A recent IRS Press Release aims to remind taxpayers with foreign bank accounts and assets that their filing deadline to report them to the IRS is June 17, 2013. This applies to U.S. citizens and resident aliens, including those with dual citizenship who have lived or worked abroad during all or part of 2012 and military personnel outside the country. Also, some U.S. citizens abroad may be required to submit
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Tax evasion is not just a problem for the wealthy. It’s a widespread issue that costs the government and honest Americans much needed revenues. Small businesses and sole proprietors are the largest contributors to the $450 billion tax gap (the difference between taxes reported and taxes paid) by skimming and under reporting their taxes. For their efforts, tax cheats are the focus of IRS scrutiny.
With IRS audits and aggressive IRS
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Just last week, the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) released its Annual Report for 2012 showing strong increases in enforcement actions and IRS penalties imposed on convicted tax criminals for the year ending Sept. 30, 2012. According to the IRS bulletin announcing the report’s release, the criminal investigation division investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner to foster confidence in the
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Government investigators reported that the Internal Revenue Service has recouped more than $5.5 billion for the voluntary disclosure programs. NPR sites an Associated Press article titled: Tax Cheats Pony Up $5.5 Billion in Amnesty Program highlights a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that shows how through these programs the IRS was able to get people to come forward to report their offshore bank accounts and assets in exchange for reduced
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I came across an interesting Fiscal Times article titled: “High Income, No Taxes: How Big Money Beats the IRS“. The article highlights an IRS report written by economist Justin Bryan that provides comprehensive data on the number of taxpayers who make more than $200,000 and pay zero income taxes.
The report contains detailed data and summary data for the period 1977 to 2008 as well as charts and graphs of almost 4
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Thanks to Frank Byrt at The Street, we learned that the IRS announced the release of their “2012 Internal Revenue Service Data Book [1],” This annual report provides an overview of agency activities, including information and statistical tables dating from October 1, 2011, to September 30, 2012. The report provides helpful data and information on the following: returns filed, taxes collected, enforcement actions, taxpayer assistance, IRS budget and workforce, and
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The IRS issued a press release late last week indicating an estimated 984,400 taxpayers who did not file a tax return in 2009, are entitled to a slice of $917 million in tax refunds! The IRS estimates that half the potential refunds for 2009 are more than $500.
There is a catch though. To collect the 2009 refund, a return must be filed, properly addressed, mailed and postmarked to the IRS
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This week was a busy one for tax relief news topics. Here are highlights of the ones we covered on the Tax Resolution University Blog:
Tax Fraud/Tax Schemes and Identity Theft
The tax season officially began on January 30. Therefore, it’s no coincidence there is already an increase in stories about tax schemes including tax fraud and identity theft. Here’s one we covered this week:

Reno, Nevada resident, Edward David Simon, 52 was
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Even though the latest voluntary disclosure program has officially past, it is still better to come clean with unreported offshore bank accounts than to wait for the IRS to contact you. The IRS is placing more severe penalties on non-compliant offshore account holders than ever before. A recent Forbes article titled “Florida Widow Guilty + $21M Penalty for Inherited Swiss + Liechtenstein Accounts,” explains just how tough it has become.
The article’s
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If you think the saga between the U.S. government and Swiss banks was over, think again. An article titled Feds Charges Swiss Bankers with Tax Conspiracy from Accounting Today reports on the U.S. government’s continued offensive on worldwide offshore account disclosure. The most recent target: Swiss bank, Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB) who the U.S. Government claims attempted to hide the accounts of American clients from the IRS.
According to the article, the
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Attempting to understand the appeal of offshore tax havens, NPR’s Planet Money team decided this last July to wade into the murky offshore waters and create a few shell companies in countries advertising tax haven status. According to the Team’s Chana Jaffe Walt in the latest broadcast titled “The Downside of Tax Havens? Paperwork,” the process of buying the two companies one in Belize: “Unbelizable Inc” and one in Delaware:
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A recent chapter of the Swiss Banks vs. the IRS saga features a plot twist; large Swiss bank UBS sues a wealthy American client.
UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank filed a lawsuit last week suing their former client, billionaire real estate developer, Igor Olenicoff for damages from a 2008 federal lawsuit he filed against the them. Janet Novack of Forbes’ article UBS Sues Billionaire Olenicoff in Offshore Tax Cheating Case explains this
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Anyone who believes the IRS takes a “kinder, gentler” approach to taxpayers who don’t report their offshore bank accounts had their hopes dashed this week. In the news were two cases that involved secret Swiss bank accounts, millions of dollars unreported in those accounts and willful attempts at keeping those accounts hidden.

A Virginia court ruled in favor of the IRS against an ex-Mobil executive who they said intentionally failed to
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Happy Friday everyone! It’s time for another weekly tax relief roundup covering a myriad of IRS tax debt issues currently talked about in the news.
It seems there are always headlines about people trying to scam the tax system. This week was no exception:

Jerold Fisher from Arma, Kansas was charged with filing false claims that he over paid more than $3.9 million in taxes, and that his mother (whose returns Fisher
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The June 28 Supreme Court decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a hot tax topics in recent weeks.  This decision will impact most American taxpayers. As a certified tax resolution specialist that helps clients avoid IRS tax issues, new expanded IRS powers are of particular interest to me. A recent Washington Post article entitled Supreme Court’s decision renews questions about IRS capability to enforce
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