Foreign tax havens get new scrutiny

These Alpine tax accounts came under renewed interest earlier this year, by the IRS and tax collectors across Europe, as they went after individuals they suspect have been hiding their money in the tiny country of Liechtenstein to avoid taxes in their homelands.

Now the IRS is looking for even more foreign-stashed cash that it says should be taxed.

The New York Times reports today that the IRS is aggressively enforcing a law from the 1970s that was created those many years ago to help ferret out laundered drug money.

According to the paper, an estimated 1 million American taxpayers should be filing Form TD F 90-22.1, officially known as a Foreign Bank and Financial Account Report, or FBAR, but that as few as one in four file the disclosures.

So the IRS is going after, in no uncertain terms, those FBAR nonfilers. The Times says the agency is "moving to enforce the law aggressively and to apply stiff new penalties to taxpayers who don't file the disclosures."

What are suspect accounts? You don't have to worry if you have some funds in a mutual fund that invests in international assets. Even if your account hits the $10,000 in value trigger amount, that reporting should be taken care by your account manager.

If you do have that much money in such an account, though, you might want to double-check that your money manager did his or her job in this regard.

And, by the way, in this case you did remember to claim the foreign tax credit for those other country's taxes you paid, didn't you?

You also can check out the FAQs on FBARs that the IRS put together to make sure you know the rules about whether your offshore funds should be reported.

Read them carefully. Among those IRS questions and answers, the agency warns, "Failure to file an FBAR when required to do so may potentially result in civil penalties, criminal penalties, or both."

Thanks to the Patriot Act, those penalties could be sizable. Provisions designed to halt suspected money flowing to terrorists call for a civil fine of $100,000 or half of the amount in the foreign account, whichever is greater.

Where's my rebate?

If you took out one of these products and had your expected refund amount loaded onto a prepaid card, your economic stimulus check is going to be of the paper variety, not electronic. And that means you'll have to wait longer for your money.

A lot of folks got these cards this filing season, the most popular options being the ipower Visa card from Jackson Hewitt and the Emerald MasterCard via H&R Block. Now they are upset that they have to wait for paper delivery of their rebate money instead of having that amount added to the card.

The main complaint is that when they had their taxes done at these franchise offices, the marketing material reportedly referred to having refunds "directly deposited" onto the card accounts.

So why isn't the same direct deposit happening with the rebates? Account numbers were entered as they would have been had the money gone into a bank account. Why must these folks now wait for paper checks?

You can be mad all you want, but there's nothing you can do about it. And an H&R Block spokeswoman was quick to point out that the decision was not her company's (or their competitors'), but was made by the IRS.

The rebate deposit rule is that if you got a bank product, such as a refund anticipation loan or had your tax prep fees paid from the refund amount on the card, you will get a paper check. Period.

But, according to H&R Block, if the card simply was used as a vehicle for the direct deposit of the taxpayer's original refund amount and only that amount of money was loaded onto the card, then the stimulus rebate will go on the card, too.

So check your prepaid card terms.

Tracking your rebate online: You also can now go online to check the status of your rebate money.

The IRS has set up a new Internet tracking tool, modeled after it's popular Where's My Refund?

At the similarly named Where's My Rebate? you enter your Social Security number (if you filed a joint return, use the SSN of the spouse listed first on your 1040), your filing status and the number of exemptions you claimed on your 2007 return.

If, like silly, slow me, you've yet to file your return, after clicking "submit" you'll get a page that tells you, "We are sorry. Specific information about your Stimulus payment is not available."

Possible reasons for the unknown status, according to the IRS, are:

The IRS also urges patience (yeah, right!), saying, "Please allow 6 weeks after filing your tax return before checking on the status of your Stimulus Payment."

If you prefer a phone to online (which then raises the question, why are you here reading this?), you also can track your rebate via the IRS Rebate Hotline toll-free at (866) 234-2942. You'll need the same information that the online tracking system requires.

More rebate-related cards: Once you do get your rebate, retailers are using plastic to try to get you to spend it in their establishments.

Several national chains -- Sears, Kmart, Kroger, Home Depot and Staples, just to name a few -- are offering shoppers bonuses of up to 10 percent of their rebate amounts if they convert their rebates to store gift cards.

Details on the programs can be found in articles published at USA Today, BusinessWeek and MSNBC.