US Expatriate Tax Planning - Part 2 - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
US Expatriate Tax Planning - Part 1 - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
In its recent decision in United States v. Leeds, the United States District Court for the District of Idaho upheld the application of willful penalties against a deceased husband for failing to report certain foreign bank...more
What is willful blindness according to the IRS? How is this important in tax cases involving unreported or under-reported income, disclosure of offshore assets and income, FinCEN Form 114 (more commonly referred to as an...more
You may recall that earlier this year the IRS launched an initiative to pursue 125,000 “high-income, high-wealth” taxpayers who have not filed taxes since 2017. These were cases where the IRS received third party information...more
Harrington v. Commissioner - In Harrington v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, George S. Harrington (Harrington) challenged tax deficiencies and fraud penalties assessed for tax years 2005 through 2010. Originally...more
In this bulletin, we highlight two recent federal court cases in which U.S. taxpayers won major victories against the United States with respect to their obligations to report non-U.S. accounts on FinCEN Form 114 – Report of...more
Taxpayers recently won a significant victory at the Supreme Court in a penalty case involving a non-willful failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (“FBAR”) under the Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”)....more
After years of litigation, the United States Supreme Court, in Bittner v. United States, 598 U.S. ____ (2023), determined that the penalty for a non-willful failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts...more
On Feb. 28, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that non-willful penalties related to FBARs apply to each report filed, not on a per-account basis. The 5-4 decision resolved a split between the Fifth and Ninth circuits that focused...more
Missing any deadline is stressful. But missing a tax deadline is more so. Per the Bank Secrecy Act (Title 31 of the U.S. Code), certain taxpayers must file so-called FBARs (currently FinCEN Form 114) with the government...more
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the IRS could impose a penalty of $2.72 million for a taxpayer’s non-willful failure to report multiple foreign financial accounts on FBAR filings from 2007...more
On June 21, 2022, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a dispute involving split decisions among the circuit courts on non-willful penalties. The Fifth Circuit parted ways with the taxpayer friendly decision of the...more
FBAR Penalties - On March 8, 2022, the Southern District of New York issued its Opinion in the case of United States v. Schik, No. 20-cv-0221 (MKV), 2022 U.S. Dist. Lexis 41148 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 8, 2022). In that case, the...more
On November 30, 2021, the Fifth Circuit parted ways with the taxpayer friendly decision of the Ninth Circuit that non-willful penalties are capped at $10,000 per FBAR filing instead of the $10,000 per unreported bank account...more
The Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (i.e., the “FBAR”) was for many years confined to the lonely backwaters of Title 31 of the United States Code—the intriguingly-named Bank Secrecy Act. For years, compliance...more
Last week the Ninth Circuit issued a win for taxpayers in US v. Boyd, limiting penalties for non-willful violations of the requirement to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). ...more
This week, we look at one decision navigating the complicated jurisprudence governing review of remand orders (which one might think would be unreviewable), and another addressing the available penalties when taxpayers fail...more
What is the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)? Congress enacted the statutory basis for the requirement to report foreign bank and financial accounts in 1970 as part of the “Currency and Foreign...more
U.S. Taxpayers (includes a citizen, permanent resident, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, trust and estate) are required to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) if they have...more
We all read the headlines. Virtual currencies are a hot button topic. Even Facebook is developing their own virtual currency. It is easy to understand the attraction. The use of a virtual currency is anonymous. Account...more
Depending upon how foreign real estate is owned and/or controlled, a number of different tax reporting regimes may be implicated. Each of these has its own corresponding penalties and generally applies to United States...more
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has finally updated its voluntary disclosure procedures following the closure of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (the “OVDP”) earlier this year. The updated procedures will apply to...more
In recent months, the Internal Revenue Service (“the Service”) began the process of issuing follow-up letters to taxpayers who either requested preclearance to participate in the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (“OVDP”)...more
The IRS recently announced it will be shutting down its successful Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) for unreported foreign bank accounts and income. The program will end September 28, 2018. Under the OVDP, first...more
The Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) is not a tax form. Its filing is not required by the Internal Revenue Code. It is required by Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Title 31 is the Bank Secrecy...more
The IRS currently offers the following five programs for noncompliant taxpayers: (i) the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), (ii) Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures, (iii) Streamlined Foreign Offshore...more