The IRS is concentrating on tax fraud schemes in which assets are concealed by cross-border elements.  A recent Reuters’ article and a Department of Justice press release discussed such tax frauds, which the IRS refers to as abusive offshore tax avoidance schemes.  To try to detect these schemes, the IRS has used methods ranging from an Offshore Voluntary Compliance Initiative to its criminal prosecution of suspected tax cheats.

The IRS had also served a “John Doe” summons on UBS AG to uncover bank customers who were U.S. taxpayers with secret foreign financial accounts.  Under the settlement of that particular UBS case, the IRS withdrew its summons and UBS identified U.S. bank customers pursuant to the U.S.-Swiss tax treaties mentioned at my August 23rd “Asset Search News Roundup“.  As briefly described at a May 25th “News Roundup”, the IRS similarly issued a “John Doe” summons upon First Data Corporation:

(Click On The Above Image To Read The Entire Summons)

  Copyright 2010 Fred L. Abrams