Criminal investigators from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are investigating whether a Singapore asset-management firm accepted transfers from undeclared Swiss accounts closed by US taxpayers, the online edition of the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
Lawyers who spoke to the WSJ on the matter declined to name the Singapore firm being probed but said a few clients were being questioned about the asset manager.
The WSJ said the investigation marked an eastward expansion of the US crackdown on undeclared offshore accounts that began in Switzerland in 2009. Since then, US officials have pursued banks and individual "enablers," such as lawyers or asset managers, which have helped US taxpayers hide money abroad in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Israel, India and the Caribbean.
Until now, "there was little indication they had widened their probe to Southeast Asia or Hong Kong," the WSJ said.
The paper quoted Bryan Skarlatos, a lawyer with Kostelanetz & Fink in New York, as saying that the IRS and US Justice Department "seem be turning their focus east, where there are many US taxpayers with accounts. The law firm has represented nearly 2,000 taxpayers with undeclared offshore accounts, the WSJ added.
Since the US crackdown on offshore account tax evasion began in 2009, more than 50,000 people have entered a special IRS limited-amnesty programme for individuals with offshore accounts, said the WSJ.
They have paid more than US$7 billion (S$9.6 billion) to resolve their cases, while banks in Switzerland and elsewhere have paid more than US$4 billion to resolve theirs, with more to come, the paper added.
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Lawyers who spoke to the WSJ on the matter declined to name the Singapore firm being probed but said a few clients were being questioned about the asset manager.
The WSJ said the investigation marked an eastward expansion of the US crackdown on undeclared offshore accounts that began in Switzerland in 2009. Since then, US officials have pursued banks and individual "enablers," such as lawyers or asset managers, which have helped US taxpayers hide money abroad in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Israel, India and the Caribbean.
Until now, "there was little indication they had widened their probe to Southeast Asia or Hong Kong," the WSJ said.
The paper quoted Bryan Skarlatos, a lawyer with Kostelanetz & Fink in New York, as saying that the IRS and US Justice Department "seem be turning their focus east, where there are many US taxpayers with accounts. The law firm has represented nearly 2,000 taxpayers with undeclared offshore accounts, the WSJ added.
Since the US crackdown on offshore account tax evasion began in 2009, more than 50,000 people have entered a special IRS limited-amnesty programme for individuals with offshore accounts, said the WSJ.
They have paid more than US$7 billion (S$9.6 billion) to resolve their cases, while banks in Switzerland and elsewhere have paid more than US$4 billion to resolve theirs, with more to come, the paper added.
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