Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

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Tag Archives: Jack Townsend

Eighth Amendment’s no excessive fines clause circumvented through plea bargaining

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Recently completed FBAR cases should cause a chill dread upon all who cherish freedom.  Here is why:  The United States has a Bill of Rights the intent of which is to limit the threat of the United States Federal government.  However, the Bill of Rights has become a dead letter as result of the practice of plea bargaining which essentially wipes out the rights of the individual.  Three recent FBAR cases illustrate this nicely:

  1. Beanie Baby creator Ty Warner made a deal with the government to pay $53.5 in FBAR penalties on a bank balance of 93.6 million.  According to the Chicago Tribune, the IRS charged him with failure to report 3.1 million in earnings from a secret Swiss account, failing to pay $885,300 of US taxes.  The FBAR fine thus appears to be over 60x the tax delinquent tax liability. Continue reading →

An #IRS #OVDI ORDEAL with a Happy Ending. An ‘Opt Out’ Success Story as Told by “Not that Lisa”

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“Not that Lisa” has just had her ‘Opt Out’ success story published at Jack Townsend blog. It is accompanied by his comments which I encourage you to read.

I came to know of Lisa during my dark days on Jack’s blog as “anon5Percent”. Later, due to her efforts to find me, I got to know her personally via phone and email conversations.  She started commenting here as Lisa and evolved to Not that Lisa to eliminate confusion between her and another commenter.

I could not be more pleased about this success, and only sorry for her that it has taken so much frustration, anxiety, expense, and LCUs, which still required the intervention of the TAS for the IRS to “do the right thing”. I asked her permission tonight, to also highlight her 30 month saga to add to the resource of self help material on Isaac Brock Society.

I thought it was important to headline this ‘ORDEAL’ as many places as possible. I think she is being too generous to call her escape from the IRS penalty extraction processing factory a mere ‘Odyssey’.  It is a total waste of taxpayers time and money for naught, and represents one of the reasons that ACA has called this abuse to the attention of the committees in Congress who are investigating IRS T-party scandal. We can not let this milestone pass as just another low profile comment on the OVDI Drudgery thread lost to a larger audience.

Below are the documents that she has made available to Isaac Brock Society. They are uploaded here for others to access and use as examples for their struggles.

Not that Lisa – FINAL My OVDI Odyssey

Not that Lisa – FINAL Opt Out letter

Not that Lisa  – FINAL Opt Out Reasonable Cause Arguments

Not tht Lisa –  FINAL Streamlined Program Acceptance Letter

Not that Lisa – FINAL Mitigated FBAR Level II Non-Willful Penalties

Not that Lisa – FINAL Letter 3800

What follows are her comments:

Continue reading →

Jack Townsend: “Article for Canadians with Unreported Canadian Retirement Plans and Accounts”

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Jack has posted this blog post which should be of special interest to Canadians.

Hale Sheppard has a new article that should be of interest to Canadians.  The article is introduced on  his firm’s Blog,  IRS Introduces Two Unique Remedies for U.S. Persons with Unreported Canadian Retirement Plans and Accounts, here.  The article can be linked to in that blog entry or can be linked here.  The summary of the article is:

Life isn’t fair.  Neither is the IRS’s most recent settlement initiative designed to entice taxpayers to proactively resolve their international tax non-compliance, such as failing to report foreign income, foreign accounts, foreign entities, etc.  In both instances, some people win and some people lose, often with little or no regard to what is equitable.  Among those basking in the benefits of favored status lately are certain Canadians, residing either in the United States or the homeland, who have neglected their tax-related obligations with Uncle Sam. Continue reading →

A Stupid — At Least Unfair — IRS OVDI/OVDP Trick; Denying Overpayment Credit for Barred Years

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Jack Townsend is well known as a measured, serious, non hyperbolic Law Professor who has an excellant blog called Federal Tax Crimes.  His analysis of court cases and his tireless fielding of questions, have helped me (and many other minnows) know more about tax law and the OVDP / OVDI processes then I have ever imagined possible.  He discourages polemics, but has provided outlets for Open Forum recommendations to the IRS.

So, when you see a heading of a blog post like this one above, and he starts out like this:

“I write to rant about a practice inside the OVDI/OVDP civil penalty structure.”

and goes on to say,

My argument to that is the same as Vinny’s responsive argument in My Cousin Vinny, here, paraphrased, “That’s bullshit.”

You SHOULD pay attention, and frankly so should the IRS.  🙂 I encourage you to go read this post for yourselves. 

 

 

FBAR Penalties Just Got Even Worse

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I just want to draw your attention to the recent decision in the Williams case which some of us have been following.  Robert Wood, just posted this story late last night.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed the IRS a victory in its war on offshore accounts and income. In United States v. Williams, the appeals court reversed the district court’s holding that Mr. Williams didn’t act willfully when he failed to file FBARs.

Jack Townsend has also blogged about this.  Fourth Circuit Reverses Williams on Willfulness (7/20/12)

Jack says,  “The basis for the holding, I think, is the notion that the Court repeats that defendant’s signature on the return puts him at criminal as to anything that was not correctly reported on the return.  The notion is that, even if he did not know about the incorrect reporting and the leads that he might have found to the FBAR, he is willfully blind — and thus willful — as to the failure to file the FBAR.  I think that is a dangerous and wrong notion that is not facially limited to just FBAR situations and very bad facts. “

IRS OVDI: Holding the IRS to Proper Payment Application

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To those reading here who are in the OVDI, I draw your attention to this Jack Townsend guest post by Asher Rubinstein, Esq.

It has been said that the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) corrected many of the hiccups of the 2009 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP)…… However, as more OVDI cases now head toward resolution, it appears that the IRS is again wavering in certain policy decisions, again to the detriment of taxpayers.

Why am I not surprised by this?

My response on Jack Townsend’s Open Forum Comments to Congress and IRS Regarding Tax Administration for Offshore Accounts (OVDP)

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Like Petros, I have taken the opportunity to place a comment on Jack Townsend’s invitation to comment on an Open Forum. Below is my comment awaiting approval: Continue reading →

Open Forum Comments to Congress and IRS Regarding Tax Administration for Offshore Accounts

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Many readers here, also read Jack Townsend’s Federal Tax Crimes blog.  His blog specifically says this:

This blog on Federal Tax Crimes is for tax professionals and tax students. It is not directed to lay readers — such as persons who are potentially subject to civil and criminal tax or related consequences.

However, over the course of the past 3 years he has provided a forum for minnows lay readers to express frustrations and get answers to some very specific questions about “what to do” as many became painfully aware of their non compliance. Frankly I have been amazed at his willingness to provide the time and effort with his responses, knowing how expensive his legal advice and guidance is should you decide to employ him. This is PRO BONO work that borders on “Sainthood” if you believe in that sort of thing!  LOL Continue reading →

Moby "Opt Out" update

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On January 25th, I posted a story of the “Opt Out” success of a Minnow with the alias of Moby.

It was under the title of  An OVDP Minnow “Opt Out” Success by Moby  

If you are not familiar with his story, I would suggest that you read that post first to bring you up to date with his story.

Moby, now complete in his dealings with the IRS and no longer residing in America, has generously made his “Opt Out” correspondence public for all OVDI participants to see and learn from.  What follows is his message for all of us.

Continue reading →

The OVDP Drudgery for Minnows

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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.

Continue reading →