Two articles recently published in the Wall Street Journal demonstrate that current Swiss offshore collection tactics are working to bring Swiss banks and American account holders into U.S. tax compliance. The latest bank to feel the heat of enforcement efforts is the Julius Baer Group, the largest private bank in Switzerland.  Julius Baer, hoping to avoid U.S. indictment, is already preparing to incur stiff fines from U.S. authorities for hiding
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The latest chapter of the IRS versus the Swiss Banks, reveals U.S. Prosecutors taking on the oldest Swiss bank of them all: Wegelin & Co.,
An article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Swiss Bank Wegelin Indicted on U.S. Tax Charges, outlines the criminal charges filed by U.S. Prosecutors on February 2, 2012 against Wegelin & Co., Switzerland’s oldest bank (founded in 1741) alleging that Wegelin knowingly aided wealthy Americans in
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This week the Swiss parliament accepted a treaty with the United States, agreeing the terms which would have UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, disclose the names of 4,450 American account holders suspected of tax evasion to the IRS. This decision comes after a three year battle between U.S. tax authorities, the IRS and the Swiss bank over the bank’s involvement in allowing American clients to cheat the tax system by hiding
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For those who thought the heat from the UBS-IRS deal has passed, it’s time to think again.
The United States and Switzerland recently announced a new protocol where it will allow the Swiss government to provide information to the IRS on U.S. account holders of Swiss bank UBS.
According to Journal of Accountancy, “The protocol has been approved by the Swiss Federal Council and was signed in Washington on Wednesday, but the
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Taxpayers with foreign bank accounts must stay on top of the game when it comes to paying taxes and disclosing foreign funds.
If you have undisclosed foreign funds or if you have accumulated back taxes on your overseas money, now is the time to seek tax help from a tax attorney or Certified Tax Resolution Specialist to resolve your IRS problems before they become any worse.
Due to the severe nature of
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Recently, more than 14,700 Americans with secret offshore accounts took the IRS up on their offer of tax amnesty for voluntary disclosure before the October 15th deadline, generating “billions of dollars” in new revenue for the IRS. Based on this success, the IRS has hired 800 personnel in the United States and bulked up their offices overseas to smoke out more tax revenue from offshore hiding places.
Taxpayers need to be
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Before the UBS deal of 2009 that sent overseas account holders scrambling to submit their voluntary disclosures before October 15th’s amnesty deadline, many people believed a number of IRS myths: that Swiss Bank Accounts are a “tax fortress” impenetrable by the IRS or that the IRS only cared about the “bigger fish.” However, as we have seen in the past couple of months, this is clearly not the case anymore.
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The latest IRS step-up in tax collection crackdown has some 14,700 wealthy Americans shaking in their chairs. The IRS reports that it has been seeing an “unprecedented” number of Americans who have come forward before the October 15th amnesty deadline. Offshore account holders who voluntarily disclose their unpaid back taxes on foreign funds by this deadline are able to receive reduced IRS penalties.
For those who did not make the deadline
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Earlier this week, Democrats offered a bill that will strengthen the IRS’s ability to crack down on tax cheats who “hide” their full income by using foreign bank accounts.
Following the latest UBS deal that brought 7,500 Americans forward who had previously concealed their foreign bank accounts from the IRS, this new bill “would impose new reporting requirements on foreign financial institutions doing business in the United States, and on American
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