American taxpayers with MasterCard and American Express accounts held in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Antigua/Barbuda may get checked out by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as part of a tax-evasion probe okayed by a U.S. district judge.
Access into the accounts was delivered Monday by U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan, giving the IRS permission to issue summons for records of purchases made using the charge, debit and credit cards. The IRS is reportedly scrutinizing transactions, such as car, boat and airline ticket purchases, as well as hotel and car rentals as part of one of the largest IRS investigations into offshore accounts.
Although there's been no official number listed, there could be thousands of accounts in the tax-evasion probe. Officials at both credit card companies have conveyed their willingness to cooperate with the IRS investigation. MasterCard, a spokesman said, has "a long history of cooperating with governmental
agencies", while an Amex spokesperson told the Associated Press, "We are now speaking to the IRS to get
a better idea of what they're looking at."
The accounts under scrutiny are being held in countries known as tax havens for their banking secrecy laws, a feature appreciated by money launderers and anyone wanting to hide money from probing eyes. IRS officials, however, told AP that investigators are hoping to bypass these laws by going through the Miami headquarters for the Caribbean businesses.