From the Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing - If You Find Issues with Past Tax Returns, Should You Submit Amended Tax Returns?

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tax returns can be complex, especially for large domestic and international businesses or individual taxpayers with lots of offshore bank and financial accounts & offshore businesses or investments. As such, it is not uncommon for taxpayers, even those who have had "professional" help filling out their returns, to make a mistake that they may not notice until they are going over their forms again after they have been submitted, especially where you have changed tax preparers.

If amending your return changes the amount of tax due by a substantial amount you run the risk of sparking an audit or criminal tax investigation.  If your tax goes up the state or federal government might suspect that you cheated on the original return by omitting income or by claiming deductions or credits for which you are entitled.  If your tax goes down, they might infer the opposite – that you are cheating in the act of filing an amended return.  The very act of amending a return can be construed as a criminal admission by a federal or state taxing authority in certain circumstances.   Therefore, it's an excellent  idea to contact an experienced dual licensed Tax Attorney and CPA like those at the Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing before choosing to submit amended returns so we can keep you out of trouble.  

If the original returns were false and you willfully filed them nonetheless, you are wise to submit an amended return before the IRS catches it and opens a high-risk eggshell audit or criminal tax investigation to avoid facing serious civil fines and even criminal tax prosecution and restitution.

Where undisclosed foreign accounts or unreported offshore income generating assets are involved or a large amount of domestic tax has been underreported over several years in a consistently deceptive manner, a domestic or offshore voluntary disclosure program may be the better option for you in order to simultaneously receive a nearly guaranteed pass on criminal tax prosecution and to minimize any potential civil penalties involved and achieve a certain degree of certainty in the process.

See the full version of this article here

Public Contact: Dave Klasing Esq. M.S.-Tax CPA, [email protected]

SOURCE Tax Law Offices of David W. Klasing, PC