Foreign Account Disclosure

All I am going to say is that I am FLABBERGASTED by the relatively small account balances that are triggering UBS warning letters to U.S. taxpayers. I have seen it multiple times so it isn’t an accident. If you’ve been keeping your head down and assuming you are a small potato and so your name [...]

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I just got a call today from someone outside the U.S. This person (no gender, please) called from somewhere (no country, please) and didn’t want me to even use the first initial of his/her/its name. This person is a U.S. citizen I assume, based on command of the English language and the accent. LOLZ I [...]

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Tonight I was on Skype with a couple in Japan. We sorted out what he and his wife needed to do. In their case it was pretty straightforward. He noted that he had only heard about this whole FBAR kerfluffle in early October, and counted himself lucky that he had some time to fix his [...]

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If you’re looking for processing time on your amnesty application, here is today’s traffic report. Ticket to Philadelphia issued by Criminal Investigations on September 4, 2009. Telephone call received by me from IRS agent assigned to the audit arrived today, October 5, 2009. The case is not being handled in Philadelphia. One month after we [...]

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I received an email from client J. last night: Just to update you: I decided to call the IRS’s voluntary disclosure program directly to ask about the procedure. The woman I spoke to indicated that if it turns out we don’t owe any taxes, we shouldn’t face penalties for the fact that we’ve failed to [...]

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Here is an interesting observation from one of the people we have worked with on this voluntary disclosure program stuff. I don’t have an immediate answer, but it is something that needs to be looked and resolved. This is his email, lightly edited to hide the realities except for the fact that we’re talking about [...]

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This makes me blush. And makes me happy. So, with permission from the senders (M and S) here is an email I received this morning: Phil, Wanted to thank you for your time and assistance last night. You were very helpful in clarifying the issues for us, and it was time and money well spent… [...]

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