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Offshore Bank Accounts Remain on the IRS 2019 Dirty Dozen List

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On March 15, 2019, the IRS announced that it will keep undisclosed offshore bank accounts on its 2019 Dirty Dozen list.

2019 Dirty Dozen List: Background Information

The “Dirty Dozen” list is complied annually by the IRS. It consists of common tax scams and noncompliance schemes that the IRS prioritizes in its enforcement efforts. Many of these scams and schemes peak during the tax filing season, but offshore evasion is present throughout the year.

2019 Dirty Dozen List: Offshore Evasion Remains a Priority for the IRS

Despite many years of an intense focus on this area, the IRS still priorities its enforcement efforts in the area of offshore evasion. “Offshore evasion remains a primary focal point of overall IRS enforcement efforts,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “Our Criminal Investigation and civil enforcement teams work closely with the Justice Department in the international arena to ensure our nation’s tax laws are followed. Taxpayers considering hiding funds or assets offshore should think twice; the civil penalties and criminal sanctions can be severe.”

2019 Dirty Dozen List: Undisclosed Offshore Bank Accounts May Lead to Criminal Prosecution and Imposition of Huge Civil Penalties

This is very much true. Over the years, the IRS has conducted thousands of offshore-related audits that resulted in the imposition of multimillion-dollar civil penalties as well as additional tax liability. Moreover, the IRS has also been very active in pursuing criminal penalties, which resulted in the collection of billions of dollars in criminal fines and restitution.

Many of these cases involved undisclosed offshore bank accounts. In fact, the IRS has expressly warned noncompliant taxpayers that hiding income in undisclosed offshore bank accounts may result in significant penalties as well as criminal prosecution.

2019 Dirty Dozen List: Common Schemes Involving Undisclosed Offshore Bank Accounts

The IRS has identified numerous schemes that involve undisclosed offshore bank accounts. The most simple of them (and the one that is becoming increasingly rare) is the direct ownership of secret offshore bank accounts and brokerage accounts. The more sophisticated schemes use nominee entities and prepaid debit cards. The most complicated schemes often involve foreign trusts, employee-leasing schemes, private annuities and insurance plans.

The IRS has emphasized that it is not illegal to have offshore bank accounts, foreign business entities and foreign trusts. All of these foreign assets, however, must be disclosed and the appropriate US taxes must be paid.

2019 Dirty Dozen List: How the IRS Finds Out About Schemes In order to Prosecute Noncompliant Taxpayers

There are many different ways for the IRS to find out about undisclosed offshore accounts and schemes that involve such accounts. Let’s briefly review the top four of them. First, the IRS has built up a significant pile of information from prior prosecutions of taxpayers with undisclosed foreign accounts as well as bankers and other financial experts suspected of helping clients hide their assets overseas. Each new audit and prosecution continues to bring in more information.

Second, the IRS also received a huge amount of information from US taxpayers who participated in the different versions of the IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (“OVDP”) during 2004-2018 as well as Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures. OVDP has been particularly helpful, because it involved a large number of taxpayers who could be classified as willful in their prior noncompliance.

Third, the IRS has also obtained very sophisticated information concerning offshore schemes from the Swiss Bank Program. As part of this program, Swiss banks disclosed their strategies for using undisclosed offshore bank accounts to hide income overseas.

Finally, as a result of the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) and the network of Intergovernmental Agreements (“IGAs”), there is a continuous and automatic flow of information concerning US-owned accounts from third parties to the IRS.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office for Professional Help With the Voluntary Disclosure of Your Undisclosed Foreign Assets

The fact that undisclosed offshore bank accounts remain on the 2019 Dirty Dozen list demonstrates the IRS commitment to fighting tax noncompliance in this area. As a result of the information collection efforts by the IRS, US taxpayers with undisclosed foreign accounts are at a severe risk of discovery by the IRS.

This is why, if you have undisclosed foreign assets or foreign income, you should contact Sherayzen Law Office for professional help as soon as possible. We have helped hundreds of US taxpayers around the world with their offshore voluntary disclosures, and We Can Help You!

Contact Us Today to Schedule Your Confidential Consultation!

Polish Bank Accounts | International Tax Lawyer & Attorney Chicago IL

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A large number of Polish immigrants in the United States continue to maintain close ties to Poland, including the ownership of Polish bank accounts. The same is true for Polish citizens with “green cards” who reside outside of the United States during most of the year. Many of these new American tax residents do not realize that these accounts may be subject to numerous reporting requirements in the United States. In this article, I will discuss, in a general manner, the top three US tax reporting requirements that may apply to these Polish bank accounts.

Polish Bank Accounts: Definition of a “Filer”

There is one critical term that we need to understand in order to properly apply US tax reporting requirements to Polish bank accounts – the concept of “filer”. In this context, “filer” means a person who fits into the category of taxpayers who are required to file a certain form.

It is important to understand that the definition of a filer changes from one form to another. In other words, a person may be required to file one form but not the other even though it concerns the same foreign account.

Despite these differences in the definition of a filer, we can identify a certain common definition that underlies all of the requirements we will discuss in this article, even if this definition is modified for the purposes of a particular form. This common definition can be found in the concept of a “US tax resident”.

All of the following persons are considered to be US tax residents: US citizens, US permanent residents, persons who satisfy the Substantial Presence Test and persons who declare themselves as US tax residents. This general definition of US tax residents is subject to a number of important exceptions.

All of the US international tax reporting requirements adopt the concept of US tax residency as the basis for their definitions of a filer. Where there are differences from the definition of US tax residency, they are mostly limited to the application of the Substantial Presence Test and/or the first-year and last-year definitions of a US tax resident.

For example, Form 8938 identifies its filers as “Specified Persons” (a concept that is applied increasingly throughout US tax code after the 2017 tax reform) while FBAR defines its filers as “US Persons”. Yet, the differences between these two terms mostly arise with respect to persons who declared themselves as US tax residents or non-residents. A common example can be found with respect to treaty “tie-breaker” provisions, which foreign persons use to escape the effects of the Substantial Presence Test for US tax residency purposes.

The determination of your US tax reporting requirements is the primary task of your international tax attorney. It is simply too dangerous for a common taxpayer or even an accountant to attempt to dabble in US international tax law.

Polish Bank Accounts: Worldwide Income Reporting

Now that we understand the concept of US tax residency and the fact that the definition of a filer may differ between different tax forms, we are ready to explore the aforementioned three US reporting requirements with respect to Polish bank accounts.

The first and most fundamental requirement is worldwide income reporting. It is also the requirement that applies to US tax residents as they are defined above (i.e. we are dealing here with the classic definition of US tax residency in its purest form).

All US tax residents must disclose their worldwide income on their US tax returns. This means that they must report to the IRS their US-source and foreign-source income. The worldwide income reporting requirement applies to all types of foreign-source income: bank interest income, dividends, royalties, capital gains and any other income.

Worldwide income reporting requirement applies even if the foreign income is subject to Polish tax withholding or reported on a Polish tax return. It also does not matter whether the income was transferred to the United States or stayed in Poland; the Polish-source income of a US tax resident must still be disclosed on his US tax returns.

Polish Bank Accounts: FinCEN Form 114 – FBAR

The second requirement that I would like to discuss today is FinCEN Form 114, the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (commonly known as “FBAR”). Under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, the US government requires all US Persons to disclose their ownership interest in or signatory authority or any other authority over Polish (and any other foreign country) bank and financial accounts if the aggregate highest balance of these accounts exceeds $10,000. If these requirements are met, the disclosure requirement is satisfied by filing an FBAR.

It is important to understand all parts of the FBAR requirement are terms of arts that require further exploration and understanding. I encourage you to search our firm’s website, sherayzenlaw.com, for the definition of “US Persons” and the explanation of other parts of the FBAR requirement.

There is one part of the FBAR requirement, however, that I wish to explore here in more detail – the definition of “account”. The reason for this special treatment is the fact that the definition of an account for FBAR purposes is a primary source of confusion among US Persons with respect to what needs to be disclosed on FBAR.

The FBAR definition of an account is substantially broader than what this word generally means in our society. “Account” for FBAR purposes includes: checking accounts, savings accounts, fixed-deposit accounts, investments accounts, mutual funds, options/commodity futures accounts, life insurance policies with a cash surrender value, precious metals accounts, earth mineral accounts, et cetera. In fact, whenever there is a custodial relationship between a foreign financial institution and a US person’s foreign asset, there is a very high probability that the IRS will find that an account exists for FBAR purposes.

Despite the fact that FBAR compliance is neither easy nor straightforward, FBAR has a very severe penalty system. On the criminal side, FBAR noncompliance may lead to as many as ten years in jail (of course, these penalties come into effect in extreme situations). On the civil side, the most dreaded penalties are FBAR willful civil penalties which can easily exceed a person’s net worth. Even FBAR non-willful penalties can wreak a havoc in a person’s financial life.

Civil FBAR penalties have their own complex web of penalty mitigation layers, which depend on the facts and circumstances of one’s case. In 2015, the IRS added another layer of limitations on the FBAR penalty imposition. One must remember, however, that these are voluntary IRS actions and may be disregarded by the IRS whenever circumstances warrant such an action.

Polish Bank Accounts: FATCA Form 8938

The third requirement that I wish to discuss today is a relative newcomer, FATCA Form 8938. This form requires “Specified Persons” to disclose all of their Specified Foreign Financial Assets (“SFFA”) as long as these Persons meet the applicable filing threshold. The filing threshold depends on a Specified Person’s tax return filing status and his physical residency.

The IRS defines SFFA very broadly to include an enormous variety of financial instruments, including foreign bank accounts, foreign business ownership, foreign trust beneficiary interests, bond certificates, various types of swaps, et cetera. In some ways, FBAR and Form 8938 require the reporting of the same assets, but these two forms are completely independent from each other. This means that a taxpayer may have to report same foreign assets on FBAR and Form 8938.

Specified Persons consist of two categories of filers: Specified Individuals and Specified Domestic Entities. You can find a detailed explanation of both categories by searching our website sherayzenlaw.com.

Finally, Form 8938 has its own penalty system which has far-reaching income tax consequences (including disallowance of foreign tax credit and imposition of 40% accuracy-related income tax penalties). There is also a $10,000 failure-to-file penalty.

One must also remember that, unlike FBAR, Form 8938 is filed with a federal tax return and forms part of the tax return. This means that a failure to file Form 8938 may render the entire tax return incomplete and potentially subject to an IRS audit.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office for Professional Help With the US Tax Reporting of Your Polish Bank Accounts

If you have Polish bank accounts, contact Sherayzen Law Office for professional help with your US international tax compliance. We have helped hundreds of US taxpayers with their US international tax issues (including numerous taxpayers with Polish bank accounts), and We can help You!

Contact Us Today to Schedule Your Confidential Consultation!

US Bank Accounts Disclosed to Israel | FATCA Tax Lawyers Florida

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Many persons have assumed that FATCA is a one-way street where only the United States is able to obtain tax information with respect to foreign accounts controlled by its citizens while the information about US bank accounts is never exchanged with other FATCA signatories. While, to some (or even to a large) degree this may be true due to the fact that US financial institutions do not generally collect certain information about nonresident aliens with financial accounts in the United States, there are exceptions.

Disclosure of US Bank Accounts held by US Tax Residents Under FATCA

One of such exceptions are US taxpayers who are also citizens or tax residents of another country. Generally, the information about US bank accounts owned by US tax residents is collected by US financial institutions and shared with the IRS. Then, the IRS may share this information with other countries, including Israel.

This is a fairly important exception, because it affects millions of US citizens who reside overseas, including those who reside in Israel.

2017 Disclosures of Owners of US Bank Accounts to Israel

The most recent example of such a disclosure occurred on February 28, 2017, when the Israeli Tax Authority (“ITA”) announced that it received a second batch of information from the IRS with respect to about 30,000 US bank accounts held by Israeli citizens in the year 2014. All of this information was provided pursuant to US-Israel FATCA Agreement.

Earlier this year, in January, the US transferred the first batch of financial information under FATCA to Israel. At that time, the IRS provided information about 35,000 Israelis who had bank accounts in the United States in 2015.

Disclosure of US Bank Accounts and Other Information Will Lead to Audits of Israeli Tax Returns

The ITA also stated that the IRS will continue to supply the ITA with FATCA information regarding US Bank Accounts in the future. Israel also expects to commence the exchange of information under CRS (OECD’s Common Reporting Standard) by September of 2018.

All of the information that the ITA collects under FATCA and CRS will be used to compare with the information reported by Israelis on their Israeli tax returns. In fact, the ITA created a special tax force dedicated to screening and comparing the data. Hence, one should expect an increase in tax audits and imposition of tax penalties in Israel.

US Bank Accounts

Swiss Bank Program Data Will Be Shared with Israel, Not Just US Bank Accounts

There is one important point that should be emphasized with respect to the future IRS disclosures to Israel. Not only will the IRS share with the ITA the information regarding US bank accounts held by Israelis, but it will also supply the data about Israeli-held Swiss bank accounts that the IRS obtained through the Swiss Bank Program. The ITA already declared that it expects to receive data regarding thousands of the Swiss bank accounts held by Israelis.

This development is something that Sherayzen Law Office has frequently warned about in the past. We have repeatedly stated our concerns that the information that a foreign country obtains regarding US-held accounts through FATCA or CRS will eventually be shared with the IRS through one of the tax information exchange agreements.

The recent ITA declaration is just another confirmation of the correctness of our prediction – only it works here to benefit the ITA, not the IRS. We should expect more confirmations in the future that benefit the IRS directly with respect to detection of noncompliant US taxpayers who might have escaped the direct detection through FATCA.

The Long Reach of the FATCA Letter Notice

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The FATCA Letter Notice is a critical component of a FATCA Letter that is causing significant problems for millions of US owners of foreign financial accounts. Yet, a lot of the FATCA letter recipients are completely unaware of the full impact of the FATCA Letter Notice. In this article, I will provide a general explanation of the FATCA Letter Notice and its importance to US owners of foreign bank and financial accounts.

What is a FATCA Letter?

When FATCA was implemented in July of 2014, foreign banks and financial institutions (“FFIs”) started to mail letters to their clients aimed to verify information required for the FFI reporting under FATCA. These letters are called “FATCA Letters”.

The FATCA Letters serve two important functions for the FFIs. First, the questions contained in or referred to by a FATCA Letter are designed to help FFIs verify whether the account holder is a US person. Second, the FATCA Letter is designed to give notice to the US account holders that their accounts will be disclosed to the IRS.

In this article, I will concentrate only on the FATCA Letter Notice and its most significant impact on US taxpayers.

The FATCA Letter Notice

Very few people understand that the there is not just one FATCA Letter Notice, but two different FATCA Letter Notices that serve different functions – the express FATCA Letter Notice and the implicit FATCA Letter Notice. The express FATCA Letter Notice is the official notice with respect to the FFI’s own FATCA compliance. The implicit FATCA Letter Notice is the notice forced upon the US account holders with respect to their US tax compliance.

The Express FATCA Letter Notice

The express FATCA Letter Notice is very simple – the FFI puts the US account holder on notice that his or her account will disclosed to the IRS. This means that the FFI has complied with its due diligence requirements for the US tax purposes as well as the local bank privacy purposes.

The express FATCA Letter Notice is the one that most US taxpayers understand and the one that they are most concerned about. This is understandable because the express FATCA Letter Notice tells US account holders that their accounts will be disclosed to the IRS irrespective of whether the account holders want this disclosure and whether the timing of this disclosure is convenient to them.

The Implicit FATCA Letter Notice

The implicit FATCA Letter Notice consists of the forcing upon the US account holder the knowledge of their past non-compliance with US tax laws. This “forcing” element is accomplished by the FATCA Letter’s statements that all foreign accounts owned by US persons must be disclosed to the IRS by these very persons. As soon as he receives a FATCA Letter, the US person is on notice that his foreign accounts are subject to complex US tax compliance rules and, if it turns out that these accounts were never properly disclosed, he is non-compliant with respect to past filings. In essence, this is a “shock therapy” method of inducing US tax compliance.

This implicit FATCA Letter Notice of past US tax non-compliance is very dangerous for three interrelated reasons. First, it forces the US recipient of a FATCA Letter to conduct current year’s tax compliance to avoid willful non-compliance designation. The current year’s compliance is done irrespective of the recipient’s circumstances and his ability to do so. At the same time, it provides the IRS with the information that this US person owns foreign financial accounts that were never reported previously.

Second, the receipt of the FATCA letter means that the US account holder should promptly take the necessary steps to conduct some form of an offshore voluntary disclosure. Failure to take these steps or a significant delay in conducting a voluntary disclosure may result in the IRS investigation and the account holder’s inability to conduct a voluntary disclosure. Moreover, the delayed reaction to the FATCA Letter Notice may strengthen the IRS case for arguing willful non-compliance with respect to any delinquent FBARs and any other information returns.

Finally, since the US taxpayer is forced to react swiftly to the implicit FATCA Letter Notice (due to the other two factors described above), his ability to choose the right path of his voluntary disclosure may be constrained by the lack of the necessary documentation or knowledge of other important facts. With the changes that the IRS implemented with respect to the 2014 OVDP (now closed), SDOP and SFOP, it is important to remember that engaging in one form of a voluntary disclosure may result in the subsequent inability to switch to another voluntary disclosure path.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office for Help With Your FATCA Letter

As you can see, receiving a FATCA Letter Notice is an event of potentially important implications. An inadequate response to a FATCA Letter Notice may have a highly deleterious effect on the US account holder’s ability to conduct voluntary disclosure (which means facing the draconian FBAR civil and criminal penalties) or choose the right type of a voluntary disclosure.

This is why, if you received a FATCA Letter, contact Sherayzen Law Office for help immediately. Our experienced international tax law firm has helped hundreds of US taxpayers like you to bring their US tax affairs into full compliance with US tax laws, and we can help you as well.

So, Contact Us Now to Schedule Your Initial Consultation! Remember, contacting Sherayzen Law Office is Confidential.