Update on IRS Form 11457 for Voluntary Disclosure in IRS VDP (6/30/25)

The National Taxpayer Advocate announced that, at her urging, the IRS has agreed:

1. to eliminate the Part II (complete upon acceptance into the VDP) checkbox

2. to establish a “working group to comprehensively review the current VDP, provide recommendations for reforming the program, narrow the definition of illegal source income to encourage greater participation in the VDP, and clarify other terms.”

See Criminal VDP: TAS Reports a Win For Taxpayers – IRS Agrees to Remove Willfulness Checkbox on VDP Application Form (NTA Blog 6/24/25), here.

I revised the working draft of the Federal Tax Procedure 2025 Editions (to be published at least by early August 2025) to include this information. Perhaps the key issues I mention in the working draft are:

• As of the date of this publication, the Form available on the IRS website is dated 11/12/24 and thus does not yet implement that decision. Can a taxpayer in the meantime omit checking the box in the currently available Form?;

AG Bondi and President Trump Violate Precepts of Criminal Justice that DOJ Tax Knows and Gets Right (6/8/25)

 I write today on a basic premise of the criminal justice system that Trump and his minions have misrepresented in a malevolent way. I contrast those misrepresentations with the way DOJ Tax Division (and other DOJ components) act more responsibly.

Attorney General Pam Bond is quoted in several news articles, including ABC News quoted here, except that I bold-face for emphasis):

"The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring," Bondi said. "They found this was his full time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country."

Abrego Garcia's indictment was the pretext for obtaining his return from El Salvador that the courts have ordered for some time now.

As all readers of this blog know (I hope), an indictment is not a finding of guilt nor is it a finding of any fact such as proclaimed publicly by AG Bondi. Grand juries only determine probable cause to indict–a significantly lesser standard than beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard for finding guilt of a crime)--and indictments do not require unanimity as required in criminal trials.

When done right, as DOJ Tax routinely does, the announcement of any indictment always includes:

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

See, e.g., here.

Further, as to the role of grand juries in the system, AG Bondi should acquaint herself with the relevant provisions of the DOJ's Justice Manual that all DOJ attorneys, including the AG, must know and follow (except in her case she may not know or follow):

Title 9: Criminal, 9-11.000 - Grand Jury, here

AG Bondi might also acquaint herself with AG Robert Jackson's (later Supreme Court Justice) famous statement on "The Federal Prosecutor," posted on DOJ's website here.