This is a recurring question.  If you start down the amnesty path but you don’t like the outcome, can you be forced to accept the 20% of high balance as your penalty? Survey says . . . NO! Here’s the way the IRS says it in the voluntary disclosure FAQ: Q34. If, after making a [...]

Today we received a letter from the IRS on an FAQ #9 application.  Total World Domination.    Accepted as filed, meaning no tax, no penalty, no nothing.  We sent the whole package to the IRS in Philadelphia in early June.  That gives you a sense of the time frame.  Though I do see the IRS [...]

According to Reuters, UBS has settled with the IRS.  Names will be named.  (How many?  Yours?  We shall see.)  Beans will be spilled.  Fingers will be pointed.  Bureaucratic chests will be puffed outward. Meanwhile, back on earth. . . . (I have been accused of being obtuse in the past.  By my wife.  Let me [...]

Yesterday I posted about the IRS strategy was in the FBAR amnesty process–a quest to identify other Swiss banks, then go after them hammer and tongs (Caution:  sound file) in order to squeeze names of U.S. taxpayers out of them or scare bank customers into voluntary disclosure. Here’s evidence that the hunting strategy is indeed [...]

The IRS process for starting an amnesty application for an offshore bank account has an interesting thing in it. You tell me: sneaky or sloppy? The process up to now The process for an amnesty application up to now has been pretty clean. Start the voluntary disclosure process, go all the way to the end, [...]