Yeah I am watching the latest incarnation of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. I’m not commenting on the technicalities of this proposed law. This post/rant is a long range perspective on the awesome fail inherent in this bill and the approach of the U.S. government generally. The interesting thing about international tax is that [...]

Just because you’ve been looking for them, here are the Joint Committee’s explanation of the law and the budget estimates for the exit tax passed earlier this year. Joint Committee on Taxation Technical Explanation of the HEART Act of 2008 Joint Committee on Taxation Estimated Budget Effects of H.R. 6081 There’s a pop quiz on [...]

The TaxProf blog has a recent post about expatriation. The TaxProf refers to a recent academic paper on the topic, which you can download here. It’s always interesting to see the academic perspective on something that I do, y’know, for money. Expatriation is mostly estate tax driven Giving up U.S. citizenship–when it is tax driven–is [...]

Yet another indication that people with undisclosed foreign bank accounts should expect a trip to the pain factory. Last weekend’s annual meeting of the California tax bars (I have spoken at this conference several times) had a visit from Nathan Hochman, Assistant Attorney General, and head of the Tax Division at the Justice Department. I [...]

Today’s Tax Notes Today has a report from the UCLA Tax Controversy Institute on October 28, 2008. For those of you spending way too much money on Lexis, the cite is 2008 TNT 211-7. The article states: In keeping with IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman’s focus on international tax administration, fraud technical agents are for the [...]