Five Stone Tax Advisers' Take on an Important Tax-Related Article:
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.
One of the main issues revolved around whether lavish spending by a taxpayer could be construed as “willful” behavior in an effort to evade paying taxes. The Ninth Circuit ruled that it did not amount to “willful” behavior. This ruling could lend persuasive weight to those taxpayers that had significant amounts of money in offshore accounts, spent lavishly and are now trying to come into compliance. When conducting a determination of “willful” versus “non-willful” behavior, based on the Ninth Circuit’s ruling this particular factor could weigh more towards non-willfulness.
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Five Stone Tax Advisers has years of experience negotiating directly with the IRS to get the best possible outcome for you. Our International Tax Advisory and Compliance unit has a team of tax attorneys, certified public accountants and enrolled agents that form a single sourced point of contact that will provide services for all the legal, compliance and financial reconstruction aspects of offshore account cases.
