WikiLeaks May Have Offshore Account Tax Evader Information

I previously blogged that the Department of Justice was looking into tax evasion committed by individuals hiding money in offshore accounts and was offering more lenient penalties to those who voluntarily turned themselves in. Now companies and individuals whose offshore account information is detailed in Swiss banking documents released to WikiLeaks could face prosecution.

A former senior private banker at Julius Baer, Rudolf Elmer, handed the documents over to WikiLeaks on Monday. It is not clear what the documents expose or how recent the information is. The possible age of the documents shouldn’t be an issue for the I.R.S. because a statute of limitations does not apply if the I.R.S. can prove that individuals committed tax fraud through the use of offshore accounts.

Simply holding an offshore bank account is not illegal. If these account holders already reported income from offshore accounts, or if they voluntarily disclosed their information to the I.R.S., they might have nothing to fear. Further, the I.R.S. is more interested in financial institutions that sold these tax evasion services than individual evaders.

See Lynnley Browning, Tax Leak Consequences Depend on Details, N.Y. Times, Jan. 19, 2011.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this to my attention.