Nick Fountain

Pay what you owe.

Yeah, they're hiring tons of people.

The wind is at Carolyn's back.

She thinks this rule has a great chance of making it officially into the Federal Register as a finalized rule.

In 2023, according to reporting by Tax Notes and others, the IRS even issued criminal summonses to gather more information on who was using these retirement accounts and who was telling them it was OK.

Carolyn wouldn't go into specifics, but she says they have very powerful tools.

They can go to the promoters of these schemes and say, tell me who your clients were, who hired you to set up a Maltese retirement account.

But in the middle of this big push to close up this loophole, a few things happened.

Donald Trump was elected president.

Doge cleared out a bunch of IRS staff.

And that guy you heard on the calls describing the industry's defense of these Maltese retirement accounts, Kenneth Keyes, he got two huge jobs in the administration.

We reached out several times over several weeks to the Treasury and the IRS asking for an interview with Keyes.

They didn't give us one, but they gave us a statement saying, Assistant Secretary Keyes has recused himself from all matters related to Malta pension plans in his capacity at Treasury and the IRS.

Carolyn, if it isn't obvious, is no longer on the case.

She does not work for the government anymore.

Like a quarter of the IRS's staff, she left when Doge was gutting the agency.

Did you have more work to do on the Malta thing?

Meanwhile, we don't know what's going to happen with that come clean regulation at the IRS, the one that would force everyone who did this thing to reveal themselves.

What is the status of this rule?

You think it's done?