tax - personal tax returns - usa

Many individuals are required to complete a US personal tax return long after they have left the USA. Normally, filing a return is a requirement to maintain citizenship or a green card. In some cases clients have only realised after a number of years that there is an obligation to file a tax return in the USA, sometimes even when there is no US tax liability.

Our role is to help individuals coordinate their worldwide tax position when they need to consider the tax regime in two or more countries. It is impossible for one firm of 20 people to keep up-to-date with the individual tax regimes in each country. Therefore we work with an adviser Mark Curtis in the USA. We work with the client to bring together all information required for tax returns in both countries and then pass the information to Mark to complete the return. Our international personal tax experts then review the return to ensure that it is consistent with the UK returns prepared for our client.

An individual's US return becomes much more complex when overseas as there is the requirement to complete additional forms to claim, for example, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (“Form 2555 Foreign Earned Income”) and, in some instances, it can be critical to the eventual tax payable, whether the exclusion is claimed under the Bona Fide Residence test or the Physical Presence test. Similarly, the claim for a credit for any tax paid to a foreign jurisdiction can be complex as it is necessary to complete a separate “Form 1116 Foreign Tax Credit” for each category of income.