For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences … Accusation against King George in the Declaration of Independence
Tag Archives: FBAR
John Nolan on the possibility of a Constitutional challenge to FBAR
From the archives of Phil Hodgen’s blog, John Nolan, August 27, 2011 | 3:19 am, wrote:
Fifth Amendment II: Two court cases of offshore account subpoenas
An excellent summary of two recent court cases related to FBAR appeared in Novemeber issue of the New York Law Journal and is available online at the web page of the author, Jeremy H. Temkin.
Fifth Amendment and Government’s War on Offshore Accounts (PDF)
Fifth Amendment: Belated FBAR filings are a substantial hazard
Michael Sardar, “The FBAR and the Fifth Amendment” Journal of Taxation 111 (2009) 180-182.
The article argues that a substantial hazard of criminal charges exists if a person files a late FBAR. Therefore, on Fifth Amendment grounds, an argument can be made for not filing the FBAR at all. The first time filer says with the FBAR filing,
“I have a foreign bank account and have not reported it previously,” with the inevitable question arising whether the account existed in prior years.
Life, liberty and property: Why is a person's principle dwelling part of the OVDP?
To my knowledge there is no Foreign House Report (FHR). Did the IRS just make this up?
New Debate on Swiss TV
Again for those of you that understand French or that do not mind making sense of translation tool outputs, please find here a link for tomorrow night’s live debate on Swiss bank secrecy and US attempts to weaken it: http://www.infrarouge.ch/ir/1887-banquiers-suisses-tricheurs The debate will be available for view on the tsr.ch website by at least Wednesday night. Please feel free to enroll on the site and post your comments straightaway, (even in English— I have seen at least one comment in English accepted and displayed on the site).
FBAR penalties for "reasonable cause". The Unknown unknowns.
This is a response to @Mona that I did over on another discussion thread. Petros has suggested I make a post out of it as a stand alone, which I am doing with some amendments to my previous rushed comments.
Mona said to Roger… ” I still think that they should allow for reasonable cause. I do see what you’re saying though, especially with the possible fbar penalties. But outside of the ovdi and ovdp programmes, do you know of anyone who genuinely hadn’t known about fbar and pleaded reasonable cause still being hit with draconian fines? There don’t seem to be any cases specifically mentioned on any of these blogs.”
Here is my response:
The OVDP Drudgery for Minnows
Just Me offers advice to newbies to the subject of FBAR compliance and OVDP considerations. To join or not to join. That is the question. This is a must read post.
A link to his Case Study of Communication with the IRS through the entire 851 day process is here.
US tax policy, FATCA, FBAR criticized on a Swiss website: the embarrassment of the United States — English translation of the open letter
I would encourage anyone here who has the time to post responses on the TSR Infrarouge website in order to fuel the debate and increase awareness amoung the Swiss of how bad the situation is:
http://www.infrarouge.ch/ir/thread-364069-suisse-protege-assez-peuple-contre
US tax policy, FATCA, FBAR criticized on a Swiss website: the embarrassment of the United States
I am pleased to have now invited Jeff D Tomas, nom de plume, from Switzerland to contribute here at Isaac Brock. To give you a sample of his writing, I reproduce here his recent comment at Isaac Brock and his editorial, in French, at Infrarouge. As many at Isaac Brock are able to read French, they can see how embarrassing it should be for the United States to be criticized in this manner, as the US policies violate not only the US constitutional protections but forces other sovereign states to violate their own human rights codes, not to mention the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. Jeff commented:
