Notes from the New York University Tax Controversy Forum in New York

 The United
States is reluctant to punish tax cheats too heavily. They generally don’t go to prison unless
something else is going on (e.g., United States v. Simon, 727 F.3d 682 (7th Cir. 2013) ). So
the IRS has developed a sliding scale of settlement options in the period since the UBS scandal
first came to light. Nonetheless, the agency’s best efforts to make penalties proportionate to
taxpayer perceptions have not discouraged quiet disclosure.

At the June 5 New York University Tax Controversy Forum in New York, practitioners discussed
with John McDougal, special trial attorney and division counsel with the IRS Small Business/SelfEmployed
Division, and David Horton, director (international individual compliance) in the IRS
Large Business and International Division, how to navigate the now-perpetual IRS offshore
voluntary disclosure program and the newer options. Larry A. Campagna of Chamberlain,
Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry moderated a panel that included Megan L. Brackney of
Kostelanetz & Fink LLP and Jeremy H. Temkin of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello
PC.
Practitioners have developed their own points of reference, given the IRS’s statutory inability to
issue published guidance on foreign bank account reports.

IRS guidance must be couched in
frequently asked questions on the IRS website, none of which has a formal document number
(other than a Tax Analysts document number). So practitioners speak in terms of options 1
(OVDP), 2 (streamlined filing compliance), 3 (delinquent FBARs), and 4 (delinquent international
information returns), outlined under “Options Available for U.S. Taxpayers With Undisclosed
Foreign Accounts” on the IRS website. (Restated OVDP FAQs .)

 Tax Settlements
OVDP is available to willful tax cheats, but not to those under audit or criminal investigation.
Horton explained that the OVDP, now in its fourth iteration, is essentially unchanged. The most
recent significant change was the increase in the penalty from 27.5 percent to 50 percent of the
taxpayer’s highest account balance when the taxpayer’s bank has been placed on the naughty
list, which now includes 21 banks, nine of which have signed deferred prosecution agreements.
The enhanced penalty applies to all the taxpayer’s foreign accounts, not just the one at the bad
bank.

Participation in OVDP requires eight years of returns, a criminal clearance, and a closing
agreement. An OVDP taxpayer essentially agrees to an audit. The penalties are regarded as
onerous, but the program is great for those whose misdeeds have not come to IRS notice
because it offers protection from criminal prosecution.
The streamlined filing compliance procedure, which is one year old, requires only three years of
returns. It was designed to accommodate nonresidents with home-country bank accounts. For
them, there are no section 6662 or FBAR penalties.

As detailed in a separate FAQ , there is a
substantial presence test to determine nonresidence that is keyed to section 911.  Domestic residents who are not under audit or criminal investigation became eligible for the
streamlined procedure last year, but must make an upfront payment of a miscellaneous offshore
penalty of 5 percent of their highest foreign account balances, determined using a narrower
definition of financial assets than is used for OVDP (Form 8938, “Statement of Specified
Foreign Financial Assets”).

Domestic residents effectively must file six years of returns because
of the lookback period in the Internal Revenue Manual (http://goo.gl/X2euhA).
The streamlined procedure is available to taxpayers whose failure to file or pay may have been
negligent but was not willful. Streamlined participants must swear under penalty of perjury that
their noncompliance was not willful. Justice Department lawyers threaten that they will
prosecute taxpayers who lie to get into the streamlined program, but there is no pre-clearance.
(Prior coverage .)

Responding to a question from Brackney, McDougal explained that the taxpayer has the burden
of proof of non-willfulness. What is non-willful is what satisfies an IRS examiner and persuades
him to accept the taxpayer’s certification. Otherwise, concepts of willfulness track the 1988
penalty reform, which raised the intent requirements for fraud and negligence to levels above
what they are under common tort law. To be negligent after penalty reform, a taxpayer must be
nearly willful (section 6662(c)).

The streamlined program requires no criminal clearance but also offers no protection from
criminal prosecution should the taxpayer’s assertions prove false. There is no guarantee that
the IRS will review the taxpayer’s certification, but there is no guarantee that it won’t. Horton
characterized the streamlined process as purely procedural.
Horton explained that the purposes of the streamlined procedure are to discourage quiet
disclosure and to collect profiles of clients. Campagna commented that it is difficult for taxpayers
with shell companies to argue that they were not willful, although he has seen cases in which clients put themselves entirely in the hands of a tax adviser.

Clients read the IRS website and ask their advisers for the streamlined procedure. Some
lawyers put on placeholders while developing their client’s case. Temkin likes to request OVDP
pre-clearance while evaluating evidence of willfulness. If he is satisfied that the client turns out
not to have been willful, he puts the client into the streamlined program and the OVDP request
is withdrawn.
Why enter any voluntary program? Like Justice Department speakers at the conference, Horton
emphasized that the IRS is gleaning information from cooperating bank and bank employee
disclosures of everything but account holder identities and that agents know which banks have
sent letters encouraging participation in the IRS’s voluntary programs.

Caroline Ciraolo, acting assistant attorney general in the DOJ Tax Division, interjected that
banks with deferred prosecution agreements have to agree to continuing cooperation with
auditing. Temkin noted that not only are Swiss banks pushing for participation in OVDP, they
are coming back to account holders asking for proof of participation and disclosure in the form
of documentary evidence (which the banks can use to reduce their penalties). (Prior coverage
.)
Some Swiss banks are so anxious to reduce their penalties that they offer lump sums to assist
their former depositors with professional fees incurred in entering voluntary compliance
programs. Lawyers at the forum debated whether that assistance would be income to the former
customers. Clearly it is income, but the customer would be entitled to an offsetting section 212
deduction for the professional fees.

Clients, of course, got in the trouble they’re in because of greed and disbelief that the IRS would
ever be able to process information it receives about them. They continue in that disbelief even
after their Swiss banks are caught. They access their accounts. They sign waivers for disclosure
of their identities by their Swiss banks. They create paper trails.
Apparently, the sort of person who hates government and refuses to pay his taxes also persists
in the belief that the government is incompetent at processing information. “It’s unbelievable that
huge numbers of taxpayers haven’t come in from the cold,” Charles P. Rettig of Hochman,
Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez PC said earlier in the day. “Information can be matched.”
FBAR
The IRS also offers delinquent FBAR filing procedures and delinquent international
information return procedures for taxpayers whose only sins were failure to file FBARs or forms
such as Form 5471, “Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign
Corporations,” or Form 3520, “Annual Return to Report Transactions With Foreign Trusts and
Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts.”

McDougal suggested that U.S. residents with de minimis tax deficiencies file delinquent FBARs
with reasonable cause statements if the streamlined procedure penalty was off-putting. But he
acknowledged lawyer complaints that clients who do that never hear from the IRS, even though
their checks are cashed. (Delinquent FBAR submission procedures .)  Foreign bank account reporting penalties used to be bupkes. Now they’re perceived as too high.
Recent immigrants who kept their home-country bank accounts are not keen on having to give a
chunk of their funds to the IRS as an extra fee for a green card. So in its most recent guidance
(SBSE-04-0515-0025 ), the IRS effectively capped FBAR penalties, to the relief of immigrants
and lawyers representing die-hard tax cheats as well.
Why should the latter be happy?

Brackney explained that multiyear non-willful FBAR penalties
can actually exceed willful FBAR penalties, especially for smaller accounts. So for smaller
accounts and non-willful failure to file, the new guidance caps the FBAR penalty at $10,000 for
one year. Under the new guidance, there will be no more stacking of non-willful penalties.
For willful FBAR nonfiling, the new guidance states that the penalty will be 50 percent of the
highest account balance and will not exceed 100 percent of the highest account balance
because of Eighth Amendment concerns. (See also the explanation in the IRS FBAR reference
guide .)
Brackney wanted to know whether 50 percent was a floor, or would it still be possible to
negotiate a penalty of less than 50 percent in a willful case? McDougal responded that 50
percent is the default amount but that case managers have discretion to lower it. Brackney said
that the default amount aided decision-making.

Table of Contents: Notes from the New York University Tax Controversy Forum in New York

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