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Associated Press, here are your tax cheats.

September 16, 2011

The IRS announced the preliminary results of the 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program yesterday. The Associated Press disgraces itself with this headline:

12,000 tax cheats come clean under IRS program

Let's meet some cheats:

A Canadian with an American parent who has spent his entire life in Canada, but who is inadvertently out of compliance with U.S. tax laws because he is a U.S. citizen and who faces ruinous penalties if the IRS can get ahold of him.

A 33-year old U.S. expat who moved to France when she was 20, became a French citizen, but who faces ruinous penalties for failing to report her French income and bank accounts to U.S. authorities.

Green Card holders who move to the U.S. for employment but don't realize they are supposed to report all of their financial accounts in their home country to the IRS.

Second-generation Americans who inherited foreign property they never knew about who face-- you guessed it-- ruinous penalties under the FBAR "amnesty."

So there's your "tax cheats," A.P. Yes, there are also some actual tax evaders that have taken advantage of the IRS program, but there are many inadvertent violators trying to get out from under penalties they incurred accidentally with no intent to evade taxes anywhere.

If the A.P. reporter ever accidently leaves a $10 1099 off his 1040, may he face felony tax evasion charges for being a "tax cheat."

The TaxProf has a roundup.

Tags: bad journalism.FBAR.FBAR amnesty.OVDI.shooting jaywalkers.

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Comments

Let's get the word out to the IRS!! Let them know what they are doing is extreme and completely unfair.

Contact the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Taxation & IRS Oversight at 202-224-4515 or fax 202-228-0554. Also try Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC) which conveys the public's perception of IRS' activities at tel. 202-622-6440 or fax 202-927-5253.

Also, contact Canada's Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty. He has stood up for Canadians and come out against the IRS program!! Mr. Flaherty can be reached at: Telephone: (613) 992-6344Fax: (613) 992-8320 E-mail: flaherty.j@parl.gc.ca

Posted by: Anon | October 11, 2011 12:12 AM

Great post. I am among the so-called tax cheats. On February 28, I became a citizen of Canada. On April 7, I entered the US consulate in Toronto and I informed them that I was no longer a US citizen (it is called "relinquishing" citizenship). The IRS is still after me, but now at least, they will actually have to put a bonafide foreigner in jail in order to get even one red penny out of me. I am utterly disgusted by what the United States has become. It used to be the land of the free that lectured others on freedom and democracy. Now it is the nation that its citizens abroad can't flee fast enough.

And by the way, I am now advocating that Canadians file Fifth Amendment tax forms if they feel they need to. If we are criminalized only because we have foreign accounts in the country where we live, then we should use mafia tactics to stay out of jail.

Thanks again.

Posted by: Petros | November 26, 2011 6:00 PM