On November 29, 2017, Jay R. Nanavati and Caroline D. Ciraolo presented "Global Tax Enforcement: Compliance & Risk Mitigation" at the Bahamas Financial Services Board in Nassau, Bahamas.

With their colleague, Rich Kando, a Managing Director with Alix Partners LLP, Mr. Nanavati and Ms. Ciraolo shared their extensive knowledge on the subject with those in attendance. More than 150 financial and other service professionals attended the conference to discuss important topics related to the current global landscape with respect to tax enforcement, trends in the international exchange of information and transparency of beneficial ownership, due diligence and compliance requirements imposed on gatekeepers, and the need for current anti-tax evasion compliance programs, risk assessments, training, and monitoring under the U.K. Criminal Finance Act.

From overlooked notices to procedural missteps, taxpayers sometimes find themselves with a tax assessment that they should not owe. While paying and suing for a refund is theoretically possible, full payment is not always a practical option.

For the last several years, the IRS and the Department of Justice Tax Division have focused their attention on employment tax enforcement. We’ve seen new notices and alerts to taxpayers regarding non-compliance, more field visits by revenue officers, an increase in worker classification audits, a surge in suits for injunctions and motions for contempt, and an escalation of criminal investigations into willful employment tax violations.

On October 27, 2017, Caroline Ciraolo joined an esteemed panel at the ABA International Tax Enforcement and Controversy Conference, including John V. Cardone, Director, Withholding and International Individual Compliance Practice Area, Large Business & International Division, IRS, Nanette L. Davis, Senior Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division, Don Fort, Chief, Criminal Investigation Division, IRS, and Charles Pillitteri, Assistant Division Counsel (International), Small Business/Self-Employed, IRS, to discuss the Continuing Enforcement and Disclosure Issues Regarding Foreign Assets.

Ms. Ciraolo shared her extensive knowledge on the following topics:

Risk of discovery, external audits, global tax enforcement, and whistleblower claims.

Tips from the tax trenches from leading tax controversy practitioners in an open discussion regarding pending IRS enforcement priorities and initiatives including the ongoing IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program / Streamlined Procedures re: FBARs and the Swiss Bank Program, effectively responding to IRS information document requests in the new enforcement environment, hot topics and enforcement priorities within the IRS Small Business and Self Employed Division and the IRS Large Business & International Division.

Our expert panel considered the trends of tax transparency, including automatic exchange of information, entity transparency, and exchange of beneficial ownership information. 

This program served as Part 2 of 7 in the Tax Audits and Litigation Lunch Series and Part 2 of 6 in the International Tax Lunch Series.

By: Sara Gilgore

New York City-based Kostelanetz & Fink LLP has launched a Washington practice.

The law firm opened in D.C. — its first office outside of Manhattan in 60 years of operation — at 601 New Jersey Ave. NW. It will serve as an extension of the firm’s government-oriented tax, regulatory and white-collar criminal work, said Bryan Skarlatos, its managing partner, in a statement.

With nearly 5,000 federal criminal offenses, and hundreds of thousands of regulations that can be punished criminally, the power of the federal prosecutor has never been stronger. Many of these offenses are vague on their face, others can be stretched beyond recognition, and nearly all are connected to the ever-increasing Sentencing Guidelines. Prosecutors are armed with broad charging discretion, and discovery rules that consistently favor the government. For those accused of white collar crime, this is their reality.