Oldest Swiss Bank Indicted for Tax Fraud

On January 3, 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged three Swiss bankers with hiding more than $1.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer accounts from the IRS. The announcement was made by Preet Bharar, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney.

IRS has put in place a program aimed at auditing taxpayers who did a so called “quiet disclosure” — those who chose not to make a voluntary disclosure, but rather chose to quietly file amended tax returns and FBARs.

The Internal Revenue Service released details of its plan to show some leniency on the penalties for failure to file tax returns and Foreign Bank Account Reports for the American citizens living abroad.

Credit Suisse AG, the second largest bank of Switzerland, has notified some of its U.S. clients that it will disclose their identities and account details to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that 12,000 new applications came in from the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) program that closed last week. This pushed the total to 30,000 since the program began in 2009.

The IRS is reminding taxpayers that the deadline for the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) will expire on August 31, 2011.

On Wednesday, July 6, 2011, the Swiss government adopted standards on banking secrecy laid out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, which will allow foreign authorities to pursue citizens suspected of using hidden Swiss accounts for tax evasion.

In Notice 2011-54, the IRS has extended the deadline for persons who have signature authority over, but no financial interest in, foreign financial accounts to file Form TD F 90-22.1, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). They now have until November 1, 2011, to report their signature authority over such accounts during 2009 and earlier years. The deadline for 2010, however, remains unchanged at June 30, 2011.

IRS Posts New Frequently Asked Questions for the 2011 OVDI Program