Mr. Ketcham has extensive experience defending FBAR (and other international information reporting forms, e.g., F5471, F8938, F3520/3520A) enforcement cases in both the U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Tax Court, and is often on the front-line of the IRS's recent enforcement initiatives in this space. Mr. Ketcham has been uniquely successful and, in many cases, has convinced IRS Appeals, IRS Chief Counsel, or the courts that penalties for willful violations are more appropriately resolved as non-willful violations that warranted zero or minimal penalties. For example, Mr. Ketcham represented a taxpayer with unreported foreign accounts who was the target of a grand jury investigation; the prosecutors ultimately dropped the criminal investigation and, about two years later, the IRS agreed to the imposition of a single, one-time, non-willful penalty. In other foreign bank case, Mr. Ketcham persuaded the IRS to drop all possible civil financial penalties and simply issue a "warning letter" to the taxpayer. More recently, Mr. Ketcham represented a taxpayer in FBAR litigation filed by the government in federal court New York that was subsequently referred to court-annexed mediation and was able to negotiate a rare settlement with the Department of Justice's Tax Division, which typically seeks summary judgment or a trial in FBAR cases.
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