I am admittedly way behind in reading the many recent good posts and comments here at Isaac Brock. I also have had a couple subjects I have wanted to weigh in on, and create new posts, but for the past couple weeks my time has been seriously constrained. However, this morning a previous post by renounceuscitizenship caught my attention. It was entitled Steve Mopsick – On the “coming into compliance dilemma”. I have been thinking about it all day, and why it is that this QD dilemma is so difficult for so many benign Minnows with the conflicting advice being provided by practitioners.
I thought I would provide some thoughts I have had, especially as it relates to the comments that Michael J. Miller posted. Now I know, I am getting into dangerous territory when I am seen to be taking sides with one good attorney over another. I certainly have no legal expertise or special knowledge that qualifies me to make comments on matters such as this. So, I am sure what I have to say is probably misguided, or wrong in some manner or another, but it is how I see this problem. It is just my novice and naive opinion. Take it for what it is worth.
QD advantages for benign Minnows
If any of you have been reading Jack Townsend’s blog recently, and hopefully you have, Jack seems to be in Michael Miller’s camp about QDs and the risks vs benefits associated with going this route. In theory, if I understand Jack correctly, he says a QD audit examination for the Minnow with benign facts and with IRM discretion applied should not be materially different than an ‘Opt Out’ examination for the benign Minnow with the same discretion applied. In fact, because of this discretion, the penalties outside the OVDI for these benign offenders should be less then the “in lieu of” penalties inside it.
However, the QD does have one significant advantage over the OVDI, IRS advice/protestations aside. It does not require one to spend countless LCUs in an extremely inefficient 2 year process and pay thousands of dollars to a practitioner for advice and help just to get to an Opt Out point where normal IRM discretion should apply in the first place.
Practitioner responsibility.
It does seem to me, on a non legal common sense basis, that a practitioner has a first responsibility to their client and not the IRS! They should present all the various options available for compliance and the risks associated with each, depending on their client’s facts. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to covertly compel the client to choose the IRS favorite route over another to reach a compliance objective. I don’t see it as an attorney’s obligation to tell the client they have to join the OVDI, as the only approved route for offshore compliance.
The fact that you have to examine the various options speaks VOLUMES to the stupidity of the OVDI design. The choice for compliance should be a simple straight forward one, not the convoluted, anxiety ridden, perverse and expensive process that it is now. It should be just as easy to become offshore compliant, as it for you to become tax compliant before you become Treasury Secretary!
Taking a side
I thought Michael Miller’s comments about the QD were right on point as related to the article Steven Mopsick cited. With all due respect to Steve, that article looked to me as if it was dictated and written by an IRS ghost writer by the name of Randall P. Andreozzi. I wonder if the IRS commissioned him to write it, or is he a past IRS attorney writing from a perspective that he has a predisposed inclination to support? To me “the tell” were these sentences that indicated this was not just an ordinary unbiased scholarly writer, who was pointing out the OVDI conundrums.
“People will not respond to such a program unless they are sufficiently frightened by or concerned about the consequences of remaining in the weeds. As a result, the government must generate interest in voluntary foreign account disclosure through well-publicized prosecutions and penalties to establish to the public that the risk is clear and it is present.”
That told me all I need to know about the author and where his sympathies and bias lay! I can understand why Steven, 30 years working for the IRS might have similar opinions, and I don’t hold that against him. If I had been there that long, I might self identify with that perspective. Frankly there was some aspects of the alternate way Steven has suggested to Expats about a possible different approach to compliance that I think it merits consideration. In some ways it is a QD with a microphone! Kinda a halfway house to Voluntary Disclosure. Will it work? Don’t know, and haven’t yet formed an opinion, but it has me mulling it over.
Mission Impossible
When I consider these past 3 years of IRS offshore jihad, for the life of me, I do not understand why the IRS continues to assert / imply with their FAQs, that all those who are FBAR and offshore income non compliant must just join the OVDI. Surely, in the bowels of the beast, the IRS must have one non intellectually challenged analyst who has done projections of the 25-40 million “non compliant” offenders around the world. They must realistically know they would be totally incapable of handling the all these applicants should they decide to follow the OVDI procedures the IRS has created. They could not do it. It is impossible! They do not have the budget resources for the 10s of thousands of examiners necessary to handle the additional workload that their insanely complicated, inefficient and tediously redundant program requires.
Additionally they know, that millions of benignly non compliant Minnows would actually get a better deal outside the program, in an Opt Out, using normal IRM discretion should they be audited. However, since they can not possibly process them all inside the OVDI to the Opt Out point, for the above stated reasons, they are totally disingenuous in their assertions that such Minnows should not do a QD as a route to compliance. Hell, they should be begging them all to do QDs, so they can just pick and choose who they want to audit as a much better way to screen for the egregious failures, while allowing the Minnows reasonable cause escape from the draconian penalties. Let’s face it, just amending and filing back returns and FBARs plus paying some taxes and interest penalties with the associated LCU cost and professional fees is penalty enough for the new found need to be compliant! Why does the IRS want to pile on?
It’s the Penalty Money!
I have come to the conclusion that someone has callously came up with projection of how many they can actually force into the OVDI through their threats of more serious penalties outside the program, and can therefore take them for more penalty money then would otherwise be possible given the IRS resource constrictions and IRM penalty reducing discretion in normal audit processes.
This is not about improved compliance, Commission Shulman’s assertions not withstanding. This is about the best (worst actually) way to produce maximum penalty revenue, pure and simple.
Looking Back
What is obvious to me now, is that going back to when the 2009 OVDP was designed, it was intended for the egregious homeland Whale. It was conceived as “easy money” that could be generated off the UBS client lists about to be exposed, without having to go through lengthy DOJ criminal prosecutions. It then evolved over time to create technical adjustments with lesser penalties for more benign non compliance, as they realized their nets were filling up with Minnows for which the program was never intended. They started to lower the penalty levels and threshold amounts for certain financial conditions, going all the way down to the most “innocent of innocent”, the non resident accidental American who didn’t even know they were American!
Under the program, should this poor non resident fool join the OVDI, they would “only” have to pay a 5% penalty of their entire “offshore” assets for the privilege of now being compliant to an obligation they did not know, could not have known, was required! Say what? Read that again.
FAQ 52.2 states: Taxpayers who are foreign residents and who were unaware they were U.S. citizens,…. is entitled to the reduced 5% offshore penalty.
Why would the IRS insist that a person like this have to join the OVDI process in the first place, and then grant them an “entitlement” of a reduced 5% penalty for a condition by their own definitions has a “reasonable cause” exception to any penalties outside the OVDI program using IRM discretion? For this they are supposed to be thankful and forever grateful for the benevolence of the IRS and the leniency of the 5% OVDI penalty entitlement? Geez, lucky them!
What Should the Penalty Be?
So let me see if I get this right. The IRS uses hyperbolic threats with DOJ press releases of criminal prosecutions, and produces examples of severe penalties in their FAQs, to frighten even these most innocent non resident accidental American Minnow into joining the OVDI, so they can extract a 5% tribute for the new found knowledge of U.S. Citizenship and its bizarre taxation and reporting requirements? That sure is a new definition of an “entitlement” in the perverse world of IRS logic. 5% is 5 basis points too high! They should pay nothing, nada, zilch, zero! Instead, the IRS says, “5% please, thank you very much!” It is stunning when you think about it, and let it fully sink in what they are doing!! I hadn’t really focused on it until Moby pointed it out to me. He is right! It is beyond stunning, it is bizarre! It is the “smoking gun” that apparently shows their OVDP program has now morphed beyond good intentions to ferret out homeland Whales to premeditated and deliberate actions to fleece the most innocent of Expats abroad. I just don’t know how any attorney can defend these actions, and with a straight face blindly follow IRS OVDI guidelines and not advise clients about other compliance routes with this glaring example staring us in the face.
In the case of these non resident accidental Americans who didn’t know they were American, they would surely get a “go and sin no more letter” and no penalties at applied at all if they were audited under “reasonable cause” provisions of the IRM. Now, why would an attorney advise this type of client to enter the OVDI and pay 5%, when this is obviously not appropriate in the first place? If audited, after doing a QD, this Minnow should get the same IRM “reasonable cause” discretion as in an Opt Out or normal examination. In my non legal opinion, it would almost be criminal for an attorney not to provide consideration of the QD, as an alternate route to compliance.
To be truthful, I would wonder why this non resident accidental American would now want to complicate their life with this new compliance regime. The preferred IRS OVDI alternative is actually another form of an Exit tax piled on top of the accidental American who surely would want to renounce their citizenship, if they only they could jump through this newly discovered expensive hoop!
Dystopian Program
So it has come to this. The IRS has created an Orwellian monster in this OVDI program that penalizes the most innocent of innocent, threatens them if they don’t to do an OVDI, presents examples of terrible penalties that can apply outside program, knowing full well, that such a person would never be levied those penalties if they Opted Out, or if they were audited after doing a QD.
It is just morally bankrupt for the IRS to continue to imply that “all” must chose the OVDI route, or threaten attorneys with circular 230 sanctions for advising alternative compliance paths for benign Minnows. Frankly, the cost to the government to process all of them, and the cost in LCUs and practitioner fees to the Minnow just to get to a point as much as 2 years later where they can Opt Out to receive a lesser penalty under IRM discretion than applies inside the program and equal to a QD audit examination represents “Stupidity on Steroids” and is beyond belief.
Why didn’t they redesign the OVDI?
So why, one may ask, didn’t they pause and reconsider what they were doing, as the OVDP nets begin to fill up with Minnows? They should have said, “Whoa!, we need to redesign our OVDP to let these Minnows have a safe harbor escape at the front end, rather than continue a back end Opt Out process. We need to concentrate our limited resources on the Whales.”
However, they don’t think that way. Their mindset is different than yours and mine, and I would say they are not normal rationale operators. They are lost in a technical and legal maze of such complexity that they are trapped in their own Gordian Knot. So it is probably not so amazing that the IRS did just the opposite, by consciously eliminating the FAQ 35 discretionary relief half way through the OVDP. Instead, in its place, they have instituted at the lowest level a 5% penalty to be sure they extracted some pain from those that could not have known they were non compliant in the first place!
They obviously don’t get it, or worse, do get it, and don’t care. This is the equivalent of financial water boarding for Minnows.
This is just a callous attempt to raise revenue on the backs of the most innocent and vulnerable! They just want the money.
In the meantime, millons/billions of dollars are lost to fraudulent anonymous Corporate shell games, that they and Congress don’t have the time to bother with while they continue their offshore Minnow to fertilizer conversions.
Or, maybe, it is just a Big conspiracy with Senator Carl Levin, using little known FBAR penalties and the 2010 Hire Act FATCA provisions to provide full employment for life for their all their examiners! This was job creation after all. (I joke, I think?)
In conclusion, what this tells me, is that the IRS, once it is set upon a course of complete irrationality related to world wide citizenship tax compliance, is like a drone heading for a GPS waypoint. It is locked in, and incapable discerning there are innocent women and children inside that compound it is targeting. And just like the FAQ 35 withdrawl, they remove any discretionary control levers from the hands of the remote operator to assure that the mission remains on auto pilot and can not be recalled. It is frustrating to watch, even now that I am no longer being targeted myself.
@ Steven, as for the girls, you do live in California, right? Then, the beach boys agree with you:
What Happened?!? Am I on the wrong website?!? Petros is actually thanking Steven and not challenging him on his American hype?!?
Gotta Love Those Beach Boys!
@Christophe: anything with a letter of explanation is a noisy disclosure and not a quiet disclosure. But God help you if you write something in bad faith, something false or misleading, or something with crack pot or “make my day” theories or screeds.
Also, Phil and Nina haven’t given up! It takes time to get the U.S. government to change its position on something but it can be done. That’s why we still get to call ourselves a participatory democracy albeit a flawed one. Also,
@ Petros: you remain in good humor which is most appreciated but fort the record, I was only recounting a common practice well-known from my law enforcement days with IRS and certainly not something anyone wants to “try at home.”
@Petros! Way to go Man!!
Look. If I have less than 1,000,000 in bank accounts then only an electronic search will be done and I am not detectable by FACTA.
If I do not enter the USA then I will not be identified as a US person by anyone who cares End of story.
Why is it so difficult for people to see that?
What am I missing?
@Steven – thanks for taking the Legal Counsel role with the ACA. And thanks for dropping in here to keep in touch.
@Petros – Grr.. I like the videos, but what a distraction! Maybe we need an “off topic” area that’s easily accessible. Me, being the natural clicker, watched the video and is so addicted that he clicks on the other related videos.
@All – I hope someone that is contemplating being an American reads this thread and sees the unecessary complications with being a US Citizen. Like I keep saying, we need to prepare this sort of information for would-be Americans in PDF form in multiple languages. I’ll pay for the Spanish and Portuguese translations with my dime.
@Senator Schumer – What I said may seem un-American, but really what I want is an America that is more compatible with 21st century ideals (facts really). People like you do nothing but ADD TO an extremely complex and vague set of rules. If anything, things need to be simplified. The first step would be to abolish extraterritorial taxation. It OBVIOUSLY isn’t working, and your agitations will only make it worse.
@blaze, For the record, I’ve always been very happy when Steven has participated, perhaps especially when he disagrees with me, as well as the other contributions by Michael Miller and Roy Berg. Steven’s participation has been most interesting from the point of view of his insider knowledge of the IRS. I have really appreciated the debate, sometime apparently heated between Miller and Mopsick, because it instructs everyone who is struggling with what to do. We can see here two experienced lawyers disagreeing, and this will make the Isaac Brock blog a valuable resource.
Now we could give Steven the boiled frog award for the pro-American comments, but what the heck. He’s come a long way towards really appreciating our side, he’s joined ACA, and he’s even writing articles that help bring Expats, the “benign” actors, closer to fairness.
@Steven, as for the common practice of sending forms to different addresses–I’m playin’ with you. I know you weren’t recommending it. However, I think in my case, sending the 2010 tax to Austin, and 2011 with 8854 to Philadelphia is as per instructions. So eventually I decided that it might also help contribute to the confusion too. Win-win.
@30 Year IRS Vet – You write “Also, you do not have to include your home in the 27.5% penalty base if it is not in a trust, corporation or other entity and it was not purchased with assets which are related in any way to tax avoidance.”
This is only true if you didn’t move in the disclosure period covered by OVDI. If you did, and had the value of the house pass through your bank accounts however briefly, this becomes the highest value in the account over that period, and the penalty amount is calculated from that. So in effect the home can be in the penalty base.
I was briefly considering OVDI last August before I realized that this would subject me to something like a C$23,000 fine, even at 5%, which led me pretty directly to a decision to renounce – I don’t need liabilities like that in my life.
@Joe: It’s great for you that you do not need to travel to U.S. I have an elderly mother there in declining health. I will not allow the IRS to deny me the opportunity to spend time with her in her final years. She is no longer well enough to travel here.
I know other Brockers have their own personal and family reasons (and some even have business reasons) for needing to travel to the US. While I appreciate you think I and others should just simplify our lives and not travel to US, for us it’s not that simple.
However, after my mother’s death, I will happily refuse to ever again go to US.
@Steven
Thanks for the great commentary
@Petros
Re option 1: The OVDI FAQs at the very least imply (and I believe state) that it is only assets that are “non-compliant” that are included in the OVDI penalty base. “Non-compliant” assets are those that are either:
1. purchased with money that was never taxed;
2. generating income that is not being taxed
Therefore, there are arguments to exclude from the penalty base: your principal residence, balances in checking accounts or any other non-interest bearing account, RRSPs, etc., and certainly most assets that are not income generating if the money used to buy them was “after tax” money.
The FAQs define “non-compliant” assets in terms of tax (Title 26) non-compliance. I don’t non-compliance to mean FBAR (Title 31) non-compliance. I would be interested in getting Steven’s and Micheal’s thoughts on this.
If I am right on this, there could be situations where the “in lieu” of penalty could be less than the FBAR penalties. In other words, if there is no asset that is related to tax “non-compliance”, then the asset should not be part of the penalty base at all.
In the case of FBAR, fines can be levied regardless of the tax compliance status of the account.
This was an argument that was made in relation to the RRSP issue here:
http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/01/12/canadian-rrsps-and-the-ovdi-penalty-base/
Look at FAQ 35 to see what the IRS says about the penalty base.
@broken man, exactly, you don’t need liabilities like this. Nobody deserves that. That’s a huge argument why the United States is in absolute violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hey, why don’t we get the Chinese to circulate our complaints. They are the biggest single foreign creditor of the United States (you know, go after the sponsers):
If You’re Wondering Why China Just Unleashed A Slew Of Anti-American Headlines
Reblogged this on Renounce U.S. Citizenship – Be Free and commented:
Great comments – thanks to all.
@renounce and @Halifax: Renounce has it right. Although I have yet to have a case where I had to argue that the proceeds of the sale of a personal residence should not be included in the penalty base, I would have no problem making that argument and I would expect the IRS to agree.
If You’re Wondering Why China Just Unleashed A Slew Of Anti-American Headlines
Peter, great link really. But shouldn’t we create another topic for this? Some of the points have merit, but others… not so. I would really like to discuss some of these matters, but not to hijack Steven’s interaction here. Feel free to move my comment, if you decide to create a post.
@30 Year IRS Vet-
“I would expect the IRS to agree.”
Why? It seems pretty clear in the FAQ that the penalty is applied to a percentage of the highest value in the accounts under the period covered. If the taxpayer had the bad luck to have a real estate transaction in that period, then sucks to be him.
@steven, what do you call an OVDI submission with a letter of explanation, a deafening disclosure? My lawyer warned against it, but in the end sanctioned it as he liked the tone and its “succinctness”.
@Halifax: we don’t yet have enough data to get a read on how the IRS is handling facts like you presented above. That said, there is no way I would advise a client to just roll over if the agent presented me with a take it or leave it position on including the proceeds of a personal residence in the penalty base. I would litigate the issue as an IRS abuse of discretion if an opt out failed to produce a fair result. Remember there is a stream of cases heading for litigation from campers unhappy with the results of their opt outs but it is simply too early to tell what those litigating vehicles look like and how the IRS decides to treat its customers who refuse to give up the fight. Once these cases get to the open sunshine of District Court litigation, we will get a feel for how well the IRS is doing its penalty administration job.
The IRS will be held to a standard of reasonableness in its administration of FBAR penalties by the federal courts. The IRS doesn’t get to say “you lose automatically because you had bad luck with the numbers for one of the 8 years. ”
@bubblebust: not sure what you mean. If you are doing the OVDI program, part of the mandatory submission requirements is the inclusion of what the IRS called the Optional Letter when the program was first announced in 2009. The format is still on the IRS web site the last time I looked and includes a checklist of things to cover like disclose of the source of the funds, who you dealt with at the banks so CID can use it for leads in prosecuting foreign bankers who traveled to the US to encourage people to put money offshore, and a schedule showing 8 years of unreported income attributable to the offshore next egg. That said, it is always a good idea to be succinct in responding to questions from the IRS concerning illegal offshore banking but as a practical matter, in the world of OVDI voluntary disclosure practice, the IRS has every right to ask whatever it wants until it is satisfied simply because they are agreeing to give up their right to open you up to the slow torture of an exhausting multi-year year criminal investigation as well as the 75% civil fraud penalty. If you get too “succinct” with them they just might tell you all deals are off and you can plead the 5th if you want because you’re going down.
@Broken, I agree with your assessment 100%. If, for example, you sold house 1 and bought house 2 during the VD period, temporarily increasing your account balance from $200K to $1,200,000, you can absolutely expect the IRS to treat your max balance for penalty purposes as $1,200,000. After all, that IS the max balance.
If you wanted to avoid paying a percentage of the $1,200,000 in this scenario, you’d need to opt out. That’s a downside to seriously consider BEFORE (pardon the all caps) going in to the program, depending in large part on your (and your lawyer’s, assuming you have a lawyer) assessment of your criminal exposure. If there is real criminal exposure, then joining the program and opting out (if an opt out is determined to be beneficial in light of all risks involved) may make sense. If the facts suggest no material risk of criminal exposure, and IF I know I’d end up opting out anyway, I’d probably avoid the program like the plague.
As a general rule, I find the idea of (1) paying fees to join the program, (2) paying fees to opt out and be audited (with the potential of paying fees for litigation that are themselves life-changing), (3) and assuring IRS scrutiny (which is otherwise uncertain) though such costly process, to be less than appetizing.
@Michael
This thread has mentioned two things and I think we need clarification on what we are talking about under OVDI:
1. The principal residence itself -as a stand alone entity – not sold.
2. Proceeds from the sale that may be in a bank account.
Let’s go with the OVDI FAQs – FAQ 35 in particular which defines the penalty base in terms of non-compliant assets. A non-compliant asset is one that was purchased with money that was not taxed or untaxed interest/income from an asset whether the asset is compliant or not.
1. Principal residence (and this is where Petros started) – as long as it was purchased with “after tax” money – the money used to purchase it was declared (and I suppose this argument is strongest for those who have been filing 1040s but not FBARs) – should not be included in the penalty base. The principal residence does not meet the test of non-compliance. This is what I was originally responding to.
2. Say the house is sold during the OVDI penalty period. It would seem that there are two issues. At this point we are dealing not with the house but with the proceeds of the sale. There are three questions that need to be answered at this point:
First, is there a taxable gain from the sale of the house – if so, then the proceeds, if not reported on a 1040, might not be tax compliant, in which case the proceeds might be part of the penalty base whether those proceeds are in a bank account or not.
Second, were the proceeds used to earn income? For example, an interest bearing account. If so, then the question is whether the interest was reported. If so, then there is tax compliance.
Third, if the proceeds were put in an interesting bearing account and the interest was not reported, then there is non-compliance and a problem.
I don’t read the FAQs to mean that the balance of any bank account is to be included in the penalty base. The reason is that the mere fact of money existing in a bank account is not in itself evidence of non-compliance. For example, how if (after tax) money is briefly put into a non-interest bearing checking account, can the account be a non-compliant?
Now, I realize that I am viewing the issue of non-compliance from the perspective of Title 26, but that is what the FAQs seemed to be based on. The OVDI penalty is “in lieu” of other penalties. It is not calculated the same way as other penalties. It focuses on assets that are non-compliant from a tax perspective. Therefore, I would argue that Title 31 non-compliance (not filing FBARs) is NOT what is contemplated in the OVDI penalty base, I acknowledge that this may be wrong. But it is my starting point. Look at it this way: if “non-compliance” includes FBAR non-compliance than each and every RRSP would be a non-compliant asset.
Therefore, (and I looking forward to all comments on this point), I think it is a mistake to simply presume that any funds in a bank account during the OVDI period would be included in the penalty base.
This is of course a completely academic point because only a criminal, or somebody who was following bad legal advice, or somebody who could demonstrate a clear financial justification , would enter OVDI.
Looking forward to your thoughts on this point.
@Everyone
Here is a very “academic” question but one that is somewhat relevant to some people. Is there any reason under any circumstances to go into OVDI if all non compliance could be demonstrated to be pre 2003 or lets say even earlier as in pre 1995(which is disregarded under the program anyways). I am thinking in this situation of people of renounced/relinquished their citizenship back in I don’t know 1996 but weren’t filing prior and didn’t comply with the ten year expatriation tax regime. By this point in time the ten year “window” has clearly closed and they have now no longer been a US citizen for many years(FBAR wouldn’t seem to apply to anyone who isn’t a citizen). However, their is no statute of limitations for non filing in any particular year even if it was 25 years ago. Again very academic question but I am hoping were can develop some answers for a large segment of the Brock audience.
@Renounce, I agree that if the house was purchased with after-tax funds, the gain (if any) is reported, and the proceeds go into a non-interest bearing account, neither the house nor the proceeds should be included. Having said that, I would imagine that, typically, the sales proceeds go into an interest-bearing account, so so much for that.
Also, what if the funds used to purchase the house came from an interest-bearing account where the interest was not taxed? (That can’t be unusual.) Will the IRS take the view that the house (or, perhaps, the part of the house attributable to untaxed income from the account) is therefore a foreign asset related to noncompliance? One would hope not, but it’s difficult to know for certain.
Whoa! Michael! Mike! Mr. Miller!! You want to do what now in @Halifax’s case? “Avoid the program like the plague” and do what!?? Stagger-file returns all over the country? Full ostrich ? Quietly disclose amended returns and delinquent FBARs ? Just not disclose the house sale at all on his returns because you have concluded that the IRS doesn’t need to know about it?
Whoa! Steven. I’m sure you’re fully aware of all of the legal options for those who elect not to join the program. All of them involve full compliance going forward and none of them involve filing an inaccurate return.
As you well know, he would be acting in an entirely permissible fashion if he, for example, (1) did nothing more than comply going forward, (2) accurately amended some number of old returns (and complied going forward) without entering the program (QD), or (3) made a “statemented” disclosure of the kind that you have described previously. Obviously, taking any of these approaches presupposes the he and his lawyer have carefully considered the likely/possible penalties (both criminal and civil) that could apply outside the program.
He could, of course, do a voluntary disclosure and then opt out. That could be lucrative for his attorney, but might not be good for him.
What I still do not understand is how one can use the term “statutory duty” in the case of a resident abroad, and especially in the case of someone with the citizenship of the country in which (s)he lives.
Whoa! I’m loving the Steven-Michael exchange. It’s all good. It all helps. Thanks to both of you for being here.