June 21, 2011. Can IRS Force Your Accountant To Talk? (Forbes). With all the talk of undisclosed foreign bank accounts and coming clean to the IRS, there’s renewed buzz about an age-old topic: what tax information can the IRS get? Under the U.S. Constitution, you can’t be made to testify against yourself. You can assert your Fifth Amendment rights and decline to answer IRS questions, even in front of a judge. But documents are a different story. If you have documents—such as foreign bank account records—the IRS can obtain them with a summons, subpoena or search warrant. That may make you wonder if you aren’t better off with sensitive information in the hands of your lawyer. That’s especially true if you’ve considered a quiet disclosure. Thanks to attorney-client privilege, if you confess to a lawyer you’re hiding income or assets offshore the IRS can’t make the lawyer talk. The IRS can’t even make your lawyer produce your documents with a summons or subpoena…
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