Category Archives: criminal tax law

The due date for the foreign trust’s information reporting return, the Form 3520-A, Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust with a U.S. Owner (Under section 6048(b)), is the fifteenth day of the third month following the end of the foreign trust’s taxable year or March 15th for calendar year taxpayers.

An extension of time to file Form 3520-A may be requested by filing Form 7004, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File Certain Business Income Tax, Information, and Other Returns. 

 
How To Avoid Penalties:
 
1. Form 3520-A

• File by the fifteenth day of the third month after the end of the trust’s tax year, the due date may be extended by filing Form 7004, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File Certain Business Income Tax, Information and Other Returns.
• Form 7004 must be filed with an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for the foreign trust. Forms 7004 for a foreign trust cannot be processed under an individual’s Social Security Number (SSN). Please obtain an EIN for the foreign trust. 
• If the foreign trust does not file a Form 3520-A, the U.S. owner of the foreign trust must file a substitute Form 3520-A by completing a Form 3520-A to the best of their ability and attaching it to a timely filed Form 3520, including extensions (see Form 3520 Instructions for more information on filing a substitute Form 3520-A). Do not separately file a duplicate Form 3520-A if you are filing a substitute 3520-A attached to your timely filed Form 3520, with extensions.

2. Form 3520:

• When completing Form 3520, be sure to check Box 1K on page 1, and enter the form number of the income tax return if an extension was filed.

  If the foreign trust fails to timely file a complete and accurate Form 3520-A, and its U.S. owner also fails to file a complete and accurate substitute Form 3520-A (by attaching a Form 3520-A to its timely filed 3520, including extensions), the U.S. owner is subject to a separate penalty, equal to the greater of $10,000 or 5 percent of the gross value of the portion of the foreign trust's assets treated as owned by the U.S. owner under the grantor trust rules at the close of the taxable year.

• This penalty is in addition to any applicable penalty of the same amount for the U.S. owner’s failure to timely file a complete and accurate Part II of Form 3520.  See IRC section 6677(a) through (c) and the Instructions for Form 3520 and Form 3520-A.

Need To Contest and IRS Penalty?

 

 Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.   

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The IRS has established a special web page to help taxpayers, businesses and others affected by the coronavirus. The web page will be updated as new information becomes available.

For health information about the COVID-19 virus, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.coronavirus.gov). Other information about actions being taken by the U.S. government is available at https://www.usa.gov/coronavirus and in Spanish at https://gobierno.usa.gov/coronavirus.

Additionally, the IRS this week advised that high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) can be used to pay for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)-related testing and treatment, without jeopardizing their status.

This also means that an individual with an HDHP that covers these costs may continue to contribute to a health savings account (HSA).

As stated in Notice 2020-15, health plans that otherwise qualify as HDHPs will not lose that status merely because they cover the cost of testing or treatment of COVID-19 before plan deductibles have been met.

As in the past, any vaccination costs continue to count as preventive care and can be paid for by an HDHP.

Have a Tax Problem?

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.  

 

for a FREE Tax HELP Contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid

 

In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke ordered Betancourt to serve three years of supervised release and to pay approximately $9,033,318 in restitution to the United States.

According to Law360, a federal judge ruled on February 24, 2020 that prosecutors can use documents from the Panama Papers leak at the criminal trial of an accountant facing tax conspiracy charges, despite defense attorneys’ complaint that the information was stolen.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman ruled during a hearing in his Manhattan courtroom that prosecutors can use documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca at the March trial of Elder Gaffey & Paine PC accountant Richard Gaffey. The judge also signed off on prosecutors calling a German criminal investigator to the stand to bolster the documents' authenticity.

Gaffey stands accused of helping clients conceal overseas assets to avoid paying taxes in the U.S. with the help of former Mossack Fonseca attorney Ramses Owens.

The now defunct law firm, which specialized in handling offshore accounts, made news in 2016 when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained more than 11 million leaked documents detailing the firm’s work moving money for wealthy and powerful clients.

Ahead of the hearing, prosecutors told the judge in a filing that they had obtained documents related to one of Gaffey's clients through a request to German criminal investigators, who got their hands on the entire database.

Gaffey's attorneys complained in their own filing that it remains unclear how the documents were obtained or who had access to them before they found their way to Germany. They argued the Panama Papers leak was on par with former CIA programmer Joshua Schulte's alleged disclosures to WikiLeaks, which are the subject of an ongoing criminal trial.

"It is offensive to public policy to prosecute individuals by relying on documents only obtained through criminal conduct at the same time that the government aggressively prosecutes people who engage in exactly the same conduct," Gaffey's attorneys wrote.

On February 24, 2020, Judge Berman approved their request to call a German agent as a witness to testify about how reliable German authorities have found the database and why they believe it is authentic, including that some of the documents matched those separately obtained in raids by German police.

Judge Berman sided with prosecutors on the issue. In support of allowing the terms, the judge pointed to a 2006 ruling in U.S. v. Stein, the case involving allegations of illegal tax shelters created by KPMG, that rejected a bid by the defendants to cut terms including "tax shelter" from their indictment.