Tax Lawyer's Blog

The following alert comes to you courtesy of Reuters:

Rich Americans who have evaded taxes by hiding their foreign holdings have about a week to decide whether to turn themselves in to an Internal Revenue Service amnesty program or gamble that they will not be caught.

U.S. citizens with undeclared assets in tax havens such as Switzerland face a September 23 deadline to reveal their holdings, pay a fine and generally avoid criminal prosecution. When that amnesty program expires, any tax cheats found by the government could face criminal prosecution.

We have written before that in order to reward those who do come forward, the IRS must aggressively prosecute those who don’t:

The IRS expects to find some tax evaders soon. UBS AG, the Swiss banking giant, agreed to hand over to the IRS the names of about 4,450 secret accounts as part of a court settlement reached last month.

“This is sort of their last, best chance if they are going to get off with lenient treatment,” said Evan Stewart, a regulatory lawyer at the firm Zuckerman Spaeder.

“If you’re sitting there and you’ve sheltered $50 million from the U.S. government, are you willing to gamble with the (list of) 4,500 (names), and live in terror for a year?” Stewart said.

Related Posts:

• IRS Amnesty: Less than 2 Weeks Remain for Voluntary Disclosure Filings
• Offshore Tax Fraud: IRS Creates New Division
• Tax Crimes: UBS Investor Criminal Tax Cases Under Way
• UBS Investors: Voluntary Disclosure Time Drawing Nigh

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