An investigative unit of the Internal Revenue Service has said that it has located 79 "tax evasion fugitives" in Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as part of what is described as the result of "the first year of a new extradition initiative," the Reuters news agency has reported.

The U.S., which "pressed the rest of the world" to crack down on the type of financial secrecy that enables tax evasion and cross-border illegality, is now "a hypocrite on international financial crime," Bloomberg, the major global media organization based in New York, has said, in an Editorial Board opinion piece it published on Friday. 

While news websites and newspapers continue to review, analyze and publish opinions based on ProPublica's recent and comprehensive research report on the relatively insignificant income taxes certain of Americas wealthiest Americans have been found to be paying, Republican politicians in Washington are, in their own words, "demanding answers," even as IRS commissioner Charles Rettig has assured them and others that the matter is being thoroughly investigated. 

American households accounting for the top 1% in annual income are managing to avoid significantly more in income taxes than had been previously assumed, a research paper due to be released later today by the Internal Revenue Service and academics will reveal.

The U.S. Justice Department last week announced that it had charged a Houston billionaire with having allegedly hid US$2bn from the government overseas, through the use of entities in the names of nominees – thus managing to avoid being flagged up by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or any other financial transparency programs.

Prosecutors are calling it "the biggest case ever" brought against an American citizen, media reports noted, including the Financial Times. 

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service this week undertook what it called a  "globally-coordinated day of action to put a stop to the suspected facilitation of offshore tax evasion", in partnership with the tax authorities of the UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands.

The U.S. Treasury Department  plans to scale back regulations that were brought in by President Obama as part of efforts to prevent American companies from shifting their profits overseas to avoid their U.S. tax obligations, guidance issued last week reveals.

Over the last few weeks and months, more media attention than usual has been paid to the 2010 Obama law known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

In what has become a regular promise of British chancellors over the past decade, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond on Wednesday vowed that the British government intends to come after those who see to evade or avoid their tax obligations through the use of offshore and cross-border means.

Adrian Paul Baron, a United Kingdom national who was the first person anywhere to be convicted of violating the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the U.S., has been flown back to the UK, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has announced.