Yearly Archives: 2013

The Tax Court has held, on that trusts established for asset protection by a doctor were shams. The trusts were disregarded and the doctor and his professional corporations owed taxes and penalties, as a result. 

1. Whether the grantor-taxpayer's relationship to the trust property materially changed after the trust was created,
2. Whether the trust had an independent trustee,
3. Whether an economic interest in the trust passed to other beneficiaries, and
4. Whether the taxpayer felt bound by restrictions imposed by the trust or the law of trusts? 

The court then went on to determine that:

 "During 2001 through 2004 the corporations made payments to the trusts of $164,000, $160,000, $61,100, and $32,868, respectively. The Vlachs, as trustees, had exclusive authority to distribute trust proceeds and income at their discretion and, in fact, used their authority to pay for personal investments and expenses with trust funds. Thus, the corporate payments to the trusts solely benefitted the Vlachs personally and, as a result, the Vlachs must include those payments in income as constructive dividends."

Have Questions Regarding Taxation of
Asset Proctions Trusts?

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at
Marini & Associates, P.A.

 

for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

www.TaxAid.us or www.TaxLaw.ms

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).

 

The number of Form 3520 returns reporting foreign trust transactions and certain foreign gifts rose by 104.1 percent, from 7,956 in 2006 to 16,242 in 2010

The number of Form 3520-A foreign “grantor” trust returns rose 84.6 percent, from 3,819 to 7,051.

U.S. “persons” transferred nearly $1.5 billion in assets to foreign trusts in 2010.

In addition, some 7,051 foreign grantor trusts reported total assets of $35.3 billion, distributions of $4.0 billion, and net income of $1.1 billion during this same period.

Finally, in transactions generally separate from foreign trust activity, U.S. persons received gifts or bequests of $7.3 billion from nonresident aliens, foreign estates, foreign corporations, and foreign partnerships during 2010.

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

www.TaxAid.us or www.TaxLaw.ms
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).

  

Source:

IRS 2010 Foreign Trust Statistics

The Southeast Asian city-state has grown into the world's fourth- biggest offshore financial center but, with U.S. and European regulators on the hunt for tax cheats, the government is clamping
down to forestall the kind of onslaught from foreign authorities that
is now hitting Switzerland's banks.

The tighter rules are intended to fall in line with new global standards announced last year that treat tax crimes as a money-laundering offence. 

Bankers may now feel compelled to give up some of the lucrative accounts that have fuelled a boom in Singapore's assets under management to more than $1 trillion, with 50 percent growth in the five years to 2011, according to the latest government data.

While banks do not have to check that their clients are fully compliant with all their tax obligations, they must check if there are reasons to suspect the accounts contain the proceeds of serious tax offences such as fraudulent or wilful tax evasion.

New foreign clients may find that banks become far more picky and inquisitive as the change in mindset takes hold.

Do Have Un-Reported Income From a Singapore Bank?

Secret Foreign Investments Keeping You Awake at Night?

Want to get right with the IRS?
 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

www.TaxAid.us or www.TaxLaw.ms
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).  

Source:

Reuters

The enormous value of whistleblowers has once again been demonstrated with the release this of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists into off-shore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories hiding trillions of dollars in income and assets.

The whistleblower who has now exposed a high-stakes, secretive world that fosters and hides large-scale fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, corruption and other wrongdoing.

The secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lay bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways.
 

They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program.

 

• A Venezuelan deal maker accused of using offshore entities to bankroll a U.S.-based Ponzi scheme and funneling millions of dollars in bribes to a Venezuelan government official.
 
• A corporate mogul who won billions of dollars in contracts amid Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s massive construction boom even as he served as a director of secrecy-shrouded offshore companies owned by the president’s daughters.
 
• Indonesian billionaires with ties to the late dictator Suharto, who enriched a circle of elites during his decades in power.
 
• A Former U.S. Citizen Denise Rich , who had $144 million in April 2006 in a trust in the Cook Islands, a chain of coral atolls and volcanic outcroppings nearly 7,000 miles from her home at the time in Manhattan. The trust’s holdings included a yacht called the Lady Joy, where Rich often entertained celebrities and raised money for charity. Rich gave up her U.S. citizenship in 2011 and now maintains citizenship in Austria.

The investigation looked into what it called “a well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives” that has “helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.”

Offshore’s defenders counter that most offshore patrons are engaged in legitimate transactions. Offshore centers, they say, allow companies and individuals to diversify their investments, forge commercial alliances across national borders and do business in entrepreneur-friendly zones that eschew the heavy rules and red tape of the onshore world.

 

Secret Foreign Investments Keeping You Awake at Night?

Want to get right with the IRS?

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

 www.TaxAid.us or www.TaxLaw.ms

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).

 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists