Three Orange County, California residents were sentenced to prison today for willfully failing to file Foreign Bank Account Reports (FBAR), disclosing their secret accounts in Switzerland and Israel.
Beginning this year, reporting for the 2016 calendar year, the due date for filing Foreign Bank Account Reports (FBAR) changes from June 30th (which applied to all the previous tax years) to the same filing deadline as individual income tax returns, April 15.
According to the new data, 55,800 taxpayers have come into the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) to resolve their tax obligations, paying more than $9.9 billion in taxes, interest and penalties since 2009.
Showing that the IRS fight against secret offshore bank accounts is truly global, the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service are trying to force a Singapore bank to disclose its information about an account held by a U.S. citizen residing in China.
In order to effectively implement FATCA requirements, the United States have worked with foreign governments to develop two types of Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs).
On October 16, 2015, right after the 2014 tax filing season had completed, the Internal Revenue Service issued a report on the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Procedures, urging the taxpayers with still undisclosed foreign accounts to come forward, or face serious consequences. The report also provided latest statistics on the Offshore Disclosure Program.
