Implications of the 2012 Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program
The IRS reopened the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program 2012 on January 2012 to the U.S taxpayers who are willing to disclose voluntarily the unreported offshore assets. The taxpayers who are willing to take part in the 2012 OVDP needs to file the amended returns for the years covered by the 2012 OVDP, pay any sort unpaid taxes, interests and penalties, file the FBAR forms for every undisclosed foreign accounts help from the taxpayer over a time frame covered by the 2012 OVDP and pay off a one time penalty that almost equals 27.5 percent of the highest aggregate balance of the taxpayers unreported foreign assets over the years covered by the 2012 OVDP. The overseas penalty is applicable to any and every taxpayer's overseas holdings that are associated with the non-compliance with U.S tax laws. Hence, the penalty is applicable not only bank accounts but also to the tangible assets such as real estate or art.
In contrary to the IRS's former two Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Programs i.e. the ones for 2009 and 20011 there is no deadline by which the taxpayers willing to take part in the program needs to submit all their information. This apart, the terms of the 2012 OVDP are virtually identical to the terms of the 2011 programs except the overseas penalty which has increased from 25 percent to 27.5 percent. However, the taxpayers interested in voluntary disclosure need to attempt to remain compliant as soon as possible, as the IRS reserved the authority to amend or change the terms of 2012 OVDP at their own discretion.
Overseas voluntary disclosures are very case sensitive and complicated and are also subject to rigid rules and specific guidelines. The OVDP 2012 is applicable for the citizens who:
In order to gain better insight of OVDP it is essential that taxpayers resort to the services of a tax planning agency that helps them with the following ways:
The OVDP 2012, like the 2009 and 2011 programs provides the taxpayers a well defined medium of getting their accounts into total compliance, certain taxpayers will be served better by disclosing their foreign assets beyond the boundaries of the program.Read More About: IRS Amnesty, Foreign Bank Account.