Worldwide Tax Daily Quotes Victor Jaramillo: IRS Working with SSA on Offshore Streamlined Filing Requirement

Caplin & Drysdale's Victor A. Jaramillo recently commented on quiet disclosures, which involves taxpayers filing amended returns and delinquent foreign bank account reports without coming in through the offshore voluntary disclosure program or streamlined program. For the complete article, please visit Worldwide Tax Daily's website (subscription required).

Excerpt taken from the article "IRS Working with SSA on Offshore Streamlined Filing Requirement" by Amy S. Elliott for Worldwide Tax Daily.

John P. Barrie of Bryan Cave LLP said section 6501(c)(8) provides that the three-year statute of limitations period for assessment doesn't start until the taxpayer has satisfied his filing requirement for Form 8938, "Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets," or Form 5471, "Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations." He asked whether that means taxpayers seeking to make a quiet filing would have to go back several years.

Douglas M. Andre of Ivins, Phillips & Barker said he thinks the IRS would ask taxpayers to go back only to 2006.

But Victor A. Jaramillo of Caplin & Drysdale said that one of his clients filed a quiet disclosure in 2011 and that the IRS is contemplating assessing penalties for failure to file Form 5471 going back eight years. "They of course threatened that 'We can go back to 1997, but we're going to stop at eight years,'" he said.