Do you really have to report illegal income to the IRS? Yes, it’s counter-intuitive. But the answer is yes. Of course, compliance with this requirement is not common. But some taxpayers do choose to report income from illegal activities. As we will explain in this post, one reason for doing […]
If you owe taxes to the IRS, you may want to hold off on planning your next international trip. A new law just took effect that will revoke passports for Americans who owe $50,000 or more to the IRS. The most vocal critics of the law are American expatriates living […]
Following budget cuts in the recent spending bill approved by Congress, the Department of Justice has suspended its controversial asset forfeiture “equitable sharing” program. The program has made headlines in recent years due to accusations that law enforcement is motivated more by profit than by an actual desire to impede […]
In the first part of this post, we began discussing the issue of underreported income. We noted that the IRS has a program that automatically sends out notices to taxpayers when information from other sources indicates that income may be underreported on a tax return. In this part of the […]
We live in a society that tries hard to find technological solutions to problems. This attempt is not always successful, but it has deep roots in the culture. In tax compliance, one way in which the search for a technical solution is present is the Automated Underreporter Program (AUP). The […]
One reason why tax compliance so challenging is that the federal tax code is always a moving target. The challenge isn’t only that the code is so complicated. It is that every year there is uncertainty about what Congress will include in it. One aspect of this is a set […]
In part one of this post, we introduced the subject of bankruptcy and tax debt. We used a Texas case to illustrate the point that a bankruptcy filing does not necessarily stop the IRS from trying to collect back taxes from you. In this part of the post, let’s look […]
The Fifth Amendment protects an individual from being forced to incriminate himself or herself, often referred to as “pleading the fifth.” In the past, some have unsuccessfully attempted to assert the Fifth Amendment as a reason to avoid filing tax returns, or to file tax returns that don’t report any […]
The Department of Justice announced the conviction of an Alaskan doctor who used secret accounts in Costa Rica to hide assets from his wife, as well as to evade U.S. taxes. At his sentencing next March, he faces a maximum of 20 years imprisonment. He could also be forced to […]
Bankruptcy is by no means a sure-fire way to evade the IRS. An octogenarian widow of a Texas billionaire is finding this out now. In this post, we will discuss the case of Caroline “Dee” Wyly, against whom the Internal Revenue Agency is seeking a $386 million tax fraud penalty. […]