Perhaps the advertising agency that developed the slogan, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good” got it wrong. Maybe what they really meant to say was, “If it’s FOIA, it has to be good.”

To find out why, read on …

Denis Brager, an esteemed tax attorney, has received more than 6,500 pages from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program. This potential “treasure trove” of information was disclosed as the result of a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request filed on behalf of TaxProblemAttorneyBlog.com, Mr. Brager’s blog. In response, Brager Tax Law Group received a CD containing thousands of documents. Of the approximately 7,100 pages that were considered “relevant” to Mr. Brager’s request, the IRS turned over more than 6,500 pages and withheld the rest.

The documents were posted last month on the Brager website. The requested documents include educational programs implemented by the IRS to train employees about the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, material used to train IRS personnel in the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, and the calculation of program penalties.