Real Tax Questions, Expert Answers
Get answers to your foreign-owned LLC tax questions from ForeignLLCTax. Every answer includes IRS source citations and step-by-step guidance.
The offset notice says the refund went to my spouse's old state tax debt. Does Form 8379 still apply when the debt is at the state level?
I am from Ireland and my spouse had an old state income tax issue from before we were married. We filed a joint federal return this year and expected a refund of around $4,900. Treasury then issued an...
We spent money before launch on travel, branding, and legal setup. How much can be deducted now and how much has to be amortized?
Our company spent several months preparing to launch and racked up costs for branding, market research, travel, legal setup, and early admin work before we actually began operations. I assumed most of...
I moved mid-year and had a qualifying home office in both places. Can I use the simplified method for both homes?
I used one apartment as my home office from January through July and then moved to a new apartment where I immediately set up another qualifying office. My instinct was to just use the simplified meth...
I qualify for a home office. Is the simplified method just lower paperwork, or does it change the economics too?
I am self-employed and use a dedicated room in my apartment for my U.S. LLC. I qualify for the home office deduction, but I cannot tell whether the simplified method is just a convenience option or wh...
My K-1 has QBI info, but how do I know whether to use Form 8995 or Form 8995-A?
I received a K-1 from a U.S. partnership and the attachment includes QBI information, W-2 wages, and UBIA figures. That made me assume Form 8995-A is always required whenever a K-1 shows all those det...
My net worth is far below $2 million and my tax has always been low. Do I still need Form 8854 when I expatriate?
I am from Mexico and I expect to fall well below the covered expatriate thresholds. Because of that, I assumed Form 8854 would not matter for me. Then I saw references saying the form is required even...
I am leaving the U.S. permanently next month. Do I need a sailing permit, and is Form 1040-C just an early tax return?
I am from Turkey and have been in the United States on a long professional assignment while also owning a small U.S. LLC. I am now leaving permanently in about three weeks. Someone at work mentioned a...
If I gift assets before expatriating and bring net worth below $2 million, does that automatically keep me out of covered expatriate status?
I am from Israel and I am reviewing a possible expatriation from long-term resident status. My current net worth is slightly above $2 million. A planning adviser floated the idea of making gifts befor...
We could file dual-status, but my spouse is a U.S. resident. Should we consider the joint election instead?
I am from Japan and had a move year that probably makes me dual-status. My spouse is a U.S. resident for the whole year. One adviser says to keep the return dual-status because it is technically accur...
I became a U.S. resident mid-year and now have contract income with no withholding. Do the normal estimated tax due dates still apply?
I am from the Netherlands and became a U.S. resident during 2025. After the move I stopped being paid through payroll and instead started billing clients through my U.S. LLC. There is no U.S. withhold...
The CP2000 is partly right, but it also ignored credits and another deduction. Do I send Form 1040-X with the response?
I am from Taiwan and the IRS CP2000 correctly found one omitted income item, but the proposed tax is still too high because the notice ignored a foreign tax credit adjustment and a related deduction t...
What are the penalties for incorrect information returns under IRC 6721 and 6722?
My foreign-owned LLC issues 1099 forms to U.S. contractors. I filed some of them with incorrect TINs and missed the deadline for others. What penalties apply under IRC 6721 and 6722, and are there dif...
If we register as an MSB, can the supporting documents stay with our founders overseas or do they have to be kept in the United States?
Our crypto company has foreign founders and most internal records are kept by the parent team in Hong Kong. We are now preparing for possible FinCEN MSB registration and someone asked whether the supp...
We now think the platform should have registered as an MSB months ago. Is late registration only an administrative fix, or can FinCEN penalties become serious?
The compliance team has finally accepted that our transaction flow likely falls inside money transmission, but no FinCEN registration was filed when the product launched. Some founders keep talking li...
We moved crypto across wallets and exchanges for years. Now the broker statement is incomplete. How should the basis rebuild file be structured?
The business used multiple custodians, several self-hosted wallets, and a long chain of transfer-ins before finally selling through a broker that issued only partial digital asset reporting. The accou...
Our exchange never sent Form 1099-DA. Can we still just wait until they do before filing?
The business sold digital assets in 2025 through a platform that we expected would send the new Form 1099-DA, but nothing has arrived. The accounting team is split between filing based on our own reco...
We blocked sanctioned crypto on our platform. Do we have to liquidate it into dollars or put it in an interest-bearing account?
Our compliance team blocked virtual currency connected to a sanctioned person, but treasury is now asking how the blocked property must actually be held. One internal view is that we should immediatel...
A crypto counterparty says they are legit because they show up in FinCEN's MSB search. Is that actually meaningful?
We are evaluating a crypto payments partner and their main credibility pitch is that they are listed in FinCEN's MSB registrant search. Someone on our business team is treating that like a regulatory ...
We identified a blocked person linked to a hosted wallet on our platform. Do we have to freeze the wallet and report it, or can we just reject future transfers?
Our compliance team found that a hosted wallet on the platform appears to be linked to a person on the sanctions lists. The engineering team suggested simply refusing future transactions and leaving t...
We may have crossed into money transmission last quarter. Does the FinCEN registration clock really start that fast?
Our crypto app originally launched as a wallet tool, but after a product change we now routinely receive digital assets from one customer and transmit value to another. Only now is the legal team tell...
Our 1099-DA shows proceeds but no basis for coins we bought before 2026. Is that normal or did the broker miss something?
I own a foreign-owned Wyoming LLC from Singapore and we sold part of our BTC position in early 2026 through a U.S.-facing broker. The statement shows proceeds clearly, but the cost basis field is blan...
We are not an exchange. We just help customers pay merchants in crypto. Can Form 1099-DA still treat us like a broker?
Our product is a payment-processing layer for merchants. Customers send digital assets to us, and we settle with merchants in cash or other digital assets. The product team keeps insisting that becaus...
Our company held a token through a hard fork, but we never received any new tokens. Is there still income?
The treasury wallet sat through a blockchain hard fork, and the team immediately assumed we had a tax event because everyone had read older articles saying forks were taxable. But in our case no new a...
Our single-member LLC mined crypto this year. Is that just ordinary income, or can self-employment tax also apply?
The LLC is foreign-owned but disregarded, and the owner personally runs mining equipment outside the U.S. The finance file already reflects gross income when coins were received, but a second adviser ...
We got Form 1099-DA with proceeds only and no basis. Is that normal for 2025?
Our U.S. entity sold crypto through a broker in 2025 and just received the first Form 1099-DA statement. It shows proceeds, but not basis, which made the finance team assume the form might be incomple...
Our transfer pricing issue repeats every year. Is an APA actually worth a six-figure fee, or is that only for giant multinationals?
We have the same related-party service and royalty issues every year, and each year the tax file feels like it is being rebuilt from scratch. Someone proposed an APA, but the user fees alone are high ...
We have intercompany pricing, but no real section 6662 documentation. Is that automatically a penalty disaster?
The company does have contracts and invoices, but not the kind of formal transfer pricing study people usually mean when they talk about section 6662 documentation. Now that a return review is happeni...
The IRS transfer pricing team wants our documentation in 30 days. Can we build it now, or have we already lost the contemporaneous-documentation advantage?
We have intercompany service fees between a U.S. corporation and a related foreign affiliate, and now the IRS has asked for transfer pricing documentation very quickly. Management is talking as if we ...
One U.S. shareholder is filing Form 5471 with full schedules for the corporation. Do the other U.S. shareholders still attach anything to their own returns?
We have a foreign corporation with several U.S. owners, and our tax team is trying to use the rule that allows one person to file the main Form 5471 package on behalf of others in some cases. The prob...
Our accountant wants to mail Form 926 separately after the return is filed. Is that how the IRS wants it handled?
The outbound transfer itself was already reviewed, and now the only dispute is procedural. One person on the team treats Form 926 like a stand-alone notice that can be mailed whenever we finish it. An...
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