Empire' Star Owes $903K in Taxes, Penalties & Interest

According to Law360, the U.S. government told a Pennsylvania federal court on January 8, 2024, that it should be allowed to collect on $903,000 in unpaid tax liabilities of the "Empire" television show actor Terrence Howard. 

Howard has yet to formally respond to a December 2022 complaint, the U.S. government argued in a motion for default judgment, with his lone attempt being leaving a voicemail for government counsel.

According to the complaint, Howard owes more than $550,000 in unpaid income taxes alone after failing to fulfill his liabilities for the 2010, 2011, 2016, 2017 and 2019 tax years, plus applicable penalties and interest.

Initial attempts to serve the complaint were unsuccessful until it was personally received by Howard's spouse at his California residence in July after multiple extensions, according to court records. 

Howard was again served in October, but failed to respond by the court-imposed deadline. Default was ultimately entered against the actor in December.

Have An IRS Tax Problem?

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SCOTUS Not Review Partnership's $35.5M Late Filed Loss With RA As Not Filed

According to Law360, the U.S. Supreme Court declined on January 8, 2024 to review the Internal Revenue Service's rejection of a partnership's $35.5 million tax loss, letting stand a Ninth Circuit ruling that the partnership never properly filed its delinquent tax return at a service center.

The justices denied an August petition by Seaview Trading LLC to review the circuit court's 10-1 finding that Seaview never filed a return for 2001 because the partnership didn't file it at an IRS service center.

Seaview argued in its petition that the Ninth Circuit's March ruling incorrectly allowed the IRS to bypass a three-year statute of limitations and reject Seaview's loss in 2010. The government has only three years to issue a partnership adjustment, but the clock doesn't start ticking until a return is considered filed, a designation the Ninth Circuit misconstrued, Seaview said, when it ruled that Seaview's repeated submissions directly to IRS agents starting in 2004 didn't count.

If the Ninth Circuit's decision were allowed to stand, Seaview told the justices, the ruling "would produce Kafkaesque madness throughout the tax system" by allowing the IRS to pursue taxpayers "no matter how many times taxpayers hand their returns to IRS agents at the IRS' direction."

Seaview Gave Copies Of Its Partnership Return For 2001 To
An IRS Agent In 2005 And An IRS Lawyer In 2007 Does Not Constitute "Filing" A Return, The Government Argued.

Those transmissions failed to comply with the regulation specifying that partnership returns must be filed at an IRS service center, Treasury Regulation Section 1.6031(1)-1(a)(1), the government said.

The government also rejected Seaview's claim that the appellate ruling bucked years of IRS advice to taxpayers that delinquent returns should be filed with the IRS agent who requests the return. The IRS has never endorsed the view that partnerships are not required to file their taxes at service centers, even if they are filed late, the government said. Seaview based its argument for Supreme Court review on a misreading of agency guidance documents, the government said.

Even the top of the IRS' webpage on late-filed returns instructs filers to "file your past due return the same way and to the same location where you would file an on-time return," the government said.

PRACTICE TIP: When representing a taxpayer who is being audited for an unfiled tax year, file the late return with the service center first and then provide the Revenue Agent with a copy of the same.

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$20 Billion in IRS Funding Cuts Now Clawed Back in FY 2024

Previously agreed upon cuts from the IRS' Inflation Reduction Act (PL 117-169) funds across fiscal years 2024 and 2025 would be front-loaded in 2024, as part of a bipartisan, bicameral agreement between congressional lawmakers reached over the weekend that sets a spending topline for fiscal 2024 appropriations.

Congress is tasked with taking action before a January 19 partial government shutdown deadline, and a February 2 full shutdown deadline. Agencies impacted by the earlier date include the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services.

According to a January 7 letter from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), refers to debt ceiling negotiations between Republicans, Democrats, and the Biden administration. 

Last summer, Biden and then-Speaker Mike McCarthy struck a hand-shake deal to redirect portions of the once-$80 billion appropriation to the IRS under the Inflation Reduction Act beyond the $1.4 billion rescinded by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The plan was to trim another $10 billion out of the enforcement bucket in fiscal 2024, and again an additional $10 billion the next year.

Under The Latest Agreement From The Hill, The
Fiscal 2025 $10 Billion Would Be Accelerated, Meaning
All $20 Billion Would Be Clawed Back This Year!

$6.1 billion would also be cut from the Biden administration's "continued COVID-era slush funds," the letter read, but Johnson acknowledged the final spending levels "will not satisfy everyone," nor will the cuts go as far "as many of us would like."

All of Those Aspirational Objectives to Guarantee Fairness in The Tax System Through Enforcement Are ALL GONE as a Result of this 2nd Debt Limit Bill!

Vice President for Federal Tax Policy Chuck Marr took issue with the proposal, also commenting on X in a thread that "[c]utting IRS funding is a bad idea overall."

"The IRS funding reduces wealthy tax cheating and raises revenue," said Marr. "We're already seeing great results. And remember: cutting IRS funding does not save money. It loses money. Lots of it. Congress should protect IRS funding to improve customer service and ensure wealthy taxpayers and corporations pay the taxes they legally owe, i.e. deliver what honest taxpayers deserve."

The White House, however, gave its stamp of approval to the deal, which the president said "moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities."

Have An IRS Tax Problem?

     Contact the Tax Lawyers at

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or Toll Free at 888 8TAXAID (888-882-9243)

 

Another Former Swiss Executive Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud & Conspiracy

According to DoJ, a Swiss national pleaded guilty on December 21, 2023 to conspiring to defraud the United States for his role in a scheme to help high-net-worth U.S. taxpayers conceal their income and assets in offshore accounts.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Rolf Schnellmann was the former head of Allied Finance Trust AG, a ZuJanuary come in andrich-based financial services company and a subsidiary of the Allied Finance Group in Liechtenstein. Rolf Schnellmann, Daniel Wälchli and Zurich, Switzerland-based Allied Finance Trust AG were indicted in 2020 for conspiracy to defraud the US.

From approximately 2008 to 2014, Schnellmann and his co-conspirators defrauded the IRS by concealing income and assets of high-net-worth U.S. taxpayer-clients in undeclared bank accounts at Privatbank IHAG Zurich AG (IHAG), a Swiss private bank. 

Schnellmann And His Co-Conspirators Devised And Implemented A Scheme Dubbed The “Singapore Solution” To Fraudulently Conceal The Bank Accounts Of The U.S. Taxpayer-Clients, Their Assets And Their Income From U.S. Authorities.

As part of the scheme, Schnellmann and his co-conspirators conspired to transfer more than $60 million from the U.S. taxpayer-clients’ undeclared IHAG bank accounts through a series of nominee accounts in Hong Kong and other locations before returning the funds to newly opened accounts at IHAG in the name of a Singapore-based asset-management firm that a co-conspirator helped establish. The U.S. taxpayer-clients paid large fees to IHAG and others to help them conceal their funds and assets and evade taxes. 

Schnellmann Was Indicted For Helping 3 U.S.
Taxpayer-Clients Conceal More Than $60 Million Offshore.

Schnellmann was arrested in August in Italy and extradited to the United States. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 19, 2024, and faces a maximum penalty of five (5) years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Do You Have Undeclared Income from
an Offshore Bank or Financial Advisors?

Is Your Name Being Handed Over to the IRS?

  

Want to Know if Voluntary Disclosure is Right for You? 

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Wealthy Targets of IRS Malta Probe Get Summons Rescission Letters?

According to Daily Tax Report the IRS has rescinded some criminal summonses from its crackdown on Malta pension plans, raising questions about whether the agency is backing off or retooling its aggressive campaign targeting the offshore tax schemes.

Three Attorneys Interviewed By Bloomberg Tax Said More Than 30 Of Their Clients Had Received A Withdrawal Letter Last Week.

The IRS declined to comment.  It’s not clear whether the withdrawal letters represent a revision to the investigation’s focus into the potentially abusive schemes. If so, it would be a striking reversal after the agency sent out hundreds of summonses in June to wealthy Americans sheltering assets in Malta and their advisors. A letter announcing the rescinded summons, obtained by Bloomberg Tax, states that 

"The Agency’s June Demand For Information Had Been 

Withdrawn And Advised, “Do Not Take Further Efforts 

To Comply With The Summons Referenced Above."

The brief letter, dated Dec. 4, specifies the agency hasn’t used any information or records collected by IRS Criminal Investigation, adding physical records will be returned and “any electronic responsive records have been destroyed.” The letter, signed by IRS Criminal Investigation special agent Brian Visalli, gives no rationale or legal basis for the agency’s decision, but advises taxpayers to retain any records responsive to the summons “as you may receive subsequent legal process for those records.”

Former IRS commissioner Charles Rettig said any adjustment to the criminal probe wouldn’t affect the current pattern of civil audits. “Withdrawing the Summons’ does not translate, at least not yet, into walking away from civilly examining the transaction,” he said in an emailed message.

Bryan Skarlatos, a partner in the New York office of Kostelanetz, characterized the action as “a recognition that the summonses were improperly issued” and a decision to “focus the criminal investigation more narrowly while allowing many of the civil audits to proceed.”

Tom Cullinan, a shareholder in the Atlanta office of Chamberlain Hrdlicka, suspects Criminal Investigation concluded it wouldn’t be able to demonstrate criminal fraud because the tax controversies boil down to technical interpretations of a treaty.

Ventry, the California law professor, said IRS shouldn’t back down if it has reasonable evidence of fraudulent conduct and to the extent the agency’s information demands might have been “over-inclusive,” the IRS could and should issue a narrower batch of summonses targeting the individuals and the conduct of greatest concern. 

Taxpayers Who Have Maltese Pension Plans Should 
Carefully Review The Underlying Legal Requirements 

And Consult Independent, Competent Advisors

Before Claiming Any Purported Tax Benefits.

Taxpayers who have already claimed the purported tax benefits of one of these four transactions on a tax return should consider taking corrective steps, such as filing an amended return and seeking independent advice. 

Where appropriate, the IRS will challenge the purported tax benefits from the transactions on this list, and the IRS may assert accuracy-related penalties ranging from 20% to 40%, or a civil fraud penalty of 75% of any underpayment of tax. 

Have a Maltese Pension Plan Problem?

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Swiss Banque Pictet Rolls Over On U.S. Taxpayers It Helped Hide Assets In Offshore Accounts

As part of December 4, 2023’s resolution, Banque Pictet entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay approximately $122.9 million to the U.S. Treasury. 

Today’s Resolution Is One of a Series of Cases by The Justice Department in Connection With its Investigations Since 2008 Into Facilitation of Offshore U.S. Tax Evasion by Foreign Banks.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos for the Southern District of New York. 

“Today, Banque Pictet et Cie admitted to actively helping U.S. taxpayers use coded accounts, foreign trusts and entities, nominee beneficiaries and other deceits to conceal their income and assets abroad,” said Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg. “For this criminal conduct the bank will be paying nearly $122.9 million in restitution, disgorgement of fees and a financial penalty, and is required to fully cooperate with investigations relating to these secret accounts.”

“As it has admitted today, Banque Pictet knowingly conspired to conceal from the IRS the income generated by accounts which held more than $5.6 billion,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.  Rooting out financial malfeasance remains a priority for this Office, and we encourage companies and financial institutions to come to us to report wrongdoing before we come to you.”

“This Case Should Provide A Clear Message To Others Who Try To Hide Their Assets And Income Offshore."

Our special agents are experts in following the money, and they are the best at uncovering schemes that try to defraud the U.S. tax system,” said IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jim Lee. “Offshore tax evasion is a priority for IRS Criminal Investigation, and today’s deferred prosecution agreement with Bank Pictet collects more than $120 million owed to the U.S. government.”

From 2008 to 2014, The Pictet Group provided offshore corporation and trust formation and administration services to certain U.S. taxpayers, first through the Estate Planning and Trust Services unit and later through a wholly owned subsidiary called Rhone Trust and Fiduciary Services SA (Rhone).

As of Dec. 31, 2014, the Pictet Group’s private banking division managed or held custody of approximately $165 billion in assets under management (AUM). From 2008 to 2014, the Pictet Group served approximately 3,736 private accounts that had U.S. taxpayers as beneficial owners, whose aggregate maximum AUM, including declared assets, was approximately $20 billion.

Though Pictet Group adopted early measures to confirm that U.S. clients complied with U.S. law, from 2008 through 2014, the Pictet Group assisted certain U.S. taxpayer-clients with Pictet Group accounts in evading their U.S. tax obligations and otherwise hiding undeclared accounts[1] from the IRS.

In total, from 2008 through 2014, the Pictet Group held 1,637 U.S. Penalty Accounts with aggregate maximum AUM of approximately $5.6 billion in January 2008, on behalf of U.S. taxpayer-clients, who collectively evaded approximately $50.6 million in U.S. taxes.

The Pictet Group assisted U.S. taxpayer-clients with evading their U.S. taxes by opening and maintaining undeclared accounts for U.S. taxpayer-clients at the Pictet Group, either directly or through external asset managers. The Pictet Group also maintained accounts of certain U.S. taxpayer-clients within the Pictet Group in a manner that allowed the U.S. taxpayer-clients to further conceal their undeclared accounts from the IRS. As further detailed below, the Pictet Group used a variety of means to assist U.S. taxpayer-clients in concealing their undeclared accounts, including by:

• forming or administering offshore entities in whose name the Pictet Group opened and maintained accounts, some of which were undeclared, for U.S. taxpayer-clients; 
• opening and maintaining undeclared accounts in the names of offshore entities formed by others for U.S. taxpayer-clients;
• opening and maintaining Private Placement Life Insurance policy accounts, also called insurance wrappers, held in the name of insurance companies but beneficially owned by U.S. taxpayers and improperly managed or funded through undeclared accounts at the Pictet Group;
• transferring funds from undeclared U.S. taxpayer-client accounts to accounts nominally held by non-U.S. clients but still controlled by U.S. taxpayer-clients via fictitious donations, thus assisting U.S. taxpayer-clients in continuing to maintain undeclared funds offshore;
• providing traditional Swiss banking products such as hold-mail account services, where account-related mail is held at the bank rather than sent to the client, and coded or numbered accounts and
• accepting IRS Forms W-8BEN[3] or Pictet Group’s substitute forms that the group knew or should have known falsely stated or implied under penalty of perjury that offshore entities beneficially owned the assets in the undeclared accounts.

In addition to the payment, Banque Pictet also agrees under the deferred prosecution agreement to accept responsibility for its conduct by stipulating to the accuracy of an extensive statement of facts. Banque Pictet further agreed to refrain from all future criminal conduct, implement remedial measures and cooperate fully with further investigations into hidden bank accounts. 

Specifically, The Bank Is Required To Cooperate Fully With Ongoing Investigations And Affirmatively Disclose Any Information It May Later Uncover Regarding U.S. Accounts.

The Bank is also required to disclose information consistent with the Justice Department’s Swiss Bank Program relating to accounts closed between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2022. The agreements provide no protection from criminal or civil prosecution for any individuals.

Do You Have Undeclared Income from one of 

these Offshore Banks or 

Financial Advisors?

Is Your Name Being Handed Over to the IRS?

  

Want to Know if Voluntary Disclosure is Right for You? 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

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Swiss Turn Over More US Client Data & More Bank Accounts

The Swiss tax office notified 12 Swiss banks and one fiduciary that the U.S. is asking for legal assistance in rooting out tax cheats, according to a government bulletin made public this week. The requests cite FATCA, a U.S. banking and tax law which is applied abroad.

The requests represent vestiges of American clients at Swiss banks which haven't agreed to a data handover. FATCA is an offshoot of a decade-long U.S. hunt for money hidden offshore, including in Switzerland. 

Additionally, U.S. and Swiss officials in 2012 agreed on a program for Swiss banks to come clean on undeclared accounts and avoid prosecution. Many of the banks listed in the most recent Swiss bulletin, like Vontobel and Mirabaud, elected simply not to take part in the program.

Pictet, which is also listed in the bulletin, couldn't take part because it is still in the crosshairs of a U.S. criminal investigation for its offshore dealings with America's wealthy. Other banks include Barclays' Swiss arm and Union Bancaire Privée, both of which did participate.

The remaining banks listed are CA Indosuez, Hinduja Banque, of which didn't take part, as well as Schroder & Co, PKB Private Bank, and Zuger Kantonalbank, which did. The Swiss fiduciary listed in the legal aid is Arofin.

Fibi, a defunct bank whose assets were bought by Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique, is also on the list, as is Notenstein La Roche, which was purchased by Vontobel three years ago.

The legal aid comes in response to requests from U.S. tax investigators under FATCA, or the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Switzerland and the U.S. last year finally ratified a double taxation agreement, paving the way to cooperate.

Do You Have Undeclared Income from one of 

these Offshore Banks or 

Financial Advisors?

Is Your Name Being Handed Over to the IRS?

  

Want to Know if the OVDP Program is Right for You? 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.   

for a FREE Tax Consultation contact us at:

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or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243