Several recent court cases could have important implications for businesses and individuals who maintain accounts in foreign banks, brokerages, or other financial institutions.
In one case, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly curtailed the potential penalties for account holders who inadvertently fail to comply with reporting requirements related to their foreign accounts. That decision has generated hope among other petitioners who have incurred penalties in similar cases.
Any taxpayer with a foreign financial account should be aware of these easily overlooked reporting requirements and the recent court rulings that could affect them. (more…)
When a domestic company begins operations in another country, its tax picture grows dramatically more complicated. If an international expansion is part of your company’s growth strategy, your financial management and tax teams will need to make a number of critical tax-related decisions in addition to the many strategic, competitive, and financial considerations your company already must address.
Here are seven important tax-related variables that will affect when, where, how, and even whether you launch overseas operations. While these are by no means the only issues you must consider, your answers to these questions will drive much of your future decision-making. (more…)
If you have an interest in (or authority over) a foreign financial account, you may have to electronically file a form called the “Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts” (FBAR). Failing to file a required FBAR can result in penalties.
In the recent case of U.S. v. Park, a federal district court refused to dismiss an action to collect an FBAR penalty from a decedent’s family. In the court’s view, the IRS provided sufficient factual detail about the penalty and assessment, the penalty didn’t exceed the statutory maximum, and the assessment survived the decedent’s death. (more…)
In March, the IRS issued proposed regulations that cover determining the amount of the deduction for foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) and global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI). The regs also coordinate the FDII and GILTI deduction with other tax provisions. Here’s an overview.
Background
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) established a “participation exemption system” under which certain earnings of a foreign corporation can be repatriated to a corporate U.S. shareholder without U.S. tax. (This occurs under Internal Revenue Code Section 245A.) (more…)
On February 13, 2018, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issued Rev. Proc. 2018-17, which provides modifications to the procedures for changing the accounting period of foreign corporations owned by U.S. shareholders that are subject to the transition tax under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Rev. Proc. 2018-17 basically disallows the accounting period change if such change could result in the avoidance, reduction, or delay of the transition tax. (more…)
The IRS announced it will begin to ramp down its Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) and close it on Sept. 28, 2018. This gives taxpayers with undisclosed foreign financial accounts time to still use the program.
“Taxpayers have had several years to come into compliance with U.S. tax laws under this program,” said Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter. “All along, we have been clear that we would close the program at the appropriate time, and we have reached that point. Those who still wish to come forward have time to do so.” The current OVDP began in 2014 and is a modified version of the OVDP launched in 2012, which followed similar voluntary programs offered in 2011 and 2009. The programs have enabled U.S. taxpayers to voluntarily resolve past noncompliance related to failure to report foreign financial assets and file foreign information returns. (more…)
A loophole in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) could allow multinational corporations like Apple to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on profits stashed overseas.
The TCJA imposes a transition tax on untaxed foreign earnings of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies by deeming those earnings to be repatriated. But the law contains a loophole that allows taxpayers to convert income that would otherwise be taxed at 15.5% (cash holdings) into income that is taxed at 8% (more illiquid investments).
And multinationals could have leeway to shift foreign earnings into the 8% tax bracket. (more…)
Digital companies in the European Union (EU) pay less than half the amount of tax that other companies pay, the European Commission said in a report. The EU needs a modern tax framework to seize digital opportunities, while also ensuring fair taxation, the report added.
Within the EU, international businesses typically pay a 10.1% tax rate while traditional companies pay 23.3%, due largely to the difficulty of taxing digital assets, which are typically Internet-based. This is particularly important given that more than half of the world’s top 20 companies are technology-based. The Commission stated that the best solution to address this distortion would be on a global level, but in the absence of sufficient progress, the EU should move ahead alone. (more…)
A U.S. District Court held that it isn’t unconstitutional under a provision of the United States–Canada tax treaty for Canada to offset Canadian tax refunds against unpaid U.S. tax liabilities.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stated that “the arm of the U.S. tax man is long, but in this case it needed extend only over our northern border to find” the taxpayer. The court dismissed the expat’s case, finding that he’d failed on his claims for relief under the Eighth Amendment and both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fifth Amendment. (more…)
