Tax Cheaters Hurry and Own Up, Otherwise Face Consequences
Economy | September 24, 2009 at 1:43 amSome of us want to earn money but don’t want to pay taxes on it. Parting with a sizable percentage of your income can be a painful thing, but paying the government its revenue is ethical. But ethics being a matter of personal issue, many people try to evade taxes by fraudulent means. The IRS has always been in search of tax cheats who’ve stashed up money in hidden overseas accounts.
So how do these offshore accounts help you in evading taxes? They help in a couple of ways. First, tax on income that is not mentioned on your tax returns will not be taxed as the IRS will not be able to locate it. Secondly, you don’t have to pay taxes on the money that grows in these accounts because as it is, these accounts are hidden from the IRS scanner.
Well, you want to save money as much as I do like all those ‘clever’ people who’ve managed to keep their accounts a secret. But you should know that you’ve got to be very smart to see that you’re not caught. Otherwise you’ll face serious consequences. The federal government is even smarter than you think. They’ve already made an agreement with the Swiss Banking Giant UBS to inform them about all the suspicious accounts existing in that bank. So watch out if you have account in UBS. Do you know that if you are caught, you’ll be charged with criminal offences, will be monetarily penalized heavily and also jailed probably in a non-bailable mode?
Now, if I’ve driven the message into you and by chance if you happen to be one of those who’s been maintaining unreported accounts, you can always lessen the severity of your punishment by confessing to the tax authorities that you’ve got hidden accounts and by clearing up any of the previous taxes that you’ve avoided. At least you can work out your tax payment mode with the authorities. They’ll spare you the jail term. The government- approved last date for this is originally the 23rd September, but now its extended to the 15th of October. IRS has extended this Offshore Settlement Program not because its feeling kinder towards the cheaters, but because they’re getting huge response for this program. So, they seem to have succeeded in driving some sense into those evaders.
The Offshore Settlement Program necessitates you to report all your income in the hidden accounts for the last 6 years, i.e. from 2003-2008. Though the penalty will not be as severe as when you don’t own up and get caught later, you still do have to face penalties. You’ll also have to pay up 20% of your bigges
t amount that went unreported. Though some people feel that with all these penalties you cannot really call this an ‘amnesty program’ as the government calls it, I feel this is amnesty to a great extent. If you’ve done an offence how do you expect to escape unscathed totally? A punishment, though a less severe one, is required to teach all the offenders a lesson and not do such mistakes again.
Keep checking the IRS website for more information and confess to your attorney and to no one else to save yourself complications in the process.
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The EU countries are now working on a plan to get the US to reveal all the names of the rich Europeans that have money in “secret” US bank accounts so that these people can pay tax in their home country.
The US did all the countries a favor by “invading” Switzerland and forcing the Swiss to give up US account holders. Now it is Europes turn.
The rich Europeans will pull their money out quick and there will be a run on US banks.