Tax Law Center Blog

In latest report from a government watchdog agency called the Government Accountability Office (GAO) the GAO makes recommendations to the IRS, and the IRS pays attention. Those recommendations could put some taxpayers in trouble, but some are beneficial. Particularly helpful tax laws education commentary regarding offshore assets. Below is an excerpt from the report.

In our [GAO] case file review, we [GAO] found examples of immigrants who stated in

their 2009 OVDP applications that they were unaware of their FBAR filing

requirements. We found they had often opened banks accounts in their

home country prior to immigrating to the United States. IRS officials from

the Offshore Compliance Initiative office stated that although there are

several FBAR education programs, none are specifically targeted at new

immigrants. Furthermore, these IRS officials were unaware of any IRS

work with other federal agencies such as the State Department or the

Department of Homeland Security to educate recent immigrants about

their foreign account filing requirements. These officials stated that one of

the challenges that they face in their office, which is part of IRS’s Large

Business and International Division, is that taxpayer education and

outreach is the responsibility of IRS’s Wage and Investment Division and

that issues concerning FBARs fall under IRS’s Small Business/SelfEmployed Division.

IRS officials from the Offshore Compliance Initiative office agree that

more could be done to improve taxpayer education and outreach about

offshore reporting requirements. They [IRS], like us [GAO], recognize that multiple

outreach efforts could help to draw additional taxpayers into the offshore

programs, and that data mining information from the program applications

can help identify these groups.