“Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime:” Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police in the old Soviet Union.
It’s designed that way to control us.
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I don’t just listen to those people either…you are unlikely to get the whole story from any of them.
I go to the primary sources when I can.
In this case I am reading the case history.
TL/DR version so far (based on this link… http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/21-1009P-01A.pdf)
Ms. Toth is where she is because she appears to have stonewalled throughout the entire proceedings…even after having been told several times to hire an attorney to represent her (during the early days, it appears she was representing herself). The different courts tried to help her get representation.
It appears what got her the huge penalty was not simply failing to turn in the FBAR forms out of ignorance. It appears the court had reason to believe that for one year (2007) she willfully refused to do it (looking for more details on that still).
My guess is had she been fully cooperative during the whole ordeal, she would have only had a normal penalty.
You don’t get socked with the “half your account” penalty by merely forgetting to fill in the forms or not understanding that you have to.
You get socked when it’s determined you willfully didn’t turn the form in.
I hope no one is rationalizing this crap?
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What do you mean by rationalizing?
I know, why would someone try to rationalize Ms. Toth’s evasion of the law.
If she had simply reported the existence of the account as required by the law she wouldn’t be in this trouble. I lawyer that is versed in these type of situations to advise her on what to do would have been much cheaper.
WW
Folks, all I’m going to say as a CPA is that the IRS is just enforcing what CONGRESS has told them to enforce. Tax laws and regulations are complex, and if you ever find yourself out of compliance, please get appropriate representation - whether it be an enrolled agent, CPA, or tax attorney. Believe me - the money they can save you in situations like this is well worth what you will pay them.
I have a former coworker that settled a case similar to this where the client only ended up paying the IRS around $30,000 out of what had originally been a $5.2 million bill.
I know I use to hear Rush advertise some businesses that would do that type of thing for you - they are easy to find.
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Yep.
We’re going through this now since my MIL passed and my wife is the executor of her estate. In this case there are three types of assets involved:
- Money which became my wife’s (due to being co-owner of the account), but will be distributed to others (which may fall into gift tax realm).
- Liquid assets of the MIL moved into a trust,
- Non-liquid assets (percentage ownership in some land) which, to properly dispose of it, will take probate and probably a couple of years in the courts.
We have:
- A real estate/trust attorney that is working with us.
- A CPA who did the MIL’s taxes for years to close out this years taxes.
- A local CPA that is helping us make sure we file our tax related paperwork properly (inheritance and gift) and will help us with taxes come spring***
*** We’re simply folks and have always done our own taxes, this time though there will a separate set of eyes on it. And not, it’s not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things. LOL
WW
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I’m sorry you sometimes have to deal with informed people here. Not often, granted, but still.
I don’t understand why it is such a controversial thing to understand that if you can get primary sources, to get them.
It doesn’t take brains…it takes a willingness to do the work.
Why would you rely on social media? People on social media are there because they want to tell you a story. Lots of media types do as well.
They edit what they show you so that whatever they do show you tells the story they want to tell.
So yes…anytime someone posts a story that has YouTube or other social media as its source? I am going to check it with better sources.
Your mileage may vary.
There is all kinds of informed people here on both sides. They just don’t brag about it. But not surprising you completely wiffed on the point.
Because you are being a braggert about it. Not controversial to look further. Bring your info and source and leave it at that. You on the other hand “you are wrong I looked it up my interpretation is the correct one and you are lazy and stupid for not agreeing”
Probate sucks, my mom passed in January. I have too much to do normally so I hired a probate law firm to deal with the headaches.
When deciding to go into a life of organized crime one of the first important decisions to make is if you will be in government or the provate sector.
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