A recent Forbes piece spotlighting the Internal Revenue Service notes news of recent years stressing a progressively weakened tax agency. The IRS is increasingly portrayed as a handcuffed agency featuring a steady reduction of agents/examiners, a decreased audit rate and general unresponsiveness.
Many agencies might merit such a smack to their historical pedigree and perceived credibility, but only if they are underperforming and generally powerless.
The IRS can’t logically be linked with either of those deficiencies. Forbes emphasizes that the country’s national tax arm actually continues to perform quite capably even while facing formidable budgetary constraints. Americans respect the power and reach of the IRS, regardless of what they might be hearing.
More accurately, they fear it, which Forbes stresses makes the IRS an always logical repository for government support. The financial publication states that the IRS “is probably the only federal agency that garners a return on investment.”
Put another way: Give the IRS a buck to use for enforcement, and a corresponding five dollars will reportedly come back to the agency via taxpayer outlays.
The Internal Revenue Service is talking tough these days, knowing that its intended audience is listening. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told national lawmakers last week that his agency is committed more than ever to the pursuit and civil/criminal punishment of non-compliant taxpayers.
Rettig especially emphasized the agency’s close probing of suspected offshore tax evasion while making that point.
Many taxpayers who have offshore assets have no purposeful intent whatever to defraud the government. Laws and procedures regarding the identification and taxation of overseas holdings are notably complex and ever-changing, and it is understandable for taxpayers with an offshore nexus to have questions or concerns.
They can address them to a proven estate planning law firm and legal counsel commanding an integrated background in law, taxation and financial matters.