Reciprocity -- the U.S. Issues John Doe Summonses to Identify Norway Tax Cheats (7/29/13).

Janet Novack reports this morning that the IRS has filed John Doe Summons "petitions in nine different federal district courts asking judges to approve summonses for records that could reveal the identities of Norwegian taxpayers with secret U.S. bank accounts and of residents of Norway who should be, but aren’t, paying taxes there."  U.S. Seeks PNC, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Records To Find Tax Cheats--From Norway (Forbes 7/28/13), here. The summonses are sought pursuant to Norway's request under the double tax exchange of information provision, which requires a treaty partner upon the request of the other to use internal processes to obtain information relevant to taxes of the requesting treaty partner.

Further, Ms. Novack reports::

Already, judges have approved previously unreported summonses for records from PNC Bank and RBS Citizens in the Western District of  Pennsylvania; USAA Federal Savings Bank in the Western District of Texas;  BOKF  and 66 Federal Credit Union in the Northern District of Oklahoma;  Prairie Sun Bank in Minnesota; and East West Bank and Global Cash Card in the Central District of California.  Summons requests involving Wells Fargo WFC -0.32% and JP Morgan Chase, among others, are pending. There is no suggestion in the DOJ’s court filings that any of the U.S. institutions have done anything improper.

Each of the summonses

asks for information about bank account applications, signature cards and other records tied to one or a few specific payment or credit card numbers that have been used over a period of years for ATM withdrawals and other transactions in Norway which require a PIN, but don’t require the card holder’s name.  For example, according to a court-filed affidavit from IRS agent Cheryl Kiger, Norway reports one East West Bank payment card it wants information about was used from 2004 through 2012 for 661 transactions in Norway totaling 1,305,400 Norwegian Krone (NOK).  (That’s $221,918 at an average exchange rate for the period of one Krone equaling 17 U.S. cents.)

I will post more as I receive it, but obviously if the U.S. insists on such John Doe treaty requests when it makes them, it will have to reciprocate when treaty partners make them.  In this regard, historically exchange of information treaty requests have required some identification of the taxpayer.  However, as observers of the U.S.-Swiss spat know, Switzerland has recently approved "group requests" -- I call them John Doe treaty requests.  See Swiss Court Ruling in Credit Suisse Case (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 7/8/13), here.