On May 13, 2022, Jay Nanavati participates in a panel entitled, “Targeting Tyrants, Toadies, Tax Evaders, Oligarchs, and the Ostensible Gatekeepers” for “Hybrid 2022 May Tax Meeting” hosted by the American Bar Association’s Section of Taxation.

Description: Navigating the new tax & transparency policies aimed at unmasking “beneficial owners” and stopping the shell games. For decades, offshore financial centers have competed fiercely with each other to attract wealthy individuals and families by offering them not only low tax rates, but also a private place to protect their assets from creditors and regulators. Circuitous investment strategies — involving tiers of shell companies, private banks, and Wall Street connections — have facilitated the “legal” placement of billions of dollars with prominent US hedge funds and PE firms. Despite KYC compliance, the true beneficial owners often remain anonymous, allowing every “gatekeeper” (i.e., attorneys, accountants, and investment advisors) plausible deniability — i.e., the ability to honesty say that he or she was not knowingly working directly for an illicit enterprise. In December 2021, FinCEN issued proposed regulations implementing the 2020 Corporate Transparency Act, the purpose of which is to create a national “beneficial ownership registry,” and to combat, to the broadest extent possible, the proliferation of anonymous shell companies that facilitate the flow and sheltering of illicit money in the United States. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had this unexpected side effect: demonstrating that the complex offshore financial system can dismantle itself. In March 2021, the IRS asked Congress for more resources in implementing the Biden Administration’s sanctions program, along with DOJ’s “kleptocracy task force.” Senator Wyden has introduced a bill to eliminate certain tax and treaty benefits for Russian oligarchs. On a multilateral level, the US Treasury has joined other countries to launch the “Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) multilateral task force. Panelists will discuss these new tax policy and transparency initiatives, and their implications for practitioners, including new due diligence concerns, the attorney-client privilege, the duty of confidentiality, and compliance issues in identifying the true “beneficial owners” of complex structures, and reporting to FinCEN the names of the professionals who helped create them.

Moderator:

• Pamela A. Fuller, Tully Rinckey, Zahn Law

Panelists:

• Alan Granwell, Holland & Knight, LLP
• Bruce Zagaris, Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP
• Jay Nanavati, Kostelanetz & Fink, LLP
• Marco Rossi, Marco Q. Rossi & Associati, PLLC

This event is available to attend in-person or remotely.

Click here for more information and to register.