If you are a business owner or high-income earner, the sting of last year’s tax bill may still be fresh and you might be very motivated to do something about it now. However, complicating the tax planning calculus for this year is the pending tax reform bill that may or may not pass, and may or may not be retroactive to the beginning of 2017. This raises the question…should any planning be done prior to the tax reform passing or failing?

Our work as Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) attorneys is rewarding. Working with our dynamic clients, getting to know them, their families, while doing our best to mitigate the risk and damage the IRS intend to cause — we feel great because the work we do is incredibly consequential.

We have successfully saved our clients millions of dollars in offshore penalties by “opting out” of the standard Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) penalty. But opting out is not without its risks. We compiled some of the most common questions we are asked by prospective clients on the OVDP opt-out procedures. We hope our answers provide you some clarity on this rather complicated, and potentially beneficial solution.

The tax consequences for US taxpayers living and working overseas are very unique…and sometimes frustrating. Expatriates, more commonly known as expats, are US citizens residing overseas. Most have been presented with opportunities in other countries and aren’t trying to “escape” the. How the US tax code treats these citizens is where everything dissolves into chaos.

It is getting serious. On February 18, 2018, the IRS has starting alerting the US state department on which passports of delinquent taxpayers to deny or revoke.