The IRS has recently published a useful chart outlining options available to help US taxpayers with offshore interests.<\/p>\n
The new IRS chart<\/a> correctly states that it “recognizes that its focus on offshore enforcement efforts and related disclosure programs has raised awareness among many U.S. citizens about tax filing and information reporting obligations”.\u00a0 For some of our clients, who are panicking \u00a0and are\u00a0alarmed about their newfound alleged tax violations, the IRS statement is an subdued understatement.<\/p>\n While helpful, the chart may mislead some readers.\u00a0 “Non-resident U.S. taxpayers with delinquent returns with low risk factors (including tax owed less than $1,000\/year)” are advised that they should file delinquent tax returns, including delinquent information returns, for the past three years; and delinquent FBARs for the past six years.\u00a0 This could be considered a “quiet” disclosure.\u00a0 In OVDP FAQ #15<\/a> the IRS states “Those taxpayers making \u201cquiet\u201d disclosures should be aware of the risk of being examined and potentially criminally prosecuted for all applicable years.”\u00a0 The IRS is contradicting itself.<\/p>\n Also the IRS states elsewhere in its new New Filing Compliance Procedures for Non-Resident U.S. Taxpayers<\/a> that taxpayers presenting “low compliance risk” defined $1,500 in tax due in each of the years should file delinquent tax returns, including delinquent information returns, for the past three years; and delinquent FBARs for the past six years.\u00a0 This seems to be a new EZPASS or express OVDP without any penalties<\/span>.<\/p>\n Taxpayers with higher compliance risk are not eligible for the New Filing Compliance Procedures for Non-Resident U.S. Taxpayers. Such taxpayers will be subject to a “more thorough review and possibly a full examination, which in some cases may include more than three years, in a manner similar to opting out of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program”.\u00a0 Is this a new alternative to OVDP for Non-Resident U.S. Taxpayers? Our firm intends to fully explore this alternative for our clients and expects to aggressively advocate for a very wide new EZPASS or express OVDP lane for entrants.<\/p>\n In the meantime, despite the IRS’ new helpful chart, our law firm expects unabated aggressive enforcement of the US tax laws, including increased criminal prosecutions and civil\u00a0audit<\/a>\u00a0examinations. We have been advising our clients to expect the unexpected (and the worst) in their tax treatment and disclosure of\u00a0offshore<\/a>\u00a0assets.<\/p>\n Patel Law Offices is a law firm dedicated to helping clients resolve complicated tax, criminal tax, and international tax problems. Our firm assists (and defends) clients and their advisors to legally disclose (and legitimize) foreign accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The IRS has recently published a useful chart outlining options available to help US taxpayers with offshore interests. The new IRS chart correctly states that it “recognizes that its focus on offshore enforcement efforts and related disclosure programs has raised awareness among many U.S. citizens about tax filing and information reporting obligations”.\u00a0 For some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,20,23,24,52,54,63,68,25,27],"class_list":["post-1307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning-for-tax-minimization","tag-amnesty","tag-asset-protection","tag-fbar","tag-foreign-account","tag-offshore","tag-offshore-accounts","tag-ovdi","tag-ovdp","tag-penalties-and-interest","tag-voluntary-disclosure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}