Caribbean News Now!

by Caribbean News Now Staff

WASHINGTON, USA -- The United States said it plans to announce a new amnesty programme aimed at encouraging wealthy Americans with hidden offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean and elsewhere to come forward, declare the funds and pay the necessary taxes.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) spokesman, Frank Keith, said that the programme would be formally announced "very shortly" and would not offer terms as generous as those put forth in a similar initiative last year.

Senior tax lawyers say the announcement will most likely come within several weeks, ahead of the 2011 tax filing season.

The government wants to encourage people not to lie on their upcoming earnings said Robert Katzberg, a criminal defence lawyer in New York, with offshore bank clients in the Caribbean and Switzerland.

The previous so called voluntary disclosure programme, which ended last October, was carried out amid a crackdown on Swiss private banks and their clients who hid money from the government.

The Jamaica Observer reported that the programme was used by 15,000 Americans with hidden accounts, some holding hundreds of millions of dollars, the IRS said.

It said an additional 3,000 with accounts at various offshore banks, including the Cayman Islands, came forward after the October 15 deadline.

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