Tax Notes Article on Practitioner Assessment of Offshore Initiatives (8/15/11)

Tax Notes has published an article, Marie Sapirie, Practitioners Assess Offshore Initiative as Deadline Approaches, 132 Tax Notes 664 (Aug. 15, 2011). With permission of Tax Analysts, I make it available to readers here.

The article is short and worth reading in its entirety. Some excerpts:

"The second voluntary initiative gives people a fair way to resolve their tax problems," IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said August 8 in a reminder that the 2011 OVDI is ending.

Not all practitioners agree. The standardized penalty structure of the OVDP and OVDI "has led to some incredibly disproportionate and painful results," said Michel.

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The program's inability to differentiate between taxpayers' conduct and their culpability is frustrating, said Jeffrey A. Neiman, who led the prosecution of Swiss bank UBS as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida. "If the OVDI program were more fair for these taxpayers who were not acting willfully, you would not have an issue with quiet disclosures or opting out, and you would probably have more compliance as well," he said.

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