If you are an American taxpayer with an offshore accounts that you thought were secret, you must bring it into compliance that is file missing FBARs and include any missing income on amended tax returns. So what to do? The last offshore voluntary disclosure initiative (OVDI) ended on August 31, 2011. These are the four options still available.

Option One: Do nothing. You could do nothing and hope that the Internal Revenue Service does not come across the account. Perhaps your account is at a bank that you believe to be "off the radar" or is in a quiet country, or under a friend's name, or opened with a non-US passport. Well, it used to be that a bank account's actual owner could be kept anonymous. However, now, the Internal Revenue Service has vastly many more tools than it did previously to find previously unreported accounts.

This is an fundamental disadvantage. The chances are that the Internal Revenue Service does not discover hidden accounts gets more and more remote. Why? Because in order to compete for American customer and capital, foreign banks are coerced into complying with the IRS. That's right --- foreign banks take their marking orders from the IRS as well. So if the Internal Revenue Service wants information on American holders of foreign accounts, the IRS will get that information. The IRS will also run names of other people it suspects of being US citizens but who opened their accounts with foreign passports. The IRS has incredible investigative powers --- powers it never had before.

Option 2: Renounce citizenship; Leave the country. Do you want to say goodbye to the IRS? There is only one way to do it. That is, to renounce one's citizenship and no longer be a American citizen. The process is not as easy as you may think. Furthermore, a requirement of proper expatriation is that a citizen has to be in compliance with all tax laws and pay an expatriation tax in order to make it official. If you fail to expatriate properly, you would still be subject to the jurisdiction of the American, meaning nothing was accomplished and you are still subject to all the requirements of the tax code. Expatriation may make sense to avoid future tax liabilities , but you have to inform the IRS about the existence of previously unreported financial accounts first.

Option 3: Soft (or quiet) disclosure. One option is to file amended returns, this time including previously unreported income simply filing the returns as if it were simply forgotten income. Sounds think a good strategy, right? Perhaps one could avoid all those excessive penalties of the OVDI programs?

The IRS says that these amended returns are "red flags." Even though the tax returns are amended and back taxes paid, the IRS tells says that account holders will still face penalties and criminal charges. In addition to charging and prosecuting people with undeclared foreign income, the Department of Justice claims that it has also begun prosecution of citizens whose "Quiet Disclosures" were discovered by the Internal revenue service.

There are other problems with "Quiet Disclosures." One reason is that they do not address the problem of the taxpayer's non-compliance in FBAR filing; as a willful failure to file an FBAR is a criminal charge. As a result filing a soft disclosure 't go far enough to remove any likelihood of criminal charges. In fact, the 1040X may --- well here's the problem with this option --- the quiet disclosure does nothing about the failure to the FBAR. There are still criminal and civil investigations that may be pending for failing to file an FBAR, but simply give the Internal revenue service a very handy to find you.

Option 4: Pre-emptive Disclosure and Negotiation (" Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative") If enjoying the rest of your life is chief concern, there can be no doubt that this is the best option. Yes, the 2011 initiative expired, but that does not mean a voluntary disclosure can not be filed. The Internal Revenue Service always welcomes offshore disclosures. The only thing that expired was the particular provisions of the 2011 OVDI which capped certain penalties.

There are only 2 requirements. Initially, the taxpayer can not be under examination. In addition, the source of the money in the foreign bank accounts can not be from an illegal source. Think drug trafficking or money laundering.

If someone is still wondering what the proper course of action is, it is critical that they only talk to a experienced overseas tax lawyer. The attorney-client privilege only applies in communications to an lawyer. The IRS can subpoena a CPA or nearly anyone else to testify against a taxpayer.