Beware the IDES of March...and the IRS

Beware the IDES of March... March 15th is scary. Caesar, the Roman day of debt deadlines (or you’ll swim with the fishes?) and the deadline for S-Corps and Partnerships. But this soothsayer is not here to warn of those ill tidings, but of another more sinister. Beware the IDES of the IRS. It’s been a while since we have run through FATCA and the IRS’ chief “Brutus” ready to stab your foreign bank accounts in the back. The International Data Exchange System (IDES) is a system for foreign banks to share the financial information of any US citizen account holder with the IRS, and boy do they like share. Though foreign countries are trying to push back on the US to stop such extreme sharing of accidental US citizens, the IDES is happily chugging along to this day. Understand, if you are a US citizen, whether you live in the US or not, you are taxed GLOBALLY on your income, and you have an obligation to disclose all foreign bank accounts if you have more than $10,000 abroad.

Now FATCA has been relatively quiet as of late, as many have come into compliance via the various IRS programs to do so. Don’t relax, I bid you take heed dear taxpayers, the return of the IDES is coming. In a time where governmental finances are strained, the US will attempt to claw back every dime that it can, which means enforcement, which means that someone is going to go through those IDES files with a fine toothed comb and find some more accounts to siphon. So while those who have not come into compliance as yet and have not been “caught,” might want to breathe a sigh of relief and say the IDES of the IRS are come, a warning, unlike Caesar, understand FACTA has come, is quiet, Ay, but it is not gone.

For more info, reach out to Goldburd McCone LLP: https://gmtaxlaw.wixsite.com/goldburdmcconellp

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/international-data-exchange-service