Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship.
As you know, Mr. FBAR is a particularly nasty piece of work. Absent a showing of “reasonable cause”, Mr. FBAR opens the door to a sliding scale of penalties. In the past I have written about Mr. FBAR and the non-willfulness penalty structure. This post is about “willfulness.” Specifically, what constitutes “willfulness”? Conviction for the “willful” failure to file an FBAR comes with “unspeakably high penalties”. So, I won’t speak of them here. The non-willful penalties are bad enough. But, the penalties for “willfulness” clearly invite 8th amendment (“excessive fines”) scrutiny. This is certain to come. In fact, it may well be that the next step in the “Williams saga” will be just that.
The Williams Saga
A brief overview of the Williams saga may be found courtesy of Robert Wood here and Jack Townsend here (appellate decision) and here (initial trial decision). Before analyzing these decisions and considering what they may mean, it is important to understand that this is not a situation of the IRS attempting to target a taxpayer whose sole sin was a failure to file FBARs. Mr. Williams, by his own admission was a willful tax evader. In addition, he failed to file FBARs. What is interesting is that the IRS decided to go after him for FBAR violations as well. Why? I haven’t a clue. I am not sure if I see a purpose to it. But maybe the IRS simply lacks purpose …
Continue reading
