Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedure (SDOP)

The Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedure an IRS Amnesty Program eligible for individuals, individual taxpayers, and estates who are U.S. residents and fail the non-residency requirement of the SFOP, and who have non-willfully failed to report all income, pay all tax, and submit all required information returns, including FBARs.

One of the most determinative aspects of the eligibility for the SDOP is that the failure to report all income, pay all tax, and submit all required information returns, including FBARs, must be due to non-willful conduct. Non-willful conduct is conduct that is due to negligence, inadvertence, or mistake or conduct that is the result of a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law.

This Program provides many benefits for those taxpayers who are eligible, some of these benefits include:

• Amnesty from the extremely severe "Failure to File" penalties,
• Amnesty from the accuracy related penalties, and
• Amnesty from the FBAR penalties
• Caps the amount of years to file at 3 *without filing through one of the IRS Amnesty programs, the statute of limitations for prior years does not end.

However, although this program provides excellent benefits, it is less lenient and it requires the taxpayer to agree to pay a penalty of 5% of the highest aggregated year-end balance of the taxpayers foreign financial assets during the years in which the taxpayer has failed to properly file.

It is imminent, that the requisites and each part of this program are met correctly, because even the most minor mistake can become costly and turn into serious consequences for the taxpayer. It is for these same reasons, that hiring an licensed lawyer who specializes in expat tax law is one of the best investments you can make to ensure that you become legally compliant with all the pertinent U.S. laws and requisites.

Many firms and companies offer automatic filings with operating systems that don't necessarily take into account your specific personal circumstances. Most importantly, only licensed attorneys can protect your conversations an documentation under Confidentiality, because they are protected by the Attorney-Client Privilege.

As a licensed Attorney, Alexandra Sabalier, Esq. is well-versed in the procedural and substantive tax rules and laws necessary to successfully represent clients involved in IRS tax filing procedures, IRS audits, collection matters and international tax issues.

Start your process today with a Legal Consultation to discuss your case, and study your options to become tax compliant! With this process the sooner you take action to report, truly is the better because the whole point the Amnesty is granted by the IRS is that the taxpayer reports voluntarily. Once the IRS starts a civil examination of taxpayer’s returns for any taxable year, regardless of whether it relates to undisclosed foreign financial assets, the taxpayer will not be eligible to use the streamlined procedures.