| Summary of Abusive Trust Schemes
by IRS -Criminal Investigation Division (04/15/2000)
In the last few years the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI) has detected a proliferation of abusive trust tax evasion schemes. Currently, there are two prevalent fraudulent schemes being promoted: the “domestic scheme” and the “foreign scheme.” The domestic scheme involves a series of trusts that are formed in the U.S., while the foreign trust scheme is formed offshore and outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. The trusts involved in the schemes, either foreign or domestic, are vertically layered with each trust distributing income to the next layer. The result of this layered distribution of income is to fraudulently reduce taxable income to nominal amounts. Although these schemes give the appearance of the separation of responsibility and control from the benefits of ownership, these schemes are in fact controlled and directed by the taxpayer. |  |