There are two types of penalties applicable to FinCEN Form 114 (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) (FBARs): (1) Non-Willful and (2) Willful. The penalties are theoretically assessed per account and not per FBAR;
Reporting on a California State Bar Tax Section Meeting, Tax Notes reports that the IRS will soon (as early as the week of 11/11/13) ) “begin examining U.S. taxpayers suspected of holding undeclared accounts in
Over the past few years, the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice has been aggressively investigating tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers via offshore bank accounts in countries such as Switzerland, Israel, Luxembourg,
Responding to the needs of many filers who submit Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) jointly with spouses, or wish to submit them via third-party preparers, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today
In August 2013, the Swiss Federal Government and the DOJ announced a first of its kind program (the New Program) that will enable eligible Swiss banks to address and resolve their status with regard to the
Many of our clients are carefully considering OVDI opt-outs. The opt out option became first available during the 2011 OVDI program, and continues with the current OVDP program. The 2012 OVDP program continues the procedures announced in
The Internal Revenue Service on Monday launched an online registration program for the hundreds of thousands of financial firms around the world that must comply with a U.S. anti-tax evasion law or risk being shut
The Taxpayer advocate has issued a new mid-year 2013 report. The portion that relates to the IRS’s OVDI/P initiatives is posted below (footnotes and tables omitted). The IRS offered a series of offshore voluntary disclosure
The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) has issued a new mid-year 2013 report. The TAS report discussion regarding optouts out of the OVDI/OVDP is interesting. For the 2009 OVDP (which was a smaller group of applications
In a tax audit situations, the IRS only has a 3 year statute of limitations to assess additional taxes. If the IRS takes too long to initiate an audit, or the audit drags on too
Top 4 Reasons to Opt Out of the 2011 OVDI Program 1. The IRS Taxpayer Advocate’s Report: Although the IRS has not closed very many opt-out cases, the average civil FBAR penalty assessed against those opting
Under the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) or 2012 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), the 2012 program gives no discretion to the IRS agents to reduce penalties. If a participant does not believe that
