasion against a taxpayer, the penalty can be significant including monetary fines and jail time.

Who Can Be Prosecuted for Tax Evasion?

Read More

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

What Does The Raoul Weil Case Mean To You?

Iconic mobster Al Capone died in prison after he was convicted of tax evasion. More recently, after the notorious Lufthansa robbery that was immortalized in 1990’s Goodfellas, Jimmy the Gent went to prison not for his alleged role in the robbery but for a point-shaving scandal involving the Boston College basketball team. It could be that crime syndicate figures portrayed by actor Robert De Niro have a certain susceptibility to financial crimes prosecutions, or there could be something else at work.

Tax evasion and other financial crimes in New Jersey are often substitute prosecutions. Traditionally, tax evasion has been easy to prove: there are accurate and timely returns on file, or there are not. “You want to put a murderer in jail for not paying his taxes?” asked a befuddled Elliot Ness in the De Palma version of The Untouchables. Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes
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