The Tax Times: Streamlined Disclosure Program Will Not Continue Indefinitely

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Streamlined Disclosure Program Will Not Continue Indefinitely

According to a statement made Commissioner Koskinen on December 17, 2015 at the George Washington University Law conference on international taxation, the streamlined version of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, designed to bring taxpayers with unreported assets overseas into tax compliance, will end after the IRS determines there is no way a taxpayer who wanted to participate couldn't have heard about the process.

“At some point, we will have assumed that people have
had enough notice that they should have become
voluntarily compliant.”

This statement that the streamlined program will not continue indefinitely, has been reiterated by senior IRS officials at subsequent international tax conferences!

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has helped bring visibility to the compliance issue. With the FATCA reporting mechanics in place, the IRS is now working to determine what data is the most useful and how to analyze the data for irregularities that could indicate an issue to examine. While no one will be immediately receiving tax-due notices; the IRS is collecting a lot of information through FATCA.

We previously posted, FATCA - U.S. Began Reciprocal Automatic Exchange of Tax Information On Sept. 30, 2015! where we discussed that the IRS announced the on September 30, 2015 foreign banks and countries actually began exchanging financial account information pursuant to FATCA.

The Information NOW available provides

the United States and Partner Jurisdictions

an improved means of verifying the

Tax Compliance of Taxpayers using

Offshore Banking and Investment Facilities

& Improves Detection of those who

Attempt to Evade Reporting

the existence of Offshore Accounts &

the Income Attributable to those Accounts.

The capacity for reciprocal automatic exchange builds on numerous accomplishments including the following:

Development of a consistent data reporting format, or schema, and the agreement to use this format by all jurisdictions;
Establishment of the details and procedures required to assure data confidentiality;
Creation of a data transmission system to meet high standards for encryption and security; and
Cooperation with foreign jurisdiction tax administrations to achieve the timely implementation of this exchange.

The Risks of Hiding Money Offshore are Growing!