Credit Suisse was ordered today to pay up for its role in helping U.S. taxpayers evade taxes. The banking giant must pay $1.8 billion to the U.S. by next week. What else does the sentencing mean?
Yesterday was a pretty busy day in the media. There was a lot of thought and commentary about the election and what it meant for the country. You might not have noticed, then, that the 47th Commissioner of the IRS was saying his goodbyes before the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in Washington,…
Sometimes, what seems like a little story is actually quite extraordinary. That’s what happened earlier this month, when what seemed like business as usual thousands of miles away came and went without a lot of attention. That business, with the bang of a gavel, was the Swiss parliament amending their tax treaty with the United…
You knew that it would be just a matter of time before the IRS set its sights on a new bank. Fresh off of victories involving UBS and Deutsche Bank related to tax fraud/tax evasion, the IRS has now targeted an “unknown British bank” for its role in a tax evasion scheme. As before, the…
So maybe it is a kindler, gentler IRS after all… The IRS has announced that it will drop its civil suit against the Swiss-based UBS, despite the fact that the bank is not technically in compliance with an existing agreement. In a show of not-so-totally surprising deference to the Swiss government, the IRS indicated that…
So, I don’t say that on the blog very often (though my brothers would likely tell a different story from our years at home). But I’m sooo saying it now. When the IRS won its prominent battle with UBS, I said (as did many tax and finance bloggers) that a win would only lead to…
A special panel of the Swiss Parliament has concluded its 15 month investigation into the government’s handling of what has been referred to as a “tax crisis”: the UBS collapse amid allegations of tax evasion. The panel has heavily criticized the government for its response to the crisis, saving its harshest rebukes for Finance Minister…
A federal judge has declined Bradley Birkenfeld’s request for leniency. Birkenfeld must report to prison on Friday, January 8, as scheduled, to serve his 40-month prison term. Birkenfeld pleaded guilty last year to helping many of his clients, including billionaire Igor Olenicoff, evade taxes. Olenicoff pleaded guilty in 2007 to filing a false tax return;…
What would it take for you to turn in your clients? Would 30% of the take do it? What if it meant jail time? These are all things that Bradley Birkenfeld must have considered before approaching the IRS two years ago to turn in tax cheats at UBS. And he did it anyway. Now, Birkenfeld…
Today, the IRS published the “Prepared Remarks of Commissioner Douglas Shulman before the 22nd Annual George Washington University International Tax Conference.” You can read the whole speech here. But for those of you who don’t have the time to read the 2703 word speech, here’s a summary: Shulman started out with an update on three…
