FBAR Noncompliance – Doing Nothing is Not an Option | FBAR Law Firm
Hello and welcome to Sherayzen Law Office Video Blog. My name is Eugene Sherayzen; I’m an International Tax Attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd.
Today, I’m on a train in Eastern Europe and this is the perfect time to share my thoughts about unfiled FBARs. What I’m talking about is a situation where a taxpayer discovers all-of-a-sudden that he needed to file FBARs for prior years and he never did.
In this situation a taxpayer really has three options. First: do nothing; second, a Quiet Disclosure and finally, a real Voluntary Disclosure.
Today, I’d like to talk about the first option: Do Nothing; because this is often the first thing that comes to your mind, right? You discover noncompliance; you know you are panicking; you don’t know what to do. You are worried about the FBAR Penalties; they’re horrendous: criminal penalties, willful penalties and you think that maybe it’s better just to bury your head in the sand and do nothing.
The obvious advantage that you see behind this strategy, or so-called strategy is that if the IRS never discovers your past FBAR noncompliance, basically you can get away without ever paying FBAR Penalties.
The problem is that this is not a strategy; this is just hope. A hope which is based on nothing. In fact, this is an irrational hope, a hope born out of desperation. The reason for it is because the US Government has signed treaties with countries all over the world that make the discovery of noncompliant taxpayers an ever-present danger and an ever-increasing danger.
There are all kinds of treaties. There are FATCA treaties: the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act treaties. There are bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements, mutual assistance treaties, information exchange treaties – all of that body of treaties basically makes it extremely unlikely that a taxpayer can get away with FBAR noncompliance in today’s world.
So in essence, doing nothing with respect to your unfiled FBARs is not just dangerous; it’s reckless and the consequences could be not just disastrous but life-altering, especially if the IRS deems your noncompliance a willful one.
So if you have undisclosed foreign accounts, contact Sherayzen Law Office as soon as possible. Remember, doing nothing is not an option; it’s a Russian Roulette. So, contact me today for professional help at (952) 500-8159 or send me an email at: [email protected].
Thank you for watching, until the next time.
