Nick Fountain

The crackdown.

Right.

This next part is about the moment that line between legit loophole and illegitimate tax shelter comes into focus.

These tax professionals have been pushing on one side of that line.

Now the government is going to start pushing back from the other side.

Which brings us back to Carolyn, the lawyer who spent nearly two decades at the IRS.

In 2021, she says, the IRS was soliciting from their staff candidates for this list they put together every year where they call out tax schemes that people should be very wary of.

Like, do this at your own risk because it might come back to bite you.

It's called the Dirty Dozen List.

That means tax lawyers?

And she says one way the IRS figures out if something is legit or not is whether there's any economic logic to it other than avoiding taxes.

Like, is there a business reason a person or a company might need a Maltese account?

Yeah, it did not.

So she nominated it for that year's Dirty Dozen list.

Arguing that putting your highly appreciated assets into a Maltese retirement account doesn't

like imaginary Max Franklin sticking his chunk of a company in there, is a tax shenanigan, a move that ultimately denies the American government and people the money they're due.

It sends out a big press release saying putting appreciated assets into Maltese retirement accounts in order to avoid taxes is probably sketchy.

We're looking into it and officially adding it to the dirty dozen.

Is that a huge day for you?

Just walk into the office with a lot of bravado.