Beware of ‘Emergency Tax Service’ Sales Pitches, Protect Yourself

Beware of ‘Emergency Tax Service’ Sales Pitches, Protect Yourself

Beware of ‘Emergency Tax Service’ Sales Pitches, Protect Yourself

Unfortunately, just hearing the acronym IRS can cause immediate anxiety and stress for taxpayers. Most taxpayers will go their entire lives without having to deal with the IRS beyond filing annual tax returns. Unfortunately, some taxpayers may have to engage with the IRS in matters involving penalties, audits, examinations, and investigations. Making matters worse is that some unscrupulous tax attorneys know that the IRS can instill an almost irrational fear into an otherwise rational person. They use that opportunity to fear-monger and scare-monger individuals into retaining the firm — against the taxpayer’s better judgment — by creating a false sense of urgency that requires ’emergency’ tax services. Here are 4 emergency tax service scams to be aware of:

FBAR and Foreign Account Reporting

In general, there is no emergency tax service required for foreign bank and financial account reporting. If you find you are out of compliance, then you will want to get into compliance as soon as you can, but it is a far stretch to call it an emergency. Likewise, if you receive notice of a penalty or potential penalty, you will generally have 30 days at a minimum to respond, so again if you receive one of these notices why you should stay cognizant of the time and due dates to respond come and be careful with that you are not being up charged because it is being couched by the attorney as an emergency.

IRS Audits and Investigations

if it turns out you are under an audit or an investigation, it is in your best interest to retain an attorney. Even if the IRS special agents were to appear at your door, you simply do not respond to them subsequently and let them know that you will be obtaining an attorney and that the attorney will reach out to you. Unless officers show up to your house to arrest you, this is not an emergency tax service, then you should be careful not to retain inexperienced counsel because they claim to be experts in emergency tax services. You must retain a firm that is experienced in the specific area of tax violation that the IRS is alleging.

Criminal Tax Defense

The fear of going to jail or prison can be overwhelming for many taxpayers who are being accused of committing a tax crime. If the IRS is pursuing a criminal tax violation against you, it is important to obtain a board-certified criminal law specialist who handles tax matters. Just retaining some random tax attorney off the Internet because they claim to handle emergency tax services or that they’re experts is not in your best interest.

Avoiding Jail or High Fines

Some taxpayers are more cautious and risk-tolerant than others. As a result, if the tax attorney that you were speaking with (typically in a free initial consultation) can sense that you were overwhelmed, sometimes they will begin peppering the conversation with terms such as criminal, jail, high fines, and incarceration. Even if you are overwhelmed, you should do your best to try to keep your wits about you and remember that the most important thing you could do is to find and determine that there is someone experienced in this specific area of tax that you are seeking assistance with, and not just a firm that purports to provide general emergency tax services.

When You May Need Emergency/Urgent Tax Services

If you get arrested for a tax crime, you may need emergency/urgent criminal tax attorney services. If you are a few days away from having your bank account levied, you may need emergency/urgent tax services. If you found out that your passport was revoked and you need to fly home immediately because of a sick parent or relative, you may require emergency/urgent tax services. Beyond these types of urgent and emergency type of scenarios, emergency tax services are typically just a sales pitch and not something that you need (and especially not something that you should pay a premium for).

Late Filing Penalties May be Reduced or Avoided

For Taxpayers who did not timely file their international information-related reporting forms, the IRS has developed many different offshore amnesty programs to assist Taxpayers with safely getting into compliance. These programs may reduce or even eliminate international reporting penalties.

Current Year vs. Prior Year Non-Compliance

Once a Taxpayer missed the tax and reporting (such as FBAR and FATCA) requirements for prior years, they will want to be careful before submitting their information to the IRS in the current year. That is because they may risk making a quiet disclosure if they just begin filing forward in the current year and/or mass filing previous year forms without doing so under one of the approved IRS offshore submission procedures. Before filing prior untimely foreign reporting forms, Taxpayers should consider speaking with a Board-Certified Tax Law Specialist who specializes exclusively in these types of offshore disclosure matters.

Avoid False Offshore Disclosure Submissions (Willful vs Non-Willful)

In recent years, the IRS has increased the level of scrutiny for certain streamlined procedure submissions. When a person is non-willful, they have an excellent chance of making a successful submission to Streamlined Procedures. If they are willful, they would submit to the IRS Voluntary Disclosure Program instead. But, if a willful Taxpayer submits an intentionally false narrative under the Streamlined Procedures (and gets caught), they may become subject to significant fines and penalties. 

Need Help Finding an Experienced Offshore Tax Attorney?

When it comes to hiring an experienced international tax attorney to represent you for unreported foreign and offshore account reporting, it can become overwhelming for Taxpayers trying to trek through all the false information and nonsense they will find in their online research. There are only a handful of attorneys worldwide who are Board-Certified Tax Specialists and who specialize exclusively in offshore disclosure and international tax amnesty reporting. 

*This resource may help Taxpayers seeking to hire offshore tax counsel: How to Hire an Offshore Disclosure Lawyer.

Golding & Golding: About Our International Tax Law Firm

Golding & Golding specializes exclusively in international tax, specifically IRS offshore disclosure.

Contact our firm today for assistance.