I'm an American citizen living in Colombia, South America, with my family. My wife and I have been filing U.S. and Colombian tax returns every year since we moved there, but we were unaware, and our accountant never told us, that we had to report information about our foreign (Colombian) bank accounts on our U.S. tax returns. Now we're trying to come into compliance with our U.S. tax obligations and recently contacted another accountant who, after reviewing our information, told us that because our failure to disclose our offshore assets was non-willful we shouldn't have a problem qualifying for the IRS' streamlined offshore voluntary compliance program. The fees we're looking at, however, are much higher than we were expecting - around US$10,000 for reporting and amending the last 3 U.S. returns and another US$12,500 for an attorney who will put together our case with the IRS.

Anyway, I just would like to know whether this is the going rate for these services or whether I should be able to hire a good U.S. accountant (and lawyer) to handle this matter for us for considerably lower fees?