People like to claim that the government always gets what people owe it. That aphorism is a way of conveying how serious the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is about enforcing tax law and collecting on valid tax debts. Not only can the IRS hold people accountable for any underpayments of their taxes, but it may also add fees and interest to the amount owed. It could even refer certain taxpayers to federal prosecutors for criminal charges. What could have been a reasonable debt can quickly snowball into an insurmountable financial obligation. Particularly in cases where people made consistent mi ..read more

Holding personal resources in an offshore account was once a top tax avoidance strategy. However, that has shifted in recent years. While some people may continue to hold resources in international bank accounts, they will typically derive far less protection from doing so than they would have in years past. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is well aware of the practice of holding resources in international bank accounts for tax minimization purposes. In fact, the federal government has adopted policies that might lead to the prosecution of individuals who hold resources internationally and ..read more

A tax controversy occurs when an individual taxpayer and an authority assessing taxes disagree about someone’s responsibilities. For example, if the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accuses someone of tax evasion by misrepresenting their income, that tax controversy might eventually lead to federal prosecution and major tax debts. People in different circumstances have different levels of risk for legal issues related to income taxes. Self-employed professionals, including small business owners and independent contractors, are at particularly high risk of weathering a tax controversy that can le ..read more

Paying income taxes is part of life in the United States. Even those who only have part-time jobs are generally required to contribute to federal and state tax programs. Once a year, taxpayers need to file a tax return reporting their income and household circumstances to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In cases where there is reason to believe that someone has not honestly disclosed their finances or fully paid their taxes, the IRS may conduct an audit. A tax controversy could even potentially lead to criminal charges. Some people are more likely than others to face tax investigations and ..read more

Finding out that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) believes you underpaid your taxes is certainly a frightening experience. After all, you can count on the government to get their money no matter what. In severe cases, those accused of failing to meet their tax obligations might even face federal prosecution. Regardless of whether or not the IRS alleges your tax mistakes are a criminal matter, you can expect that there will be some financial penalties assessed against you. The IRS is notorious for aggressively adding to tax debts by collecting interest and assessing penalties or fines. How mu ..read more

You know that it’s illegal not to pay the taxes that you owe. Everyone is bound to pay their taxes, whether they are employees or business owners. Anyone with an income is going to need to pay some amount of tax on it at the end of the year. You also know that it’s illegal to misrepresent your taxes so that you don’t pay as much. This is known as tax fraud or tax evasion. If you file your taxes and you owe money, then you have to pay the IRS the full amount on schedule or you could be subject to up to 25% in fines. But what if you simply didn’t file your taxes at all? Is this also illegal? The ..read more

If you’re facing a massive outstanding tax bill, it’s understandable that you’re worried. It doesn’t feel financially viable for you to pay off all of the money that the IRS says that you owe. Now, there could be other parts to this equation. Maybe you believe you shouldn’t owe that much money to begin with. Perhaps you believe you’ve already paid money that hasn’t been accounted for. There are a lot of different reasons why the tax bill may be so high, and you need to consider ways to resolve them if you think these issues are present. But there’s also a chance that you just understand that y ..read more

As you do your taxes, it’s natural to worry about making a mistake. You may be concerned that it’s going to look like you’re trying to commit fraud. For instance, what if you forget to list some of your income? Is the government going to believe that you’re trying to commit tax evasion by hiding these earnings? People are often very stressed out about this and they go over the documents many times to make sure that they didn’t make a mistake. While it is good to make sure that you haven’t committed any errors and to check your work consistently, it is also important to know that tax fraud and ..read more

At first, e-commerce largely involved businesses selling and shipping physical items either to individual consumers or other companies. However, the shift to fully-digital transactions has begun. Some people and businesses traffic in digital currencies, like cryptocurrencies. There are also massive marketplaces that primarily facilitate the sale of digital items. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a perfect example of a digital commodity now available for sale online. NFTs are unique digital works, such as limited-edition graphic works, that creators or companies sell to others. Every NFT is uniqu ..read more

If you file taxes in the United States, something that you should be aware of is the risk of facing an audit. Audits by the Internal Revenue Service are largely random, which can make it hard to know if you’ll be at risk or not. You may be surprised to know that the IRS only audits around .3% of all tax returns. The majority of audits are done by letter at a rate of around 74%. So, even if you do end up being audited, you may only need to correspond with the IRS by mail. Are you more likely to get audited today than a decade ago? IRS audits have been declining over time. Today, you’re around 5 ..read more