IRS Issues John Doe Summons To FedEx, DHL, UPS, HSBC In Massive Offshore Account Hunt

[think]

IRS Issues John Doe Summons To FedEx, DHL, UPS, HSBC In Massive Offshore Account Hunt

By Robert Wood - 12/20/2014 @ 9:54AM

A federal judge approved the IRS issuing summonses requiring FedEx, DHL, UPS, and a bevy of other handlers to produce information about U.S. taxpayers who used Sovereign Management & Legal Ltd. for offshore accounts and assets. They include Western Union Financial Services Inc., the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Clearing House Payments Company LLC, and HSBC USA.

The IRS uses John Doe summonses to obtain information when it searches for tax fraud by individuals whose identities are unknown. This is a sweeping order, allowing the IRS to get records from all of these companies. The target is any U.S. taxpayers who, from 2005 through 2013, used Sovereign’s services to control foreign accounts or entities. That is likely to be a long list.

The IRS may face budget cuts, but the hunt for offshore evaders continues, this time out of a DEA operation. A DEA investigation of online narcotics trafficking got the IRS on to Sovereign, a company allegedly helping U.S. clients evade taxes. A taxpayer in the IRS offshore program (OVDP) reported that Sovereign set up his Panamanian shell, so now Sovereign is in the hot seat.

Sovereign is a multi-jurisdictional offshore services provider that offers clients the formation and administration of anonymous corporations and foundations in Panama as well as offshore entities. Related services provided by Sovereign include the maintenance and operation of offshore structures, mail forwarding, the availability of virtual offices, re-invoicing, and the provision of professional managers who appoint themselves directors of the client’s entity while the client maintains ultimate control....

Full article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/12/20/irs-issues-john-doe-summons-to-fedex-dhl-ups-hsbc-in-massive-offshore-account-hunt/

[Gman]

1. Perhaps the teabagger non-scandal isn't the real reason

The right wing cuts the IRS budget. The teabagger non-scandal was small potatoes to the real monied people.

[okaawhatever]

2. Obama and the IRS started going after offshore accounts in 2009. That is the real reason

for the IRS scandal and the cuts to their budget. Obama tried to get an additional 2,000 agents in one of his budget requests. He had a lot of success getting other countries to open up their records and the 1% have had Obama and the IRS in the crosshairs ever since. The IRS collected millions, if not billions in taxes as a result.

[elehhhhna]

5. yes, after an extended tax amnesty period which allowed refiling

With no penalties. The Clinton admin actually won an appeal at the end his terms giving them lists from the credit card companies (easy way to spend your unreported income). Any who, glad this is getting attention. The one presenters had every opportunity to clean their illegal tax evasion problems up. Throw the book at them.

[bonniebgood]

3. Oh and give these clowns the US Postal Service too. nt

[90-percent]

4. Interesting

there are many issues that conservatives take to heart and push aggressively. One of them is the IRS Scandal that contends the IRS picked Tea Party affiliated groups for special IRS scrutiny, in a discriminatory and guilty until proven innocent manner.

(And I do have apprehensions. If they do get you in their sites and do audits, the IRS can haunt and harass you for years)

So the conservatives that made this an issue were actually acting as USEFUL IDIOTS to further the interests of their CORPORATE OVERLORDS, who were perhaps doing illegal things they wanted to keep hidden from the IRS?

It's interesting to compare the CONSERVATIVE MSM AGENDA DRIVEN CORPORATE PROPAGANDA FRAME, vs. the REALITY FRAME that some big corporations are evading taxes on behalf of their drug cartel clients?

There's something about the nature of the framing of issues that Conservatives do all the time where they really do function as useful and easily manipulated idiots. I do admire the way Rovian Machiavellian manipulation of the MSM can trick rabid conservatives into unknowingly acting on behalf of their Corporate Overlords, to the detriment of their own self-interest, and dismantling Democracy even further in the process.

Those Conservative Think tanks that think this stuff up are brilliantly evil. And they all apparently answer to people like The Simpson's Mr Smithers.

-90% jimmy