and if caught

So many taxpayers got caught off guard with the recent attention the Internal Revenue Service is giving holders of offshore bank accounts. With the off-the-shelf deals previously offered, the terms of the settlement were known and predictable. Now that the 2009 and 2011 offshore voluntary disclosure initiatives (OVDI) have ended, the IRS has not yet issued a new OVDI, so many non-compliant citizens are wondering if they should come forward and what the cost of coming forward will be. These are the four options still available. Option One: Do nothing. You could do nothing and hope that the Internal Revenue Service does not discover the account. Perhaps your foreign bank account is at a bank that you believe to be "off the radar" or is in a quiet country, or under a friend's name, or opened with a non-US passport. Well, it used to be that a foreign bank account's true owner could be kept anonymous. However, now, the IRS has vastly many more tools than it ever did previously to find unreported accounts. This is an fundamental disadvantage. The chances are that the Internal Revenue Service does not discover undisclosed accounts gets smaller and smaller モンクレール. Why? Because in order to compete for US customer and capital, foreign banks are coerced into complying with the IRS. That's right --- foreign banks take their marking orders from the IRS as well. So if the Internal Revenue Service wants information on US holders of foreign accounts, the Internal Revenue Service will get that information. The IRS will also run names of other individuals it suspects of being US citizens but who opened their accounts with foreign passports. The IRS has incredible investigative powers --- powers it never had before. The second option is to renounce nationality and leave the country --- as there is no other way to escape the power of the IRS. But be warned --- this only will avoid upcoming tax debts and conformity troubles. The lone way to correctly give up is to essentially come clean about all overseas foreign bank financial records and actually pay an expatriation excise (in many ways it was easier to leave Soviet Block country than to leave the USA completely intact with your wealth.) The third option is to simply file amended returns and not explicitedly tell the Internal Revenue Service that you are seeking to come clean. This is known as a "quiet" or "soft" disclosure. The advantage is that there is little upfront cost to this. But the horrible possibilities are that you may give the Internal Revenue Service a very handy clue to charge you criminally, and if caught, you are see high penalties and a possibility of criminal charges. The Internal revenue service says that these amended returns are "red flags." Even though the tax returns are amended and back taxes paid, the Internal revenue service tells says that account holders will still face penalties and criminal charges. In addition to charging and prosecuting people with undeclared foreign income, the DOJ claims that it has also begun prosecution of citizens whose "Quiet Disclosures" were discovered by the IRS. There are other problems with "Quiet Disclosures." One massive failing is that they do not remedy the issue of the taxpayer's non-compliance in FBAR filing; as a willful failure to file an FBAR is a criminal charge. So simply filing a soft disclosure 't go far enough to eliminate any possibility of criminal charges. In fact, the 1040X might --- well here's the problem with this option --- it does nothing about the failure to the FBAR. There are still criminal and civil investigations that may be pending for failing to file an FBAR, but simply give the IRS a very handy to find you. Option 4: Pre-emptive Disclosure and Negotiation (" Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative") This is the best option. Even though the time to disclosure under the 2011 OVDI has expired, it is not too late. The only thing that passed on August 31, 2011 was the specific off-the-shelf terms of the 2011 disclosure. It was simply a pre-agreed upon penalty arrangement. The Internal revenue service always welcomes voluntary disclosures. There are two main requirements. First, the taxpayer can't already be under examination or investigation. And second, the foreign accounts cannot be connected to any criminal activity like currency laundering or drug trafficking monclerダウン. Once these prerequisites are met, any criminal indictments are removed from the continuum of possibilities and the case is referred to the civil division for assessment of taxes, interest and penalties. A successful OVDI offers reduced penalties and a guarantee of absolutely no criminal charges. Although fines and penalties may be considerable, that's just a bill, they are meaningless compared to an . Such pre-emptive off-shore disclosures and negotiations must be handled by a qualified Offshore tax attorneys, skilled in overseas compliance and sensitive IRS negotiations moncler.