IRS 2023 Dirty Dozen – Scam #12 Part A
IRS 2023 Dirty Dozen – Scam #12: The Internal Revenue Service cautioned taxpayers beware of promoters peddling bogus tax schemes with international elements.(Part A)
These schemes involve an international component, such as hiding cash and digital assets offshore or using Maltese foreign individual retirement accounts or foreign captive insurance.
“These tax avoidance strategies often target high-income individuals seeking to reduce or eliminate their tax obligation,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “Sometimes taxpayers are conned into believing they can participate in these schemes. People should always look for advice from an independent, trusted tax professional, not a promoter focused on aggressively marketing and pushing questionable transactions.”
Offshore accounts & digital assets
International tax compliance remains a high priority for the IRS. The IRS continues to scrutinize taxpayers attempting to hide assets in offshore accounts and accounts holding digital assets, such as cryptocurrency. The IRS reminds U.S. persons that they are taxable on their worldwide income, unless they can establish there is a statutory or treaty exemption.
The IRS continues to identify individuals who attempt to conceal income in offshore banks, brokerage accounts, digital asset accounts and nominee entities. The IRS scrutinizes structured transactions, private annuities, employee leasing schemes, foreign trusts, the use of nominee ownership and other arrangements used to conceal taxable income, beneficial owners and assets. To complement its enforcement investigations, the IRS requires individuals holding foreign assets and third parties to report to the IRS on foreign assets, foreign accounts, foreign entities and digital assets. Reporting requirements carry penalties for failure to file.
Asset protection professionals and unscrupulous promoters continue to lure U.S. persons into placing their assets in offshore accounts and structures, saying they are out of reach of the IRS. Similarly, unscrupulous promoters recommend digital assets as being untraceable and undiscoverable by the IRS. These assertions are not true. The IRS can identify and track anonymous transactions of foreign financial accounts as well as digital assets.
Many of these schemes are promoted and advertised online, but all these schemes have one thing in common – they promise tax savings that are too good to be true and will likely cause legal harm to taxpayers.