Optional format letter for amnesty is due January 15, 2010

January 11, 2010

For all of you out there who are in the amnesty program for undisclosed offshore accounts, there is a deadline — this Friday. You have to get your second letter to Criminal Investigations by this Friday or the IRS will kick you out of the program.
The letter you have to submit is [...]

Read the full article →

Italians have their own offshore account amnesty

December 16, 2009

The Economist has a short article about the ongoing Italian offshore account amnesty. Look carefully for the penalty: Five. Percent.
ITALIANS are reckoned to have around €300 billion ($440 billion) of assets stashed abroad. The government would like to lure them back, or at least recoup some of the taxes it has lost [...]

Read the full article →

New post on the latest theft of bank data

December 14, 2009

I’ve posted on the main site about the theft of client data from HSBC in Geneva. This one is aimed at French customers of HSBC.
Secrecy is a doomed tax strategy. It may be now, or it may be later. But sooner or later secrecy will fail you. (Or if [...]

Read the full article →

The new Information Document Request — Form 4564

December 14, 2009

I’ve posted a PDF version of the new Information Document Request over at hodgen.com. For those of you in the program, this is what you have to look forward to.

Read the full article →

The new IDRs for amnesty audits

December 10, 2009

They really have their act together. One page. Check the box for what you need. Easier. (“IDR” means the Information Document Request — the letter from the IRS which tells you what you need to provide to the person calculating your penalty.)
Yay IRS. You really have the “Ready, Shoot, Aim” [...]

Read the full article →

Turnaround is fast at Criminal Investigations

December 10, 2009

It looks like the Special Agents at IRS Criminal Investigations are really turning things out fast. We are starting to get a small blizzard of acceptance letters (aka “Ticket to Philadelphia”) from Criminal Investigations, saying that they are not interested in pursuing our clients for criminal tax evasion charges.
In one case from Santa Ana [...]

Read the full article →

Amnesty audits are private

December 10, 2009

I got a quick email inquiry from someone (hello, B!) and he asked whether the voluntary disclosure procedures result in publicity — does the IRS publish the names of the people in the program?
No. It is totally private. The only way the IRS would blurt out your name to the general public is [...]

Read the full article →

Information portal on UBS website

November 18, 2009

Not that you’d care (most of you, anyway) but UBS has information about The Troubles on its own website. All prose on www.ubs.com was heavily sedated prior to publication.
Nevertheless, the linked page may be marginally useful to you. I personally find it as a useful site to pull down some of the basic [...]

Read the full article →

Upcoming amnesty deadline – January 15, 2010

November 18, 2009

If you’re in the pipeline with a voluntary disclosure, you are facing a January 15, 2010 deadline. That is the date by which you have to get the “essay answers” so-called optional letter (warning: Word file) in at Criminal Investigations.
We are proactively bugging all of our clients to get this work done, whether [...]

Read the full article →

Official criteria by which UBS will expose U.S. customers to IRS

November 18, 2009

I’ve posted the full text of the agreement between UBS and the IRS over at my main website. Go there to read it. I will dissect it and post some commentary in a separate blog post.

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →