The IRS is coming fast and furious at tax cheats. Choosing tax compliance over a gym membership could be the best New Year’s resolution you’ve ever made.
By Steven N. Klitzner
Happy New Year!
By the time you read this, you’ll have rung in the New Year.
And what about those New Year’s resolutions?
Spending more time with loved ones?
Working less?
Getting in shape with a new gym membership?
Those are the standards, right? They’re good ones: We should all spend more time with loved ones, work less, and be in better shape.
But if you’re one of the thousands of U.S. taxpayers who have made bad decisions and are in trouble, or could be in trouble, with the IRS, then these aren’t the best resolutions for you.
Your New Year’s resolution should be: Make an appointment with a qualified tax professional and settle, once and for all, your tax troubles.
I could spend the rest of this column explaining, with real-world examples, why you should clean up your tax troubles right now.
I could cite hundreds of cases in which everyday folks are spending time in prison and paying huge fines for tax evasion. There are celebrity examples as well, such as actor Wesley Snipes, who’s in prison on tax charges.
And lest you think the tax heat will let up, take the words of IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman into account.
After effectively piercing the Swiss banking veil in the historic UBS case, Shulman gave a speech in December at the 23rd Annual Institute on Current Issues in International Taxation in Washington, D.C.
“I can’t say this enough: When people cheat on their taxes, the vast majority of honest U.S. taxpayers suffer the consequences and have to make up the difference,” the IRS commissioner said.
And that’s when Shulman emphasized that, despite the successes of the UBS case and obtaining the records of credit cards linked to offshore accounts in the Caribbean, the IRS would continue its aggressive measures against tax evasion, whether through sophisticated international schemes or by simply not reporting income.
In fact, as you consider your New Year’s resolutions, you should also keep the IRS’s enforcement budget in mind. This year, it’s a record $5.5 billion.
What’s more, data shows that the government has an outstanding conviction rate on cases it chooses to prosecute. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, there were 10 percent more convictions last year than compared to five years earlier.
The truth is, while cheating on your taxes and keeping more of your money might seem like an attractive option at first blush, your odds of success are very, very low.
It’s 2011. Forget the gym membership. See a tax professional and get your financial life in order.
Steven N. Klitzner is a Certified Tax Resolution Specialist, a member of the American Society of IRS Problem Solvers, and an Aventura attorney. You can contact him at 305-682-1118 to obtain a free subscription to his newsletter titled The IRS Times & Inquirer.
