The willful failure to file the FBAR report or retain records of your foreign accounts can potentially lead to a ten-year prison sentence and fines of up to $500,000. This criminal penalty applies to all US citizens pursuant to 31U.S.C Section S322B and 31 C.F.R. Section 103.S.9.C It may also apply to persons living in the United States who are not citizens.
If you fail to answer the question truthfully on schedule B of your Form 1040 which asks if you “have an interest in or a signature or other authority over a financial account in a foreign country”, then your false statement might be deemed a criminal offense by the IRS per the sections mentioned above if other surrounding facts and circumstances apply.
Our office is headed by a former international tax IRS agent with 37 years experience as a CPA and Associate Professor of accounting. Call our office immediately for a free five-minute consultation so you can avoid the dire circumstances described above and deal with the other associated problems.
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FBAR/OVDI LANCE WALLACH
ReplyDeleteFBAR Foreign Bank Account Reporting The IRS is assessing huge penalties for undisclosed foreign bank accounts, assets & income. Click for more info FBAR FILING DEADLING HAS BEEN EXTENDED
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
FBAR-What are You Hiding
The collapse of Swiss bank secrecy, the IRS settlement with UBS, the criminal investigation of HSBC and the related IRS voluntary disclosure program all have put foreign bank accounts in the spotlight. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of U.S. taxpayers have foreign bank accounts. Some of those taxpayers opened their foreign bank account in order to hide money or the earnings in the account from the IRS.
However, the majority of taxpayers with foreign bank accounts never intended to hide their foreign accounts from the IRS. Some just inherited the foreign account from a relative who lived abroad at some point in their lives. Other taxpayers lived abroad themselves and opened a bank account in a foreign country as a matter of convenience or necessity. Still other U.S. taxpayers with foreign accounts never even lived in the United States but are U.S. citizens, and therefore are subject to U.S. reporting requirements, simply because one or both of their parents were U.S. citizens.
Regardless of why the foreign account was created or acquired, any U.S. person with an interest in, or signatory authority over, a foreign financial account must file a Report of Foreign Bank Accounts (FBAR) with the United States Treasury Department. The IRS recently has stepped up enforcement against taxpayers who fail to file FBARs. The basic penalty for a simple, non-willful failure to file a FBAR is $10,000 per year for 2005 and later years. (Prior to 2005, there was no penalty at all for non-willful violations.) However, if the IRS can prove that the taxpayer willfully failed to file a FBAR, or willfully filed a false FBAR, the penalties are much higher. The taxpayer can be subject to criminal prosecution and, for 2005 and later years, the IRS can impose crippling civil penalties of up to 50% of the highest balance in the foreign account for each year that the violation continues. (Prior to 2005, the penalty for a willful violation was capped at $100,000 per year.)
If the IRS catches a taxpayer who failed to file a FBAR, the IRS will either refer the case for prosecution or attempt to assert a penalty based on some percentage of the highest balance in the foreign account. In fact, even taxpayers who approach the IRS and voluntarily disclose the existence of their foreign account will be charged a penalty based on a percentage of the highest balance in the foreign account. Taxpayers who voluntarily disclosed their foreign account prior to October 15, 2009 are being charged a 20% penalty. Taxpayers who make a voluntary disclosure after October 15, 2009 are still being accepted into the voluntary disclosure program, but they will be charged a penalty of at least 20%, and probably more, of the highest balance in the foreign account.
Any penalty that is based on a percentage of the balance in the foreign account is premised on the idea that the FBAR violation was willful, and therefore, the IRS could take up to 50% of the balance in the account for each year of the violation. However, if the FBAR violation was not willful, then the penalty would be limited to $10,000 per year, and it would not be possible to charge a penalty based on a percentage of the balance in the account. Even taxpayers who have entered the voluntary disclosure program can opt out of the program and contest the willfulness penalty that is imposed as part of the program. Thus, when advising a client regarding his or her exposure to FBAR penalties, it is essential to determine whether the failure to file the FBAR was willful.
Willfulness is defined as "an intentional violation of a known legal duty." The government has the burden of proving willfulness. To pro
FBAR/OVDI LANCE WALLACH
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Mar 4, 2014 - June 30 2014 is the annual deadline for U.S. taxpayers, (including resident aliens) to timely reports of foreign financial accounts for year ending ...
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As an expert witness, Lance Wallach has never lost a case. Lance Wallach has also written "CPA's guide to life insurance".
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTMWg6bn0Bc
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n 79 plans is that they basically force employers and those helping them set up Section 79 plans to lie to the employees when implementing the plan.
ReplyDeleteNon-discrimination
Section 79 plans are employee benefits plans. As such, employers are not supposed to discriminate in favor of key employees or business owners.
As you know, Section 79 plans are implemented so business owners can take a business deduction for the purchase of an individually owned life insurance policy that the owner can borrow from tax free in retirement.
It sounds great until you break down the math and understand that a client would be better off paying taxes on his/her money, taking it home, and funding a good cash value life policy rather than the low cash accumulation Section 79 Plan policy.
Notwithstanding the math behind Section 79 plans, let's talk about the benefits for employees. The employee owner is going to buy a "permanent" policy that will carry cash and can be borrowed from tax free in retirement.
That same policy must be offered to all employees. If that actually happened in a full-disclosure manner, virtually all the employees would opt for the same permanent policy; and if that happened, the finances of the plan would really go out the window because of the tremendous costs for the employees.
How do you "work around" this issue?
The work around of this issue is a bit clever and deceptive. The employees will be scared into voluntarily opting for $50,000 of term insurance instead of the full-benefit policy (term or permanent).
Why would an employee opt for $50,000 i
ReplyDeleteOffshore Money, FBAR International Tax and the IRS
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By Lance Wallach, CLU, CHFC Abusive Tax Shelter, Listed Transaction, Reportable Transaction Expert Witness
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FBAR, International Tax, IRS audits be careful. IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program Reopens Do YOU have money overseas? By Lance Wallach, CLU, CHFC - Recently the Internal Revenue Service reopened the offshore voluntary disclosure program to help people hiding offshore accounts get current with their taxes.
Additionally, the IRS revealed the collection of more than $4.4 billion so far from the two previous international programs.
The Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) was reopened following continued strong interest from taxpayers and tax practitioners after the closure of the 2011 and 2009 programs. The third offshore program comes as the IRS continues working on a wide range of international tax issues and follows ongoing efforts with the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecution of international tax evasion. This program will remain open indefinitely until otherwise announced.
Lance Wallach and his associates have received thousands of phone calls from concerned clients with questions about the prior programs. Some of Lance’s associates are still very busy helping people with the last program. Not a single person has been audited and most are pleased with the results and are now able to sleep easily without worrying about the IRS. According to Lance, it requires years of experience to obtain a good result from the program.
He suggests using a CPA-certified, ex-IRS agent with lots of international tax experience. While this is not a requirement to file under the program, Lance has heard many horror stories from people who have tried to file by themselves or who have used inexperienced accountants.
“Our focus on offshore tax evasion continues to produce strong, substantial results for the nation’s taxpayers,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We have billions of dollars in hand from our previous efforts, and we have more people wanting to come in and get right with the government. This new program makes good sense for taxpayers still hiding assets overseas and for the nation’s tax system.”
The new program is similar to the 2011 program in many ways, but it has a few key differences. Unlike last year, there is no set deadline for people to apply. However, the terms of the program could change at any time going forward. For example, the IRS may increase penalties in the program for all or some taxpayers or defined classes of taxpayers – or decide to end the program entirely at any point.
“As we've said all along, people need to come in and get right with us before we find you,” Shulman said. “We are following more leads and the risk for people who do not come in continues to increase.”
The third offshore effort accompanies another announcement that Shulman made today, that the IRS has collected $3.4 billion so far from people who participated in the 2009 offshore program. That figure reflects closures of about 95 percent of the cases from the 2009 program. On top of that, the IRS has collected an additional $1 billion from upfront payments required under the 2011 program. That number will grow as the IRS processes the 2011 cases.
In all, the IRS has seen 33,000 voluntary disclosures from the 2009 and 2011 offshore initiatives. Since the 2011 program closed last September, hundreds of taxpayers have come forward to make voluntary disclosures. Those who come in after the closing of the
FBAR/OVDI LANCE WALLACH
ReplyDeleteFBAR Foreign Bank Account Reporting The IRS is assessing huge penalties for undisclosed foreign bank accounts, assets & income. Click for more info FBAR FILING DEADLING HAS BEEN EXTENDED
Notice 2007-83 - Abusive Trust Arrangements Utilizing Cash Value Life Insurance Policies Purportedly to Provide Welfare Benefits - 2007-45 I.R.B. 1 (transactions in which certain trust arrangements claiming to be welfare benefit funds and involving cash value life insurance policies that are being promoted to and used by taxpayers to improperly claim federal income and employment tax benefits (identified as “listed transactions” on October 17, 2007)).
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