Reporting on a California State Bar Tax Section Meeting, Tax Notes reports that the IRS will soon (as early as the week of 11/11/13) ) “begin examining U.S. taxpayers suspected of holding undeclared accounts in Indian banks, according to Nicholas Connors, a supervisory revenue agent” with SB/SE.

Some excerpts:

After receiving account information from Indian banks, the IRS has about 100 Indian bank account cases that it is sending out for examination across the country, he said.

“I think California, because of the large Indian population, is going to get more than its fair share of cases,” Connors said. “Within the Northern California/Bay Area, we’re scheduled to pick up 30 or 40 of those.”

“Looking ahead, the offshore bank investigations are just going to grow,” Connors said. In addition to India, “Israel is on the list of banks that is providing information to us, and from there it just keeps going on and on,” he said. “Within Examination, there’s talk that this could someday become a work issue for every single revenue agent in SB/SE where everyone will be working some type of offshore case.”

Regarding Quiet Disclosures, Tax Notes reports:

The SEP team continues to examine quiet disclosures as well as cases regarding taxpayers who opted out of the IRS offshore voluntary disclosure program (OVDP), said Connors. “The guidance we’re getting on quiet disclosures has been extremely harsh,” he said. “Essentially those taxpayers walked past compliance three times: They didn’t file correctly the first time, they didn’t come in under voluntary disclosure, and now they’re trying to hide it by slipping it in through an amended return. Don’t expect much leniency if we have a quiet disclosure case; agents are being told to be aggressive.”