International Tax Enforcement: The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement

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Jason B. Freeman

Jason B. Freeman

Managing Member

214.984.3410
Jason@FreemanLaw.com

Mr. Freeman is the founding member of Freeman Law, PLLC. He is a dual-credentialed attorney-CPA, author, law professor, and trial attorney.

Mr. Freeman has been named by Chambers & Partners as among the leading tax and litigation attorneys in the United States and to U.S. News and World Report’s Best Lawyers in America list. He is a former recipient of the American Bar Association’s “On the Rise – Top 40 Young Lawyers” in America award. Mr. Freeman was named the “Leading Tax Controversy Litigation Attorney of the Year” for the State of Texas for 2019 and 2020 by AI.

Mr. Freeman has been recognized multiple times by D Magazine, a D Magazine Partner service, as one of the Best Lawyers in Dallas, and as a Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters service. He has previously been recognized by Super Lawyers as a Top 100 Up-And-Coming Attorney in Texas.

Mr. Freeman currently serves as the chairman of the Texas Society of CPAs (TXCPA). He is a former chairman of the Dallas Society of CPAs (TXCPA-Dallas). Mr. Freeman also served multiple terms as the President of the North Texas chapter of the American Academy of Attorney-CPAs. He has been previously recognized as the Young CPA of the Year in the State of Texas (an award given to only one CPA in the state of Texas under 40).

Leaders from the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement recently issued a notice, available here, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the formation of the so-called J5 Group.  The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement have combined forces across the globe in an effort to target international tax evasion, hidden bank accounts, and money laundering.  The J5 intends to usher in a new era of tax enforcement marked by international cooperation and improved data sharing.

According to the notice:

The five Chiefs who make up the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5) have spearheaded this new operational organization specifically focusing on shared areas of concern and cross-national tax crime threats including cyber-crime and crypto-currency as well as enablers of global tax evasion, while working to share intelligence and data in near real time.

The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement have dozens of ongoing investigations, including:

sophisticated international enablers of tax evasion, including a global financial institution and its intermediaries who facilitate taxpayers to hide their income and assets. These highly harmful, high-end enablers of tax evasion were previously thought to be beyond the reach of the member countries. The agencies are also cooperating on cases covering crimes from money laundering and the smuggling of illicit commodities to personal tax frauds and evasion. Additionally, there have already been hundreds of data exchanges between J5 partner agencies with more data being exchanged in the past year than the previous 10 years combined.

The J5 recently shut down an important online mixer for cryptocurrencies, and is analyzing seized data.  The group has particularly focused its efforts on enablers of tax crimes and virtual currencies.  Expect to see numerous announcements of investigations and criminal charges in the coming months.

The J5 includes the heads of tax crime and senior officials from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD), Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

 

International and Offshore Tax Compliance Attorneys 

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