IRS Includes FATCA in 5 New Compliance Campaigns

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Each year the IRS rolls out campaigns to identify the the top compliance issues for the year. For each of these campaigns, the IRS will deploy resources, training, and tools, metrics and feedback to enforce compliance in these areas. One recent campaign that may have a substantial impact in the world of offshore compliance is the FATCA campaign.

The campaign comes after TIGTA recently reported that despite spending $380 million for FATCA compliance, it was not yet prepared to enforce the law.

FATCA Filing Accuracy

Per the IRS website:

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted in 2010 as part of the HIRE Act. The overall purpose is to detect, deter and discourage offshore tax abuses through increased transparency, enhanced reporting and strong sanctions. Foreign Financial Institutions and certain Non-Financial Foreign Entities are generally required to report the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders and substantial U.S. owners under the FATCA. This campaign addresses those entities that have FATCA reporting obligations but do not meet all their compliance responsibilities. The Service will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams, including termination of the FATCA status.

While this doesn’t directly impact individual taxpayers, it will have a downstream effect because the IRS uses the data provided by FFIs to identify non-compliance on Form 8938 on individual income tax returns.

Several other compliance campaigns this year are related to individual offshore tax compliance and cross border activities.

Individual Foreign Tax Credit (Form 1116)

Practice Area: Western Compliance Practice Area

Lead Executive: Paul Curtis

Individuals file Form 1116 to claim a credit that reduces their U.S. income tax liability for the amount of foreign taxes paid on foreign source income. This campaign addresses taxpayer compliance with the computation of the foreign tax credit limitation on Form 1116. Due to the complexity of computing the Foreign Tax Credit and challenges associated with third-party reporting information, some taxpayers face the risk of claiming an incorrect Foreign Tax Credit amount. The IRS will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including examinations.

Individual Foreign Tax Credit Phase II

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone, director of Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Section 901 of the Internal Revenue Code alleviates double taxation through a dollar-for-dollar credit against U.S. tax on foreign-sourced income in the amount of foreign taxes paid on that income.

Individuals who meet certain requirements may qualify for the foreign tax credit. This campaign addresses taxpayers who have claimed the credit but do not meet the requirements. The IRS will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams, including examination.

Foreign Earned Income Exclusion Campaign

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

Individuals who meet certain requirements may qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion and/or the foreign housing exclusion or deduction. This campaign addresses taxpayers who have claimed these benefits but do not meet the requirements. The Internal Revenue Service will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams, including examination.

Offshore Service Providers

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone, director of Withholding & International Individual Compliance

The focus of this campaign is to address U.S. taxpayers who engaged Offshore Service Providers that facilitated the creation of foreign entities and tiered structures to conceal the beneficial ownership of foreign financial accounts and assets, generally, for the purpose of tax avoidance or evasion. The treatment stream for this campaign will be issue-based examinations.

1120-F Delinquent Returns Campaign

Practice Area: Cross Border Activities

Lead Executive: Orrin Byrd, director of Field Operations (East)

The objective of the Delinquent Returns Campaign is to encourage foreign entities to timely file Form 1120-F returns and address the compliance risk for delinquent 1120-F returns. This is accomplished by field examinations of compliance risk delinquent returns and external education outreach programs. The campaign addresses delinquent-filed returns, Form 1120-F U.S. Income Tax Return of a Foreign Corporation.

Form 1120-F must be filed on a timely basis and in a true and accurate manner for a foreign corporation to claim deductions and credits against its effectively connected income. For these purposes, Form 1120-F is generally considered to be timely filed if it is filed no later than 18 months after the due date of the current year’s return. The filing deadline may be waived, in situations based on the facts and circumstances, where the foreign corporation establishes to the satisfaction of the commissioner that the foreign corporation acted reasonably and in good faith in failing to file Form 1120-F per Treas. Reg. Section 1.882-4(a)(3)(ii). LB&I Industry Guidance 04-0118-007 dated 2/1/2018 established procedures to ensure waiver requests are applied in a fair, consistent and timely manner under the regulations.

Swiss Bank Program Campaign

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the Swiss Bank Program as a path for Swiss financial institutions to resolve potential criminal liabilities. Banks that are participating in this program provide information on the U.S. persons with beneficial ownership of foreign financial accounts. This campaign will address noncompliance, involving taxpayers who are or may be beneficial owners of these accounts, through a variety of treatment streams including, but not limited to, examinations and letters.

Nonresident Alien Schedule A and Other Deductions

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in the proper deduction of eligible expenses by nonresident alien (NRA) individuals on Form 1040NR Schedule A. NRA taxpayers may either misunderstand or misinterpret the rules for allowable deductions under the previous and new Internal Revenue Code provisions, do not meet all the qualifications for claiming the deduction and/or do not maintain proper records to substantiate the expenses claimed. The campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

NRA Tax Credits

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in nonresident alien individual (NRA) tax credits. NRAs who either have no qualifying earned income, do not provide substantiation/proper documentation, or do not have qualifying dependents may erroneously claim certain dependent related tax credits. In addition, some NRA taxpayers may also claim education credits (which are only available to U.S. persons) by improperly filing Form 1040 tax returns. This campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

F3520/3520-A Non-Compliance and Campus Assessed Penalties

Practice Area:  Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone, Director, WIIC

This campaign will take a multifaceted approach to improving compliance with respect to the timely and accurate filing of information returns reporting ownership of and transactions with foreign trusts. The Service will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including, but not limited to, examinations and penalties assessed by the campus when the forms are received late or are incomplete.

Forms 1042/1042-S Compliance

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

Taxpayers who make payments of certain U.S.-source income to foreign persons must comply with the related withholding, deposit, and reporting requirements. This campaign addresses Withholding Agents who make such payments but do not meet all their compliance duties. The Internal Revenue Service will address noncompliance and errors through a variety of treatment streams, including examination.

Nonresident Alien Tax Treaty Exemptions

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in nonresident alien (NRA) individual tax treaty exemption claims related to both effectively connected income and Fixed, Determinable, Annual Periodical income. Some NRA taxpayers may either misunderstand or misinterpret applicable treaty articles, provide incorrect or incomplete forms to the withholding agents or rely on incorrect information returns provided by U.S. payors to improperly claim treaty benefits and exempt U.S. source income from taxation. This campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

OVDP Declines-Withdrawals Campaign

The Practice Area is Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Lead Executive: Pamela Drenthe

The Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) allows U.S. taxpayers to voluntarily resolve past non-compliance related to unreported offshore income and failure to file foreign information returns. This campaign addresses OVDP applicants who applied for pre-clearance into the program but were either denied access to OVDP or withdrew from the program of their own accord. Taxpayers, who have yet to resolve their non-compliance and who meet the eligibility criteria, are encouraged to consider entering one of the offshore programs currently available. The IRS will address continued noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including examination and letters.

Virtual Currency

Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance

Executive Lead: John Cardone, director, Withholding & International Individual Compliance

U.S. persons are subject to tax on worldwide income from all sources including transactions involving virtual currency. IRS Notice 2014-21 states that virtual currency is property for federal tax purposes and provides information on the U.S. federal tax implications of convertible virtual currency transactions. The Virtual Currency Compliance campaign will address noncompliance related to the use of virtual currency through multiple treatment streams including outreach and examinations. The compliance activities will follow the general tax principles applicable to all transactions in property, as outlined in Notice 2014-21. The IRS will continue to consider and solicit taxpayer and practitioner feedback in education efforts, future guidance, and development of Practice Units. Taxpayers with unreported virtual currency transactions are urged to correct their returns as soon as practical. The IRS is not contemplating a voluntary disclosure program specifically to address tax non-compliance involving virtual currency.

What should non-compliant taxpayers do?

If taxpayers are non-compliant with the foreign asset and income reporting requirements, they should consider applying to one of IRS’ voluntary disclosure programs:

Why hire us?

We assist taxpayers who have undisclosed foreign financial assets. Schedule an appointment to see how we can help.