Will Form 3520 Fails 2023-2024

Hi, my name is Clinton Donovan from Donnelly Tax Law. An estimated eighty-five percent of American taxpayers living abroad do not even file income tax returns, let alone their required foreign information returns. The penalty for not filing these foreign information returns begins at ten thousand dollars and can quickly grow into several hundred thousand dollars. When people hear about this, one common reaction is to say that the IRS wouldn't make innocent people pay such severe fines. There are several misconceptions here that I'd like to address. Misconception number one is that you are innocent and law-abiding. Well, if you haven't been filing these foreign information returns when required by law, then you're clearly not law-abiding, are you? A second, more important point is that these foreign informational returns are designed to stop money laundering. A key strategy of money launderers is to do financial transactions with otherwise innocent people because it puts a veneer of legitimacy on their dirty money. The innocent people may never know that they were dealing with money launderers, which is all the more reason why the IRS does not worry about whether or not you are an innocent person. The second misconception, particularly for people living in developed countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, is that their countries will object to the IRS imposing severe penalties on people in their countries, possibly dual citizens. Well, first, the news media in those countries will adopt the IRS's position, which is that you are an American citizen evading paying taxes back home. The second reason is that over a hundred and three countries have signed the International Convention for the Mutual Assistance in the Prevention of Tax Evasion. Therefore, the IRS can work with the tax authority in your country to enforce the payment...