The IRS is rescuing a fellow Treasury Department bureau after a major data-sharing project fell prey to management problems. The tax agency has opened its modernized Currency and Banking Retrieval System—where it stores Bank Secrecy Act data—to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN will use the system’s data query and analysis functions, rather than continue work on its floundering BSA Direct Retrieval and Sharing system.
August 2006 Archives
The Compliance Commission has crafted a revised set of guidelines designed to strengthen the regulatory regime for anti-money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism. A lawyer practicing in The Bahamas is designated as a financial institution for anti money laundering purposes in any case where he receives funds during the course of business for services which range from investing or making a deposit on a client's behalf to settling real estate transactions.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Britain's Rolling Stones raked in $152.5 million last year, but thanks to offshore investing, paid only 1.6 percent in taxes, it was reported Wednesday.
The legendary rock group practices in Canada and has had all of its finances handled in the Netherlands since 1972 to avoid paying high British taxes, the Independent reported.
Continue reading The Rolling Stones get tax breaks.
The sparkling glass towers rising above the Atlantic along Brickell Avenue have long been the place where Latin America's wealthy parked their money during political crises and invested it when times were good. International banking leaders say that post-September 11 security regulations have scared off some clients with clean money who, despite their proximity and attraction to the U.S., are increasingly making deposits in Panama or even Luxembourg. And they say the cost of following the regulations is too great for many smaller banks.
IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told senators Tuesday that a trend toward a world economy helps wealthy taxpayers hide money in complicated transactions offshore, virtually invisible to tax agents.
"We have real difficulties finding out what's going on," he said. "Our challenges are acute and ever-growing. Offshore abuses are a real problem."
