| In parallel with its pursuit of offshore bank account holders through the credit card companies, the US Treasury Department is intending to increase enforcement of an existing law which requires taxpayers to disclose foreign bank accounts totalling more than US$10,000. The disclosure is supposed to be made both on annual tax returns and on separate Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Reports (FBAR). The Treasury says that the IRS received fewer than 200,000 such reports last year, but estimates that more than one million taxpayers probably have qualifying accounts. |