Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative – You’re confessing to IRS that you are a Tax Criminal

Vancouver Sun has created a panic in Lower Mainland with their report for US citizens on compliance of US Tax Laws. We have received constant inquiries for the last few days from US citizens living in Vancouver (lower mainland) about Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI).

We have been writing about this on our blog for several years. Globe and Mail and the National Post have been reporting about US Citizens living in Canada and their Tax obligation to USA quite frequently.

OVDI is not a new initiative. Every few years, IRS has some kind of incentive for US citizens to report their unreported income. Canada has a similar program for Canadians who are trying to hide income in offshore accounts.

Objective of OVDI – to bring taxpayers that have used undisclosed foreign accounts and undisclosed foreign entities to avoid or evade tax into compliance with United States tax laws.

These taxpayers are US citizens, green card holders living in the USA and foreign countries having unreported offshore accounts.

“ALL US CITIZENS and GREEN CARD HOLDERS MUST REPORT THEIR INCOME TO IRS ANNUALLY, REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY LIVE”

So, if you are a US citizen and have not reported your income to IRS annually, is OVDI for you?

After an extensive research of the OVDI, our conclusion is, if you have not filed your annual tax return to IRS, OVDI is not for you.

If you have never filed US tax return to IRS and now you realize that you are a US citizen and must file US tax return to IRS, you can start right now and file all your current and past US tax return.

OVDI is for you, if you have previously filed US tax return and either intentionally or unintentionally did not report all your foreign holdings under OVDI, you have to file an amended return and give proper explanation as to why you did not report all your foreign holdings previously.

Filing returns under OVDI is an admission of Crime, under IRS rulings. OVDI filing will be reviewed and investigated by the IRS’s Criminal Investigation branch.

As soon as someone would try to take advantage of OVDI, it is possible that IRS would launch a criminal investigation against them, outside of the scope of OVDI.
Are you willing to participate in Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI)?