A U.S. District Judge in Manhattan federal court has signed an order allowing summonses to be issued requiring several major U.S. companies to provide information on U.S. taxpayers who may be guilty of tax evasion.  The summons is part of a large-scale criminal investigation to identify anyone who participated in a particular tax evasion scheme between 2005 and 2013. 

The government has been aggressively targeting U.S. investors who have failed to report offshore accounts.  Just recently, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Acting Special Agent for the NY Criminal Investigations Division of the Internal Revenue Service announced that an indictment had been unsealed. The indictment was against a resident of Kentucky named Peter Canale, who is a U.S. citizen.  Canale was accused of conspiring with others to willfully fail to report assets and income to the United States government.

Governments throughout the world are facing major budget issues, in part due to the lingering after-effect of the global financial meltdown in 2008.  With the demands for government services always growing, governments are looking for revenue anywhere they can find it, and many are finding it by going after those who have offshore accounts. 

A bank in Israel, Bank Leumi, is being targeted by the New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates banks in the state of New York. Why? New York regulators believe Bank Leumi helped facilitate tax evasion among U.S. citizens with offshore investments.  

Global tax evasion has become a top focus throughout the United States and the rest of the developed nations as countries struggle with lingering budget shortages that are a holdover from the 2008 crash and following recession.  Countries are seeking to maximize their tax revenue by ensuring that people do not move money to foreign banks in order to avoid paying what is owed to the government.