Harnessing The Power of Fear in Public Speaking – Tips & Tricks For An Unforgettable Presentation
Have you ever gone to a technical talk or presentation excited about the topic, only to be frustrated by the speaker’s technical jargon and stiff delivery? If you’re a tax professional, you’ve likely been to more of these presentations than you care to remember (perhaps even reluctantly if you had perilously waited until the eleventh […]
Don’t Get Cracked!
In the Emmy award-winning “Regular Show” episode Eggscelent, Mordecai had to eat a 12-egg omelet in under an hour to win a funny-looking trucker hat for his good friend Rigby. Lawyers often face their own eggscelent challenge, but the stakes are quite a bit higher. My colleague Larry A. Campagna, who is a partner at […]
Onward And Upward Towards Corporate Tax Reform
Is FATCA Doing More Harm Than Good?
Few American laws have been as controversial as FATCA. FATCA stands for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a law passed in 2010 to clamp down on the use of foreign bank accounts by U.S. taxpayers to hide money that is otherwise subject to taxation in the United States. FATCA is the U.S. government’s newest enforcement […]
Lessons Learned From The Recent Conviction of Swiss Banking Giant Credit Suisse
When European financial giant Credit Suisse AG pleaded guilty to assisting U.S. taxpayers evade federal income tax, there was a great deal of swagger at the Justice Department. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, in classic Clint Eastwood style, boldly proclaimed that “no financial institution. . .is above the law,” and that any other bank which […]
Virtual Currencies: The Modern-Day Equivalent Of Your Father’s Offshore Bank Account?
Potential ‘Treasure Trove’ of Information Pertaining To Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program Released
Perhaps the advertising agency that developed the slogan, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good” got it wrong. Maybe what they really meant to say was, “If it’s FOIA, it has to be good.” To find out why, read on … Denis Brager, an esteemed tax attorney, has received more than 6,500 pages from […]
London Mayor Pushes Back Against the IRS For “Outrageous” Tax Assessment
London Mayor Boris Johnson is not taking the bait. He refuses to pay a tax assessment that the IRS claims he owes. The Mayor was born in New York and holds a U.S. passport as well as a British one. What brought this issue into the public spotlight? While visiting the U.S. last week to […]
How to Avoid Becoming The Next ‘Cooked Goose’ Gracing The IRS’s Offshore Tax Evasion Table This Thanksgiving
If your name was mentioned in the same sentence as Raoul Weil, Carl Zwerner, or Ty Warner, you can rest assured that you haven’t been nominated for an academy award or a Pulitzer Prize. Nor did you win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Award. Instead, you’d have joined a disgraced group of taxpayers who have had the […]
THE NEW AMERICAN EXPAT: MORE COLLATERAL FATCA DAMAGE
As I reported in a previous article, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the IRS instantly began to drool in anticipation when The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act was passed in March of 2010. This gives them enforcement tools to make foreign countries and banking institutions play by our rules whether they like it or […]