The Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedure (SFCP) was \u201cborn\u201d six years ago.\n Six years ago the IRS publicly announced the SFCP, which has been used by\nmany non-compliant US taxpayers with the disclosure of foreign assets. SFCP has\ntwo sub-programs: one for US residents (Streamlined Domestic Offshore\nProcedures or \u201cSDOP\u201d) and one for non-US residents (Streamlined Foreign\nOffshore Procedures or \u201cSFOP\u201d). Each program has its own set of specific\nprocedures and eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SFCP was designed for taxpayers whose failure to disclose their offshore\naccounts was \u201cnon-willful,\u201d due to a lack of understanding or knowledge of\nreporting requirements for U.S. persons. Taxpayers are only required to file\ntax returns for the previous 3 years and FBAR\u2019s for the previous 6 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IRS introduced SFCP in June 2014 for taxpayers who non-willfully failed\nto disclose foreign assets. Under the SFCP, non-willful conduct is specifically\ndefined as \u201cconduct that is due to negligence, inadvertence, or mistake or\nconduct that is the result of a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements\nof the law\u201d. The most important first\nstep in analyzing whether a taxpayer is eligible to participate in the\nstreamlined procedures is to ascertain whether the taxpayer\u2019s compliance\nfailure, including the failure to file an FBAR, was actually non-willful. The\nIRS has defined \u201cnonwillful conduct\u201d as \u201cconduct that is due to negligence,\ninadvertence, or mistake or conduct that is the result of a good faith\nmisunderstanding of the requirements of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is extremely important that a taxpayer\u2019s eligibility is carefully\nanalyzed because once the SFCP is elected and the taxpayer claims the\nviolations were non-willful. There are possible risk factors that need to be\nconsidered and analyzed such as the evidence of willfulness including intent of\nlaws, knowledge and violations. Although filing an SFCP does not automatically\nselect the taxpayer for an IRS audit, the taxpayers is still subject to the\npossible normal audit selection. The taxpayer needs to be prepared to defend\nfiling a SFCP and be able to demonstrate their non-willfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our firm\u2019s experience, we have seen great interest and participation by taxpayers in the SFCP program. We have successfully filed hundreds of streamlined submissions for satisfied clients over the years. Taxpayers who have failed to comply with their US tax filing and information reporting obligations should be aware of and seek appropriate legal advice regarding which disclosure program to pursue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedure (SFCP) was \u201cborn\u201d six years ago. Six years ago the IRS publicly announced the SFCP, which has been used by many non-compliant US taxpayers with the disclosure of foreign assets. SFCP has two sub-programs: one for US residents (Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures or \u201cSDOP\u201d) and one for non-US residents (Streamlined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"1","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning-for-tax-minimization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983","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=3983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3987,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions\/3987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}