Tax

International Tax the filings, and what they cost to miss.

U.S. international compliance for businesses and individuals with cross-border ownership, accounts, or activity. This page is a register of what we file, not a pitch.

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Overview

Information returns, not structures.

Most of the international work that reaches a South Florida firm is compliance. A U.S. company with a foreign parent. A foreign national who bought a condominium. A family with accounts abroad. A U.S. owner who set up an entity overseas years ago and was never told what it obliged them to file.

The distinguishing feature of this area is that the largest penalties attach to information returns rather than to tax. You can owe nothing and still face a five-figure penalty for a form nobody told you about. Most of what we do here is finding those obligations and getting them filed — on time going forward, and through the appropriate procedure where years were missed.

For engagements requiring local expertise abroad, we coordinate with counsel and accounting professionals in the relevant jurisdiction.

Business

Cross-border businesses.

Inbound and outbound structures, foreign subsidiaries and branches, and the reporting that follows ownership across a border.

Form 1120-FU.S. Income Tax Return of a Foreign Corporation
Form 5471Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect To Certain Foreign Corporations
Form 5472Information Return of a 25% Foreign-Owned U.S. Corporation or a Foreign Corporation Engaged in a U.S. Trade or Business
Form 8865Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships
Form 8858Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Foreign Disregarded Entities (FDEs) and Foreign Branches (FBs)

Regimes and analysis

FATCA and W-8 series compliance — withholding certificate management, payee documentation, and the withholding determinations that follow from them.
Treaty and totalization agreement analysis — whether a treaty position is available, what it requires to claim, and where a totalization agreement changes social-security exposure for cross-border employees.
Permanent establishment — whether activity in the U.S. or abroad has crossed the threshold that creates a taxable presence, and what to do once it has.
IC-DISC — reporting for exporters using an interest charge domestic international sales corporation.
Earnings and profits — the calculations that drive Subpart F and GILTI inclusions and determine the character of distributions.

Form 5471 and Form 5472 carry penalties that start at $10,000 and $25,000 per form per year respectively, assessed whether or not any tax is owed, and they run per year for as long as the form went unfiled. A foreign-owned single-member LLC with no U.S. income and no U.S. tax still has a Form 5472 obligation.

Individual

Individuals and families.

Foreign accounts, foreign gifts and trusts, U.S. real property held by non-residents, and the reporting that attaches to each.

FinCEN Form 114Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)
Form 8938Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets
Form 3520Annual Return To Report Transactions With Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts
Form 3520-AAnnual Information Return of Foreign Trust With a U.S. Owner
Form 8621Information Return by a Shareholder of a Passive Foreign Investment Company or Qualified Electing Fund
Form 8288 / 8288-AU.S. Withholding Tax Return for Certain Dispositions by Foreign Persons (FIRPTA)
Form 8854Initial and Annual Expatriation Statement

Regimes and analysis

FBAR compliance — aggregate account thresholds, signature authority as distinct from ownership, and the difference between the FBAR and the separate Form 8938 obligation, which are not the same test.
FIRPTA — withholding on dispositions of U.S. real property by foreign persons, withholding certificate applications to reduce the amount held back, and the reporting on both sides of the closing.
PFIC — identifying passive foreign investment company holdings, which frequently turn out to be ordinary foreign mutual funds, and the QEF and mark-to-market elections that change how they are taxed.
Foreign trusts and gifts — distributions, grantor determinations, and the reporting thresholds for gifts and bequests received from non-U.S. persons.
Expatriation — the covered-expatriate tests and the exit-tax computation on relinquishing citizenship or long-term permanent residence.
IRS offshore compliance procedures — where filings were missed, assessing eligibility for the streamlined filing compliance procedures or delinquent information return procedures and preparing the submission.

Who Runs This

Questions about a cross-border filing?

Questions about anything on this page go straight to the person who runs this work — not a contact form queue.

Priya Raman, CPA, MST

Director of Tax

[email protected]

Find out which forms apply to you.

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