A Caribbean bank with a branch in the Virgin Islands is under the scrutiny of United States tax officials who believe the bank may have helped some Americans evade tax.
The Internal Revenue Service has filed a “John Doe” summons seeking account information for unknown US taxpayers who have offshore accounts at FirstCaribbean International Bank, according to the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper.
The Guardian reported that an IRS agent gave an affidavit to support the summons in which she described the investigation into FCIB.
“I discovered information about a US taxpayer (Taxpayer 1) who had opened numerous bank accounts at FCIB and its predecessor Barclays bank in a Caribbean jurisdiction in his own name and in the names of various shell companies he controlled,” wrote the agent, Cheryl Kiger. “Taxpayer 1 did not report any income arising from the transactions involving these FCIB accounts.”
See the May 30, 2013 edition for full coverage.
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