Hello everyone;
I hope you all had a great weekend and a greater beginning of the week, last of this month… Uff last quarter of the year… 🥵
Today I want to make you aware of a recurrent and growing trend in TX and other states.
We have come across "FIRPTA form filler people" that advertise themselves as CPAs or even Tax Attorneys in the U.S. because they obtained a similar degree in either field in a foreign country, many of them give, sellers in particular, tax or legal advice suggesting all kinds of nonsense not knowing the tax implications and compliance they are creating for foreign people.
I know many of you probably will say "that is not relevant to me", but we have found that sometimes, because FIRPTA is NOT a title but a tax matter Title companies give foreign seller's a list of "firms/people" that can complete the FIRPTA compliance documents for the closing, well, this particular "CPA" not only was on that list but she offered the seller the best price for the job (no kidding, sometimes people get what they paid for)
This "CPA" of course had the brilliant idea of forming a single member, LLC transferring the property to the LLC, the property was an investment property, was rented and the rental income was included on a Partnership return, (what?) the "partners", aka foreign sellers never filed a personal return because they were not told to do that, anyway, now they are having problems recovering the FIRPTA withholding for 1 of the properties sold last year and it has been very stressful for them, I do not want to bore you (more) with tax stuff, I just want to remind you the importance of referring your clients to a licensed tax professional with experience in foreign tax matters and FIRPTA.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we know about cases like this, there is no shortage of unscrupulous people who think they can come and "practice" while not knowing anything about the tax or legal system in the U.S. causing serious problems to people who have no knowledge of the rules in our country and rely on "cheap and easy advice".
------------------------------
Mary Enzi CAA
Tax Solutions – FIRPTA Consulting
[email protected]+1 (281) 578-1040
Katy TX
------------------------------