|
What is a Tax Amnesty Program? (cont.)
Under the present IRS policy, a tax payer voluntarily reporting past due tax liability is not criminally prosecuted
but the IRS offers no guarantee of avoiding criminal prosecution. Even if a tax payer voluntarily reports past due tax
liabilities, the IRS will always seek full payment of taxes, penalties, and interest. Sometimes, the IRS may reduce the
penalty. It may also waive the penalty completely in come cases. Although it does not explicitly offer delinquent taxpayers
a guarantee of immunity from prosecution, several decades of prosecutorial restraint shown by the IRS have encouraged taxpayers
to voluntarily disclose potential legal breaches.
To qualify for this amnesty, the following conditions must be met by the taxpayer:
i) The taxpayer must have informed the IRS of the failure to file before receiving notice from the IRS of being under investigation.
The action must be initiated by the taxpayer before the IRS makes contact with the taxpayer. A voluntary disclosure does not occur
until IRS has actually been contacted.
ii) The taxpayer must not have earned any part of the unreported income from activity that is illegal under Federal or state law.
It is not available to taxpayers with illegal source income.
iii) The taxpayer must have either filed a true and correct tax return or cooperated with the IRS in ascertaining the correct tax
liability; the taxpayer must be both willing and able to cooperate with IRS in determining the correct tax liability, and
iv) The taxpayer either paid or made bona fide arrangements to pay the full amount due.
The disclosure must be timely. To be timely, the disclosure must be received before the IRS:
i) imitates civil examination or criminal investigation of the taxpayer, or has notified the taxpayer that it intends to
commence such an examination or investigation;
ii) receives information from a third party about the taxpayer's noncompliance;
iii) initiates civil examination or criminal investigation which is directly related to the specific liability of the taxpayer; or
iv) obtains information directly related to the specific liability of the taxpayer from a criminal enforcement action.
The voluntary disclosure policy creates no substantive or procedural rights for taxpayers. It is a matter of internal IRS practice,
provided solely for internal guidance to IRS personnel. Merely because other similarly situated taxpayers may not have been recommended
for criminal prosecution does not automatically mean that all taxpayers voluntarily disclosing past due tax liability will not be recommended
for criminal prosecution.
The IRS also have voluntary compliance programs which run during a short period of time and target taxpayers in very specific situations
such as taxpayers who utilized certain types of tax shelters to hide income or who have eluded taxation through an avenue that could not
be detected through the usual monitoring procedure. Each voluntary compliance program has its own eligibility criteria.
If you are a loved one needs help in learning of IRS tax amnesty programs end your worries and
contact one of our ex-IRS agents and get the info you need
fast.
Our services are available in all 50 states including Texas, California, New York, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.
| |
