For decades, the Internal Revenue Service has offered programs allowing non-compliant taxpayers an opportunity to “make it right” and become up-to-date with their tax filings. In 2009, 2011, and 2012 US persons with foreign financial assets have been afforded the same courtesy with an overseas voluntary disclosure program. The 2012 program has been extended indefinitely, and a new “streamline program” has now also been implemented. The IRS has announced the fruits of these efforts through the 2011 tax year as well as information on the overall tax situation.

According to the IRS, US taxpayers reported a total adjusted gross income of $8.3 trillion, from nearly 150 million individual tax returns, and a 1.7% increase on the previous year in revenue generated through taxes.

Does this mean the disclosure programs are working? Perhaps this is just an indication that US citizens are taking their taxes more seriously, but our experience is that the voluntary disclosure programs are having an impact.

What we do know is that there are over 6 million US taxpayers living outside the United States who are not in compliance with the US tax laws and that the IRS is aggressively seeking to discover who they are. For some, this threat has forced Expatriation, with the number of those going through expatriation having risen by 800% since 2009.*

Visit our website for more information on Voluntary Disclosure and FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and the IRS’ efforts to find non-compliant taxpayers. Read our latest posts on FATCA (FATCA gets an extension and FATCA is now).

*Source information: Accounting Today, August 9, 2013