Thousands Come Clean as IRS Gets $2.7 Billion

bloomberg red new logoThe Internal Revenue Service has taken in a total of $2.7 billion from holders of offshore bank accounts, the agency said as it announced that 12,000 taxpayers responded to the second round of a partial amnesty program.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said yesterday that the agency’s emphasis on international tax enforcement prompted more people than anticipated to accept penalties and reveal their accounts.

“The results we’re seeing today were unthinkable just a few short years ago,” he said on a conference call with reporters. “The world has clearly changed.”

The results mark the continuation of the IRS’s beefed-up enforcement efforts, which include the voluntary programs as well as prosecutions with the Department of Justice.

“You’d have to be living in a hole not to know that the U.S. government is really focused on offshore tax evasion, getting better at it,” Shulman said.

He declined to comment on U.S. efforts to obtain account information from Swiss banks, other than to confirm that the U.S. and Swiss governments are discussing the issue.

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