Bucks Blog: A Chance to Come Clean on Offshore Accounts

5:24 p.m. | Updated to reflect deadline extension by I.R.S.

In this week’s Wealth Matters column, Paul Sullivan reminders readers of the approaching deadline for an Internal Revenue Service program that offers potentially smaller fines for people who inform the agency about offshore accounts that they may have been hiding until now. (The deadline was Aug. 31, but it was extended Friday to Sept. 9 because of Hurricane Irene.) For people who come clean, the penalties may be less severe than if they keep the accounts hidden and the I.R.S. finds out about them later.

While this may seem like the concern of the truly rich, often Americans will inherit assets in an account from a relative who lives abroad and then neglect to report the account. Then there are those with green cards who didn’t know they were supposed to report income from around the globe and citizens of other countries who have worked in the United States but still have accounts in their home nations.

The column explains what may be in store for people who take the I.R.S. up on its offer, as opposed to trying to negotiate a better deal later. Have any of you sought to negotiate with the I.R.S. when a similar matter was at issue? If so, how did it go?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d9bd32814589a19136a5b36255f17987