Blog

A panel of three federal judges is now considering whether an American businessman should get prison time for tax evasion related to about $24 million in unreported income earned from two Swiss bank accounts. Last year, the man pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and received a probation sentence. A Chicago judge also ordered him to serve 500 hours of community service at local area schools. In a rare sentencing appeal, federal prosecutors asked the nation’s Seventh Circuit to instead remand the businessman to a federal penitentiary.

Earlier this month, a judge delayed sentencing for a member of a prominent New York family who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2010. In the case, the woman’s father apparently left her and her siblings millions of dollars that were stored in a secret offshore account. Rather than report the Swiss bank account to authorities, however, the siblings allegedly developed and implemented a tax-evasion scheme using the advice of a financial adviser.

In United States v. Peters, a married woman owned and managed a rental property company in Missouri. Her husband performed maintenance and other management duties for her business. Following a purchase agreement dispute, the woman sold one of her rental properties pursuant to a court order. The proceeds of the sale were later deposited with the woman’s company and were not reinvested in a replacement property.

In August, four members of a Massachusetts family pleaded guilty to hiding about $25 million from the Internal Revenue Service in an illegal tax fraud scheme. In the case, the defendants, aged 47 to 67, allegedly conspired to structure financial transactions related to their jointly-owned temporary employment agency in such a way as to defraud the United States government. According to the U.S.

On July 1, 2014, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) went into effect.  FATCA was enacted to combat tax evasion and imposes a 30 percent tax withholding on foreign deposits made by United States taxpayers who hold an ownership interest in an offshore account with a banking institution that does not submit information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In addition, U.S.

Earlier this month, an 83-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty to hiding up to $1.1 million in undeclared Swiss bank accounts. He also admitted to submitting false federal tax returns and engaging in a conspiracy that lasted for approximately 25 years. According to United States authorities, the man went so far as to move his undisclosed foreign financial accounts to an Israeli bank after learning that the U.S. government was cracking down on Swiss banking institutions for their alleged role in assisting American taxpayers with concealing overseas assets.

A 57-year-old Pennsylvania man was recently sentenced to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay over $5 million in trust fund recovery penalties and interest. According to federal authorities, the owner of a Berks County farm collected federal income, social security, and Medicare taxes from the paychecks of his salaried mushroom growing facility employees between 2007 and 2012, but he failed to remit any of the money to the United States Treasury.

In Buchanan v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service, an Indiana man asked a tax court to review a determination made by an IRS Appeals Office regarding an IRS employee’s refusal to accept his proposed offer-in-compromise.

New streamlined filing compliance procedures designed to encourage United States taxpayers to comply with their foreign tax reporting requirements were recently announced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The new procedures allow an American taxpayer with certain interests in an offshore bank or other financial account to file amended or overlooked federal income tax returns reflecting those assets while facing waived or reduced financial penalties.

About one million United States and dual citizens call Canada home. Many of these expatriates have mistakenly failed to file their U.S. tax return and other forms because they believed they did not owe a federal income tax. In response to such failures, the Internal Revenue Service offers streamlined filing procedures for Canadian and other expats to disclose their foreign income and become compliant with their federal income tax obligations.