NYT: IRS Steps Up Effort to Combat Tax Evasion

The New York Times has published an article by Lynnley Browning reporting internal changes at the IRS designed to more effectively address contentious tax cases involving multinational corporations.  The agency will rejuvenate an older unit devoted to scrutinizing large corporations and wealthy individuals that will now be called the Large Business and International Division; it will be responsible for the enforcement of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires financial institutions to disclose the details of American clients with undeclared offshore accounts or withhold a 35 percent tax on those accounts by 2013. The unit will also introduce a focus on transfer pricing schemes.  This change comes in response to various government and policy research studies showing that large corporations are increasingly using gray areas of the tax code to avoid or evade taxes.


Posted by Joshua Hock, Associate Editor, Wealth Strategies Journal