The new Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures within OVDP represent a tremendous opportunity for any US taxpayer with foreign accounts and assets to come into compliance with the IRS, and reduce their penalties from a minimum of 27.5% and in many cases 50% with 8 years of look-back, to 5% and a 3 year look-back period. If you take advantage of this opportunity by the cutoff date of August 15 (six weeks from now), you can save yourself a huge sum of money. FBAR penalties are based on the highest total value of all of your offshore assets at any point in time over the past 8 years. It doesn’t matter how much you have in the accounts today, or what the property is worth, or whether you still own it or not. They will take the highest point in the past 8 years, and apply a 50% penalty to “willful” conduct (those who did not come clean with the IRS before August 15). If you file under the new streamlined procedures we can cut the look-back period to only the past 3 years, and the penalty is only 5% of the highest point valuation. If the high-point value is only $100,000 your penalty could be $50,000 (even if the balance is $0 today), versus $5,000 for streamlined compliance (not to mention the freedom from criminal charges). The more you had at the highest point…well, you can probably do the math from there.
Call us at 866-631-3470 for a confidential and complimentary initial consultation. Your information will be protected by attorney-client privilege and we will discuss how to bring you into compliance and save you thousands of dollars in the process.
