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151 Offshore Banks & Financial Advisors Are Turning Over Your Names To The IRS – What Are Your Waiting For?

January 15, 2020

On September 3, 2018 we posted 150 Offshore Banks & Now Financial Advisors Are Turning Over Your Names To The IRS - What Are You Waiting For? and since then the Government has add Adrian Baron (effective 9/11/2018) to this list bringing the number to 151 Offshore Banks and Foreign Financial Advisors.

The IRS keeps updating its list of foreign banks which are turning over the names of their US Account Holders.  Under the terms of their agreement with the IRS & Treasury, banks are required to:
  • Make a complete disclosure of their cross-border activities;
  • Provide detailed information on an account-by-account basis for accounts in which U.S. taxpayers have a direct or indirect interest;
  • Cooperate in treaty requests for account information;
  • Provide detailed information as to other banks that transferred funds into secret accounts or that accepted funds when secret accounts were closed;
  • Agree to close accounts of account holders who fail to come into compliance with U.S. reporting obligations; and
  • Pay appropriate penalties.

These Banks, Financial Instructions and Foreign Financial Advisors  have made substantial efforts to cooperate with the IRS investigation, including by:

  1. facilitating interviews that their Office with employees, including top level executives;
  2. voluntarily producing documents in response to the Office’s requests;
  3. providing, in response to a treaty request, unredacted client files for the U.S. taxpayer-clients who maintained accounts at their Banks or Financial Instruction; and
  4. committing to assist in responding to a treaty request that is expected to result in the production of un-redacted client files for U.S. taxpayer-clients who maintained accounts at these Banks and Financial Instructions and with these Foreign Financial Advisors. 
This list does not impact the Streamlined programs because you must be non-willful to qualify. All of this is part of the June 2014 improvements to the OVDP, which sparked new interest in cleaning up offshore accounts.
 
  1. With roughly 151 Foreign Banks and Financial Advisors cooperating with the DOJ & IRS and 
  2. FATCA requiring the entire world to report to the IRS
it is INEVITABLE that this increased disclosure, will result in EVERY AMERICAN eventually being discovered. Banks worldwide want to know if there US clients are compliant with the IRS. 

As additional banks are added to the list, American taxpayers will continue to be subject to the 50% intentional failure to file penalty, which now applies to all taxpayers with foreign accounts who  make a voluntary disclosure after September 28 2018.
Although the 50% penalty is high, willful civil violations can result in tax, penalties and interest totaling 325% of the highest balance in the account for the  most recent six years period. Recent guidance suggests that the IRS could be more lenient in the future, but the IRS’s definition of leniency can still make the OVDP a very good deal that provides certainty.   
Do You Have Undeclared Income from one of 
these Offshore Banks or 
Financial Advisors?
Is Your Name Being Handed Over to the IRS?
  
Want to Know if the OVDP Program is Right for You? 
Contact the Tax Lawyers at 
Marini & Associates, P.A.   
for a FREE Tax Consultation contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com or
Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243

Read more at: Tax Times blog

IRS Wins Another 50% Willful FBAR Penalty Case!

January 7, 2020

 A district court has found in Agrawal, (DC WI 12/9/2019) 124 AFTR 2d ¶2019-5522 that a taxpayer was liable for nonwillful FBAR penalties and that the reasonable cause exception did not apply because the taxpayer did not act with ordinary business care and prudence when he prepared some of his own returns and when he had an accountant prepare others.

The penalty for violating the FBAR requirement depends on whether the violation was non-willful or willful. The maximum penalty amount for a nonwillful violation of the FBAR requirements is $10,000. (31 USC § 5321(a)(5)(B)(i)) The maximum penalty amount for a willful violation "shall be increased to the greater of" $100,000 or 50% of the balance in the account at the time of the violation. (31 USC § 5321(a)(5)(C), 31 USC § 5321(a)(5)(D))

The IRS may not impose a penalty if the taxpayer meets several requirements, one of which is that the violation was due to reasonable cause. (31 USC § 5321(a)(5)(B)(ii))

The district court points out that neither 31 USC § 5321 nor its corresponding regs define "reasonable cause" in the FBAR reporting context, but the regs implementing Code Sec. 6651 equate the reasonable cause standard with a standard of "ordinary business care and prudence." (Reg. § 301.6651-1(c)(1)) The regs interpreting Code Sec. 6664(c)(1) state that the determination whether a taxpayer acted with reasonable cause "is made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all pertinent facts and circumstances," and further that "generally the most important factor is the extent of the taxpayer's effort to assess the taxpayer's proper liability." (Reg. § 1.6664-4(b)(1))

Mr. Agrawal self-prepared his 2006 and 2007 tax returns. He hired an accountant to prepare his 2008 and 2009 tax returns. In all years, he indicated, in the Foreign Accounts and Trusts part of Schedule B to Form 1040, that he did not have a foreign bank account. In all years he failed to file FBARs. But Mr. Agrawal did have a foreign bank account during those years with more than $10,000 in it.


Mr. Agrawal testified that he told his accountant that he did not have a foreign bank account. He said he did this because a tax professional at the foreign bank told him that the income in the account was not subject to US income tax.

Mr. Agrawal was in immigrant from India, completed graduate school education in the US, and taught geophysics and math at a US technical college.
The IRS sought to impose a penalty for nonwillful failure to file FBARs. While he conceded that he should have filed FBARs, Agrawal argued the reasonable cause exception should apply and that his conduct was excused because he relied on the advice of tax professionals, and because he was elderly, unsophisticated about tax law, and spoke English as a second language.
The district court found that the reasonable cause exception did not apply to Agrawal and that he was liable for the penalty.
The court held that no reasonable juror could find that Agrawal acted with ordinary business care and prudence, or that he made a reasonable effort to understand his FBAR reporting responsibilities, when he failed to file his FBARs for the years 2006-2009.

By his own admission, Agrawal self-prepared his 2006 and 2007 tax returns; he did not disclose the existence of a foreign financial account on Schedule B despite a direct question on the issue. And according to his deposition testimony, in 2008 and 2009, he did not tell the CPA preparing his tax return of the existence of the foreign account or question the CPA's decision to leave blank the Schedule B question about foreign bank accounts.
The court said that a taxpayer acting with ordinary business care, or one making a reasonable effort to understand his responsibilities, would have sought informed advice about the reporting requirements alluded to in Schedule B; seeking such advice would necessarily involve the taxpayer notifying the advisor of the existence of the foreign account.
The court said that Agrawal's arguments that he was elderly, spoke English as a second language, and had an inexpert understanding of tax reporting requirements did not alter its reasonable cause analysis. By his own admission, Agrawal had sufficient mental acuity technical facility with the English language to work as a math teacher and as a geophysicist, and, for that matter, to represent himself in this litigation.

Have Unreported Income From a Foreign Account?

 


Want to Know if the OVDP Program is Right for You?


 
Contact the Tax Lawyers at 
Marini& Associates, P.A.  
 
for a FREE Tax Consultation
at: www.TaxAid.com or www.TaxLaw.ms
or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243
 

 

Read more at: Tax Times blog

IRS Collection Activity Expected to Increase in 2020!

January 7, 2020

Hear that noise? It’s the collective sighs of tax professionals around the country upon learning that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is in the midst of a hiring spree. In FY 2019, the IRS employed about 78,004 employees, including more than 12,600 temporary and seasonal staff.

According to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, the IRS is hiring thousands of new employees, the most in almost a decade.

Speaking at the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) conference in Washington, D.C., Rettig touted the good news. Rettig has made staffing a priority, noting earlier this year that the agency “essentially lost an entire generation of IRS employees” from 2011 through 2018. During that time, the IRS dropped about 20,000 employees, largely due to budget cuts.

 
Rettig Says That the IRS Hired Nearly 10,000 People
During the 2019 Fiscal Year and Plans to
Hire More Than 5,000 Additional Workers. 
 

Also, the IRS is gearing up to bring their Collections Division back to levels of activity that we have not seen for several years. 


That Means That In 2020 Expect The IRS To Issue More
Wage And Bank Levies, More Liens, And

More Lawsuits To Reduce Outstanding Debt
To 20 Year Judgments.
 

Also, Payroll taxes withheld by employers account for nearly 72 percent of all revenue collected by the IRS, making noncompliance and fraud in this area one of the biggest challenges for the nation’s tax system. In FY 2019, the IRS engaged in a special two-week effort to address this area of noncompliance. During this period, IRS revenue officers visited nearly 100 businesses around the country suspected of having serious issues with employment tax compliance. Business owners were informed about ways to catch up with back payroll taxes, how to stay current, and the potential for civil and criminal penalties. Expect continuing efforts to be made by the IRS in seeking out taxpayers who have not remitted their payroll tax withholdings in 2020. 

 
While Many Taxpayers are Under the Radar - 
 
 

the IRS Aims to Make Contact and Collect. 
 
The best strategy is to contact the tax attorney to help you be ready when they come knocking. That way you can stand your ground, rather than back peddling and also avoid criminal prosecution! 

 Have a IRS Tax Problem? 

 
Contact the Tax Lawyers at
Marini & Associates, P.A. 
 
 for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243). 

 

 

 

Read more at: Tax Times blog

Comm'r Warns Taxpayers – Streamlined Offshore Procedures Won't Last Forever!

December 18, 2019

Last week I attended the ABA's 36th National Institute on Criminal Tax Fraud in Las Vegas, where IRS Commissioner Charles "Chuck" Rettig announced that for those taxpayers who still have income from unreported offshore accounts, they should take note that the Streamlined Offshore Procedures Won't Last Forever.　

Taxpayers should remember that the OVDP (f/k/a OVDI) started back in 2009 to give taxpayers with exposure to potential criminal liability or substantial civil penalties due to a willful failure to report foreign financial assets, a program with specified procedures for resolving criminal exposure and a specified penalties regime. Taxpayers could come forward, pay back taxes with interest and a penalty, and avoid criminal prosecution.

However, that arrangement changed on September 28, 2018, when the IRS ended the OVDP program, by giving 6 months advanced notice in Announcement IR 2018-52. Remaining Disclosure options for taxpayers with non-willful compliance issues included the Streamlined Foreign Offshore and Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures.

After September 28, 2018, CI's November 20,2018 memo describes the IRS current requirements for willful taxpayers to make a voluntary disclosure. The new practice has a defacto retroactive effect, since the Memorandum addresses a new process for all voluntary disclosures, both domestic and offshore, following the September28,2018 expiration of the 2014 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program. However, the penalty regime under the new framework is far less favorable than under prior programs.

While there is still a trickle of non-willful taxpayers cleaning up under the Streamlined Offshore Procedures, the IRS has made it clear that this the Streamlined Offshore Procedures won't last forever and this may be non-willful taxpayer's last chance to report previously undisclosed foreign accounts under this program.

These IRS ending the OVDP program and now the proposed ending of the Streamlined Offshore Procedures, reflect an ongoing efforts by the U.S. government to make
offshore tax compliance a priority.

The Foreign Account Tax and Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted in 2010, requires foreign financial institutions to report their U.S. taxpayer clients to the U.S. government. In addition, inter-governmental agreements (IGAs) with 113 countries mean that foreign governments are also sharing information with American authorities to combat offshore tax evasion. For more on this, please see our Blog posts:

This additional reporting may identify taxpayers who were able to hide their assets in the past and this may be non-willful Taxpayer's last chance to come clean under the Streamlined Foreign Offshore and Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures.

Have an Unreported Foreign Income?


Want To Know Which OVDP Program
Is Right For You?


 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 
Marini & Associates, P.A.   
 
 
for a FREE Tax Consultation contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com or
Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243

 

Read more at: Tax Times blog

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