Category Archives: From Live Blog

The IRS stated on August 26 and further clarified on August 29 that due to the potential impact of Hurricane Irene it has extended the due date for its 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) requests and several other required informational returns from August 31, 2011 until September 9, 2011.

• Identifying information must be submitted to the Criminal Investigation office. This includes name, address, date of birth, and social security number and as much of the other information requested in the Offshore Voluntary Disclosures Letter as possible. This information must be sent to:

  Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Coordinator
  600 Arch Street, Room 6404
  Philadelphia, PA 19106

• Send a request for a 90-day extension for submitting the complete voluntary disclosure package of information to the Austin campus. This request must be sent to:

  Internal Revenue Service
  3651 S. I H 35 Stop 4301 AUSC
  Austin, TX 78741
  ATTN: 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative

The Swiss government has put forward a clarification of the new U.S.-Swiss double taxation tax treaty, which may help resolve a dispute between the two countries over allegations that Switzerland’s second largest bank helped its U.S. clients evade taxes.

A spokesman for the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, Mario Tuor, confirmed Aug. 29 that the Federal Council, the government’s executive arm, sent a memorandum dated Aug. 8 outlining an interpretation of administrative assistance under the treaty. That interpretation may make it easier for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to seek out information on undeclared accounts of U.S. clients with the Swiss bank, Credit Suisse. The memorandum, forwarded to the foreign affairs committee of the Swiss parliament’s upper house, contains a clarification of the tax agreement by the Federal Council.

 It was understood the memorandum makes reference to the draft of an undertaking by the Swiss government to hand over a list of U.S. clients with Credit Suisse accounts to U.S. tax authorities – just as the Swiss government agreed to do in 2009 in regards to U.S. demands for information on undeclared accounts of U.S. clients with UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank.

Ninth Circuit Finds Fifth Amendment Privilege Does Not Apply to Swiss Banking Records - The Fifth Amendment privilege does not apply to records that fall under the Required Records Doctrine                     

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/08/19/11-55712.pdf