Important: The OVDP is Ending on 9/28/2018. Here’s How to Stay U.S. Tax Compliant!

The IRS is ending OVDP in less than two weeks. Are you U.S. tax compliant?

If you’re legal­ly required to file U.S. tax­es and you have undis­closed for­eign accounts, this arti­cle is very impor­tant for you.

What is the OVDP?

The Off­shore Vol­un­tary Dis­clo­sure Pro­gram (OVDP) was ini­ti­at­ed by the IRS to allow tax­pay­ers to vol­un­tar­i­ly dis­close any unfiled for­eign finan­cial assets, lest they expose them­selves to sig­nif­i­cant civ­il fines and crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ties upon detec­tion by the IRS. Since the program’s incep­tion in 2009, the IRS has col­lect­ed over $11.1 bil­lion in tax­es, inter­est and penal­ties from those who have used the pro­vi­sions of the OVDP in order to stay U.S. tax com­plaint. How­ev­er, in March 2018, it was revealed that, with effect from Sep­tem­ber 28, 2018, the OVDP pro­gram will offi­cial­ly be clos­ing up shop for good.

How Does the OVDP Affect Me?

The over­ar­ch­ing objec­tive of this pro­gram is to lure out unfiled off­shore rental prop­er­ties, bank accounts and oth­er such enti­ties by reduc­ing asso­ci­at­ed pros­e­cu­tions and penal­ties. It aims at curb­ing the ram­pant tax eva­sion activ­i­ties con­duct­ed by U.S. cit­i­zens resid­ing in the U.S. and green card hold­ers that reside out­side the coun­try. This pro­gram affords the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for delin­quent tax­pay­ers to bring to light all their unre­port­ed off­shore finan­cial assets. With the program’s clos­ing dead­line rapid­ly approach­ing, it is in your best inter­est to take action to keep your tax returns cur­rent.

Are There Any Other Alternatives to the OVDP?

The pro­gram itself has under­gone sev­er­al sub­se­quent amend­ments since its incep­tion, with the lat­est mod­i­fi­ca­tions com­ing into effect in July 2014. With the 2014 revi­sion, the IRS decid­ed to stream­line pro­ce­dures for those tax­pay­ers who affirm (under a penal­ty of per­jury) that their non-com­pli­ance is non-will­ful. There are oth­er options for tax­pay­ers to report their non‑U.S. assets, such as the Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Vol­un­tary Dis­clo­sure Pro­gram and the Stream­lined Fil­ing Com­pli­ance pro­ce­dures. While the IRS has informed tax­pay­ers that it has no plans to end these any time soon, there is no guar­an­tee that this will stand, giv­en the ever-fluc­tu­at­ing nature of the tax­a­tion land­scape. It goes with­out say­ing that the clo­sure of the OVDP in no way means that the IRS will stop pri­or­i­tiz­ing non-com­pli­ance asso­ci­at­ed with off­shore accounts hence­forth. In fact, the IRS has tapped into its size­able data­base of inter­gov­ern­men­tal agree­ments with for­eign gov­ern­ments to gath­er infor­ma­tion and tight­en its own tax­a­tion norms.

If You Have Not Dis­closed Your Off­shore Accounts Yet, We Urge You to Con­tact a Qual­i­fied U.S. Tax Con­sul­tant BEFORE Sep­tem­ber 28, 2018!