From Fresh Start Tax LLC Reveals How IRS Now Uses Internet and Technology to Uncover Taxpayer's Assets in Back Taxes and Criminal Cases
Fort Lauderdale, FL. (PRWEB) September 30, 2013 -- Whenever an IRS Agent is assigned a criminal or civil case for federal tax debt, the taxpayer is required to complete a current financial statement. On that statement, the taxpayer lists all assets he/she possess at the time. According to the IRS Manual, the Agent then begins the asset investigation with the basics: a courthouse search for real estate property and title search for vehicles, motorcycles, etc.
The financial statement also serves as the foundation for their investigation because the statement is signed by the taxpayer “under the penalty of perjury”. During the course of the investigation, the IRS Agent will learn whether a taxpayer has perjured or lied. Whenever a taxpayer is communicating with the IRS, correct and truthful information is mandatory otherwise you could find yourself involved in a criminal investigation. The Criminal Investigation Division conducts investigations regarding violations of the IRS Code, the Bank Secrecy Act and various money laundering statutes.
Many times the IRS pulls credit reports from all three credit agencies. Credit reports contain a wealth of information. These reports will let the IRS know where an individual works and lives, property loans, and credit card account balances. The kicker here is this, IRS can also find out who has made inquiries about an individual, and whether that person has turned in a financial statement to that source. The IRS can actually issue a Summons to that company for the financial statement turned in and then compare the financial statement given to them. Being a Former IRS agent I have seen few ever match up and the IRS can use that to their advantage.
The IRS also has its own internal locator. The internal locator will have a income records over the last six years of all 1099's, W-2s, tax returns or any third party reporting of income that has been given to Internal Revenue Service.
One of the new asset information sources for IRS is the annual FBAR filing. The FBAR reports any overseas bank and financial records. IRS can also inquire of a bank CTR of any cash activity over $10,000 or more.
IRS will then look to a very common search engine called Accurint, by Lexis Nexis, and is used by many creditors today. The Accurint search engine has over 37 billion current public records which assist in fraud detection and identity verification, which is part of the IRS investigation. It is one of the go-to tools that are used by the Internal Revenue Service.
The IRS is now also looking to additional external sources such as the public search engines of Google, Bing, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media which reveal a taxpayers life habits.
Depending on the dollar amount of the case IRS can also use information from Passports, conduct 3rd party interviews, vessel and license checks at the courthouse all at the click button. IRS commonly will check for Patents, Trademarks, Franchises, Licenses, Domain Name of a web site.
Modern technology has allowed not only the IRS but any government agency the ability to find out a plethora of information about taxpayers with a few clicks on the computer.
Fresh Start Tax is a professional tax resolution firm, A+ Rated and accredited by the Better Business Bureau. On staff are Tax Attorneys, CPAs, and Former IRS Agents, Managers and Instructors. We have over 206 years of professional tax experience and over 60 years of direct IRS experience. To learn more about Fresh Start Tax, LLC, please visit http://freshstarttax.com or call us at (866)700-1040.
Kelly Hadlock, Fresh Start Tax, LLC, +1 (954) 492-0088, [email protected]
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