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.
Our closing agent used a FIRPTA exception certification but never sent the required copy to the IRS. Does that break the exception?
The transaction relied on an exception to withholding and everyone was relieved to avoid moving a large amount of cash at closing. Only afterward did we learn that the regulations may have required th...
We missed Form 3520 for a large foreign gift. Is the penalty really 5% per month?
The gift itself was reported in other family records, but the Form 3520 filing was missed because nobody realized the U.S. recipient had a separate information-return duty. Now we are trying to assess...
I live outside the U.S. and got a foreign gift. Is my Form 3520 due June 15 or October 15 automatically?
I am a U.S. citizen living abroad and received a large gift from a foreign parent. I know Form 3520 may be required, but the due-date rules are making me nervous because some people say living abroad ...
We received a new appraisal after filing Form 706-NA. Is there a formal supplemental-return path, or do we just mail an explanation?
The estate filed Form 706-NA on time, but a later appraisal changed the value of one major U.S. asset. We do not want to ignore the updated number, but we also do not want to send the IRS an unstructu...
Are my late mother's U.S. bank deposits automatically in the U.S. taxable estate just because the bank is in America?
My mother was a nonresident and not a U.S. citizen, but she kept money in U.S. financial accounts for convenience. We are now sorting out whether those accounts belong in the U.S.-situs gross estate o...
What are Georgia's tax obligations for a foreign-owned LLC selling to Georgia customers?
I have an e-commerce business selling handmade jewelry. My LLC is in Delaware but I have a growing number of Georgia customers. I'm a non-resident alien from Turkey. Last year about $75,000 of my $300...
My daughter in the U.S. received a large inheritance from my foreign estate. Is that her tax problem too, even if the estate handled everything abroad?
I am asking because the estate administration is outside the United States, but one beneficiary is now a U.S. resident. The family assumed the foreign estate would handle any paperwork on its own side...
I pass the substantial presence test for income tax, but do I still count as nonresident for gift tax?
I spend enough time in the United States that I am treated as a resident for income-tax purposes, but I am not a citizen and my permanent life is still abroad. I am considering a large gift involving ...
People keep quoting the big U.S. estate tax exemption, but someone told me a nonresident estate might file at only $60,000 of U.S. assets. Is that real?
I am handling an estate for a relative from South Korea who never lived in the U.S. The family keeps repeating the domestic U.S. estate-tax exemption numbers they hear in the news, which makes it soun...
How does IRC 882 tax a foreign corporation's effectively connected income differently from IRC 881?
I own a foreign corporation registered in Hong Kong that operates a retail business through a physical store in California. My tax preparer says the store income is 'effectively connected income' taxe...
The sale closed months ago and the foreign seller still never received the stamped Form 8288-A. Can they still claim credit later?
I am helping a family member from Italy who sold U.S. property last year. The closing company says they filed everything, but the stamped Form 8288-A never showed up at the foreign address. Now the se...
The foreign seller has no ITIN yet. Does that stop the FIRPTA filing?
We are a small title team and the seller is from Mexico. The sale is moving fast, but the seller still does not have an ITIN, and the buyer is asking whether that means the whole FIRPTA package has to...
Our Form 8288-B was filed before closing but the IRS has not answered yet. Do we still send the withholding money right away?
The seller is from France and the closing agent filed Form 8288-B because the default FIRPTA amount looks far above the actual likely tax. The application was filed before closing, but we still have n...
We have two foreign sellers on one deed. Do we need one FIRPTA statement or two?
My brother and I are both nonresident sellers on the same U.S. property sale. The closing company is handling the deal, but different people on the team are giving different answers on whether one FIR...
The buyer wants to skip FIRPTA because they say the house is a future residence, but they also plan to rent it for a while. Is that still safe?
I am a Canadian seller and the buyer is trying to use the residence exception to avoid withholding. The problem is that in side conversations they also talk about renting the house before eventually m...
We changed partnership representative this year. Does that new designation fix the prior year automatically too?
Our partnership finally updated the representative on the current return, but the old person was still listed on the prior year's filing. That raises an uncomfortable question about whether the curren...
Our late Form 8832 seems outside the easy relief window. How do we know when it turns into a private-letter-ruling case?
We intended corporate treatment from formation, but the election was not actually filed, and now enough time has passed that I am no longer sure the standard relief procedure is available. One adviser...
We received a Form 8865 penalty notice. Does the 90-day language mean we still have a chance to stop the problem from getting bigger?
The notice was frightening enough on its own, but the part that really got my attention was the reference to additional penalties if the missing information is not furnished after the IRS mails notice...
We filed Form 8832, but none of the owners attached it to their returns. Does that invalidate the election?
The entity filed the classification election itself and even received an IRS acceptance notice, so we assumed the core work was done. Only later did we notice the instructions about attaching a copy t...
A new partner never gave us their foreign-status certificate. Can we just treat them as foreign and over-withhold to be safe?
We admitted a new investor to our partnership and onboarding got messy. We know the person is foreign in a practical sense, but the actual withholding file is incomplete because we never received the ...
Our broker sent a Form 1042-S for publicly traded partnership income, but I expected Form 8805. Is that normal?
I am a foreign investor and own units in a publicly traded partnership. The broker statement references effectively connected income and foreign withholding, but the document I received is Form 1042-S...
A foreign partner is selling their interest to a new investor. Who actually handles the 10% withholding under section 1446(f)?
We have a foreign partner exiting and a new buyer stepping in. The transaction is being handled like a standard ownership transfer, but one adviser raised section 1446(f) and said someone may need to ...
A foreign partner says they have losses elsewhere and wants us to reduce 1446 withholding using Form 8804-C. Are we required to accept it?
One of our foreign partners has other U.S. items that they say will offset their share of our effectively connected taxable income, and they sent us Form 8804-C to reduce the partnership-level withhol...
Our foreign-owned upper-tier partnership received Form 8805 from a lower-tier partnership. Do we just keep it, or does it affect our own withholding return?
We are an upper-tier partnership with foreign partners, and one lower-tier U.S. partnership already withheld under section 1446 and sent us Form 8805. My first instinct was that the form was only for ...
We discovered our filed Form 8865 was incomplete. Can we send a corrected form by itself, or does it need an amended return?
I am a U.S. filer with a reporting obligation tied to a foreign partnership, and after filing we realized one of the required schedules was wrong. The missing information does not change the basic own...
Three U.S. owners all qualify as Category 1 filers. Does each of us file the full Form 8865 package separately?
We have a foreign partnership with three U.S. owners, each above the relevant ownership threshold, so it looks like more than one of us may qualify as a Category 1 filer. We are trying to avoid duplic...
I contributed software IP to a foreign partnership and ended up with 15%. Is that enough to trigger Form 8865 even though I do not control it?
I am a U.S. tax resident this year, originally from Brazil, and I contributed developed software rights to a foreign partnership based in Estonia. After the contribution I own 15%, but the business is...
Our new multi-member LLC has only foreign founders and no one based in the U.S. Who can serve as partnership representative?
We are two founders from Spain and Portugal, and the LLC only became a partnership this year after we formalized shared ownership. None of us lives in the United States, and our accountant is also out...
We elected corporate treatment last year and already regret it. Can we just switch back now?
My cofounder is from Egypt and I am from Jordan. We changed the LLC to corporate treatment last year because a prior adviser said it would make everything simpler, but now the compliance path feels he...
My friend bought 30% of my LLC in July. Do we file a partnership return for the whole year or only from the conversion date?
I am a founder from Pakistan and had a single-member Wyoming LLC until July 14, when a friend bought 30% from me. We did not form a new legal entity. The same LLC just kept operating, and total revenu...
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