Activities of IRS Large Business and International Division Earn Its Commissioner Recognition As “Tax Person of the Year”

Citing many developments in the IRS Large Business and International Division in 2010, Tax Analysts this week named IRS LB&I Commissioner Heather Maloy as its “Tax Person of the Year.”

Among those developments that we have followed previously are the international focus of the restructured LB&I division (formerly known as the Large and Mid-Size Business Division (LMSB)), and the creation of the new Global High Wealth Industry Group within LB&I. That group within LB&I is already is working some very significant IRS Whistleblower cases.

Also mentioned by Tax Notes was one of my favorite IRS professionals who assisted the new IRS Whistleblower Program in its infancy, Stuart Mann:

Even before the enactment of the new withholding and information reporting requirements in FATCA [Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act], the IRS had already started to increase resources for international withholding compliance, and in November 2008 it appointed Stuart Mann to serve as program manager of the foreign payments group for LB&I.

In response to the increased globalization of transactions, Mann and his team work to ensure compliance with U.S. withholding requirements for international taxation. In the coming months, Mann — along with LB&I Deputy Commissioner (International) Michael Danilack and Kathy Robbins, the director of LB&I’s new International Business Compliance unit — will be leading a team tasked with implementing the FATCA provisions to fight offshore tax evasion with increased information reporting requirements.

For the last several years, Mann has been involved in several high-profile areas, including the IRS tax shelter enforcement and whistleblower programs. Before shifting his focus to international reporting and withholding, Mann was an executive assistant to the LB&I financial services industry director and served as a territory manager and team manager for many large case examinations, including several international withholding examinations. Mann also served on the IRS international money laundering task force in the late 1980s and early 1990s.