Unit Should Help IRS Track Rich Tax Dodgers

Author: John Leslie

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A team of sleuths familiar with the myriad ways to hide big money should help the Internal Revenue Service do a better job of tracking down wealthy tax dodgers, according to former agency insiders.

Tax attorneys who know the inner workings of the IRS say a new SWAT team the agency is building will make a big difference. Announced last week, the unit is known as the Global High Wealth Industry group.

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said the group is part of the agency's Large and Mid-Sized Business operating division, though it will work with others throughout the agency. The idea is to centralize and focus agents who are experts in tax strategies of the rich, said Shulman.

Trusts, real-estate investments, royalty and licensing agreements, revenue-based or equity-sharing arrangements, private foundations, privately held companies and partnerships will all be of interest to the new unit. The rich frequently make sophisticated financial, business and investment arrangements with complicated legal structures and tax consequences. Some of these are simply mechanisms to avoid taxes, though others are legitimate devices to protect assets, promote charitable causes or defer income.

A single wealthy person may be involved in many of these arrangements, sometimes with other family members or business associates. So, the agency will take a unified look at the web of tax strategies associated with a single person.

The agency has rarely done audits of the wealthy and their businesses or investments in the same way that it coordinates audits of large companies, according to Pamela F. Olson, a partner in the tax group at law firm Skadden, Arps, and formerly assistant secretary for tax policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Now, audits of the rich and their businesses and investments will be in the hands of agents who have worked on coordinated corporate audits. Given these agents' experience and sophistication, Olson said she expects them "to be more capable of auditing the complicated affairs of wealthy individuals than the agents who have traditionally audited small businesses and individuals."

Olson also noted that the IRS recently has recruited a number of people from outside the agency with a sophisticated understanding of high-net-worth tax structures.

Not everyone is convinced of a big change. Mark E. Matthews, formerly an IRS deputy commissioner who oversaw the agency's criminal investigation division, said the agency has paid attention to the high-net-worth taxpayers for many years.

During his tenure at the agency, for example, the IRS was trying to increase audits of these individuals because of an understanding that "that's where the money is," he said.

Still, with the growing emphasis on big-money, offshore cases, Matthews said he sees the new unit as "a development to watch."

Cono R. Namorato, formerly chief of the criminal section and deputy assistant attorney general of criminal tax enforcement at the Justice Department and director of the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility, believes the new effort could help the IRS close a long-standing gap.

The IRS has been trying all along to identify wealthy people who evade taxes but it "hasn't been done in a concentrated, focused manner," he said.

The new unit is a "good idea, and could become an effective component of tax administration," said Namorato, now a member in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Caplin & Drysdale.

As for IRS monitoring of offshore accounts, he said: "Until recently, the agency has never been effective at it and its current enforcement effort seems to be primarily focused on only one foreign financial institution." Swiss bank UBS AG (UBS, UBSN.VX) has been in the agency's sights for allegedly encouraging U.S. taxpayers to open secret accounts abroad.

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Unit Should Help IRS Track Rich Tax Dodgers