Hunt for Tax Cheats Leads U.S. Government to Banks in Belize
- IRS gets judge's approval to serve summons on two banks
- Investigation into wealthy Americans avoiding taxes widens
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In its hunt for tax cheats, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is headed to Belize.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Miami authorized the IRS to serve a so-called “John Doe” summons on two U.S. banks for correspondent account information related to Belize Bank International Ltd. and Belize Bank Ltd., both subsidiaries of BCB Holdings Ltd. Such summons are used by the IRS to get information about possible tax evasion when they don’t know the identities of the taxpayers, but suspect a group of Americans may be using such accounts to dodge taxes.