The U.S. Treasury Department announced this week a proposal for new regulations intended to make it easier for overseas banks to comply with Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA requirements.
An article in Reuters U.S. enlists 5 EU nations in offshore tax crackdown explains these proposals as the U.S. Government not only addressing concerns of foreign financial institutions regarding the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, but also the
[Read More]

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
[Read More]

A recent article in Forbes, With Indictments, The IRS Will Get More Data From the Swiss stated that banks prosecuted by U.S. authorities moved money to smaller, discreet establishments such as Wegelin & Co..  Because of this, the U.S. authorities have stepped up their determination to go after IRS tax cheats and the banks that are hiding them, relentlessly.  With large AND small banks like Wegelin & Co. facing indictments,
[Read More]

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
[Read More]

Michael Reiss, New Jersey doctor, professor and medical researcher, was sentenced on January 11, 2012 for failing to report his offshore (UBS) bank accounts. According to the IRS, Reiss was sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center for failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) with the IRS. Reiss pleaded guilty in August 2011 and agreed to pay back taxes of at least $400,000
[Read More]

A Dora, Ala., woman has been charged with tax fraud for her role at a medical clinic she managed and partly owned. Carol Twilley, 43, allegedly failed to account for and pay to the IRS the federal income taxes withheld and Federal Insurance Contributions Act taxes due to the United States on behalf of Horse Creek Family Medicine Inc. and its employees from November 2004 to January 2006. She faces
[Read More]

Shenita Nicole James, 33, of Montgomery, Ala., pleaded guilty to preparing and filing false and fraudulent federal income tax returns. James was employed as an office manager and income tax preparer at We Finance Auto Sales in Montgomery in 2008 and 2009. We Finance Auto Sales prepared income tax returns for individuals who could choose to use their tax refunds to purchase or make down payments for automobiles.
On or about
[Read More]

A lawyer in Port Huron, Mich., was sentenced to 24 months in prison for tax evasion.
David Douglas Black, 49, owner of Black, Black and Black law firm also was sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay a special assessment of $100.
According to court records, during the 2004 tax year, Black diverted income from his law firm by using checks made out to him, his wife or
[Read More]

A Colorado Springs, Colo., couple were sentenced to criminal obstruction and filing false income tax returns.
Gary Neuger, 56, was sentenced to serve 24 months in federal prison, followed by one year of supervised release, along with paying $393,791.20 in restitution to the IRS. Beth Neuger, 54 and Gary’s wife, was sentenced to serve three years of probation, with the first 10 months in home detention.  She was also ordered to pay
[Read More]

An article in Bloomberg entitled IRS Called Easy on Criminal Tax Evaders in Watchdog’s Critique outlines Nina Olson of the National Taxpayer Advocate’s concerns that intentional tax evaders get more IRS help than those who weren’t intending to hide money from the U.S. government. Olson warns that future IRS collection efforts could be jeopardized due to confusion over the treatment of accidental tax evaders.

The IRS sees
[Read More]

The head of the Internal Revenue Service described how the tax-collecting agency will place more pressure on tax cheats and companies that facilitate cheating. It’s time for tax cheats to worry.
———————————-
The Internal Revenue Service is “turning up the pressure” on tax cheats.
Those were the exact words from IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman when he spoke in December at the IRS/George Washington University 24th Annual Institute.
The IRS will direct much of the
[Read More]

A Gilbert, Ariz., woman was sentenced to 78 months in prison for evading more than $3 million in taxes on income earned from real estate commissions and land sales.
Sue J. Taylor, 67, was found guilty by a federal jury on April 28, 2011, of four felony counts of tax evasion and four misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file tax returns. Taylor was taken into custody at the conclusion of
[Read More]

This Tuesday, a deadline passed in which 11 Swiss banks were given an IRS ultimatum to hand over account information and pay billions in fines to avoid US tax evasion prosecution. However, what the banks have not divulged are the claims that they would also have to provide all correspondence of their offshore clients over the last 11 years. An online article from “US tax “ultimatum” has Swiss banks sweating”
[Read More]

Following a three-day trial, Douglas M. Cavanaugh, Jr., 45, formerly of Binghamton, N.Y., was convicted of six counts of filing false claims for tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service.
Cavanaugh was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport shortly after he arrived on a flight from Australia, where he resided. Evidence presented during the trial showed that Cavanaugh knowingly made and presented to the IRS six claims for payments of refunds
[Read More]

Many Americans like preparing their taxes every year; it helps them feel in control of their finances and they don’t want to pay someone else to do it. With a tough economy still lurking and the availability of low-cost often free tax preparation software, many are inclined to cut their basic costs, and doing their own taxes is one place they believe they can save. If a taxpayer has a
[Read More]