Ireland is notorious for offering a United States tax shelter called the “Double Irish” to large U.S. companies.

The 100 Swiss Category 2 banks that signed up for the Department of Justice non-prosecution agreement (NPA) deal last December (2013) have just received the details of what is needed to comply.

A New Hampshire man pleaded guilty yesterday in the U.S. District Court for failing to report approximately $170,000 in income earned from offshore bank accounts from 2006-2009.

Whether they be a dual-citizen, legal permanent resident, etc., it is important for those persons that have attained status as a United States (U.S.) taxpayer to have a legal analysis completed under federal income tax law before either formally (mark-to-market expatriation) or informally renouncing citizenship.

With the IRS crackdown on offshore accounts in full swing, all tricks that were once used by banks for offshore tax evasion are no longer effective. The tactics below were presented to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, documenting the most common tax haven bank secrecy tricks.

The Israeli Finance Ministry announced on Monday, October 27, 2014 that Israel will be joining the international mechanism for the sharing of information on financial accounts. While the automatic exchange of information for tax purposes will not be fully in effect until the end of 2018, it is a very strong signal from Israel that the country is taking proactive steps to fight tax evasion.

Even under international pressures in conjunction with pressures from the EU and the OECD, Luxembourg has recreated itself as the wealth management center of Europe. Banks from China, Switzerland and the Islamic states are committed to maintaining large banking hubs in Luxembourg due the countries “tax friendliness.”

The Hawkins case provides an analogy for the definition of willfulness that could be applied for offshore voluntary disclosure and streamline filing cases. In the Hawkins case the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed an appeal from the Northern District of California.