Section Review

On Jan. 23, 2012, the Supreme Court published U.S. v. Jones,¹ holding the warrantless attachment of a GPS tracking device to an automobile is an unconstitutional search violating the 4th Amendment.² The Court reasoned that placement of a tracking device on an individual's effects (in this case, a car) constituted a physical intrusion for the purpose of obtaining information, and was therefore, a search.³

Major aspects of the 2010 Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Reform Act affecting the sealing of criminal records in Massachusetts will go into effect on May 4, 2012. Most significant are the sections that shorten the waiting period before one is eligible for sealing certain felonies and misdemeanors and that put greater limits on criminal record information given to employers and others.

The IRS has always been interested in taxpayers with offshore assets. The difficulty for the IRS has been finding out about those assets. In 2010, the IRS took one step closer to resolving this issue through the implementation of the Foreign Asset Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).¹ Unfortunately for taxpayers, their problems may just be beginning.