Required Records, The Act Of Production And Secret Offshore Accounts
February 27, 2013 | The Insider: White Collar Defense and Securities Enforcement
The Fifth Amendment dictates that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." While most non-lawyers (and many lawyers) might assume that this simple edict means the government cannot force an individual to produce incriminatory documents, the law is far more muddled. And lawyers representing taxpayers with undisclosed offshore accounts are asking the United States Supreme Court to clarify the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination in this important context. [...]