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Expatriate Tax Returns

World

More Expats as the World Gets Smaller

 

Globalization is defined as “the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.” Globalization has made the borders between countries virtually disappear, causing the world to feel like a much smaller place. This undoubtedly has contributed to a rise in workers choosing to move abroad and become expatriates.

The vast increase in expatriates, however, hasn’t led to it being any easier to become an expat. In addition to the typical demands placed on you as you plan to relocate to a foreign country, there is a host of challenging decisions to make and financial responsibilities.

United States tax laws have long been a burden on American expats. For this reason, Expatriate Tax Returns was launched. Our team of CPAs recognized that focusing on expatriate tax returns was necessary as this had quickly become its own field of accounting. Expat taxes are confusing and preparing them is a frustration that expatriates do not want to have to burden amidst the many other challenges facing them as expatriates.

expatriate tax returns

With the growth of globalization has come the surge in technological advances. While this technological innovation has made so many things easier (like finding our company on the web!), it hasn’t caused expatriate tax return filing to be any easier or less of a hassle. Americans living abroad must file their United States tax returns in an exacting way and this can be terribly complicated (especially for a new American expat). To make this process easier and to save you precious time, the tax experts at Expatriate Tax Returns are here to handle that responsibility on your behalf.

Contact our team of expat CPAs today and then you can trust us to take care of everything. Simply fill out the form on our homepage or call us at 877-382-9123 and we’ll get the process started for you. We have your best interests in mind. The world may be getting smaller and becoming an expat may be more common, but expatriate tax returns will always be a reality.

The Big Move Means Big Decisions

Now is the time of year that many big corporations are discussing HR changes for the fall. If you’re involved in these discussions, you could soon be contemplating a big move overseas.

If you plan to move abroad this year, it will be an exciting and challenging time. There are many factors to consider like what your spouse will do overseas and where your kids will go to school. There are also a plethora of opportunities and experiences to look forward to as an American expatriate. After accepting a new job overseas or a job transfer to a country outside the United States, it’s important to create a long “To Do List” with critical items like finding a place to live, forwarding mail, and finding a physician in your new country. Selecting a trustworthy and dependable CPA firm with experience working with expats is also essential.

Expatriate Tax Returns has many years of tax planning and preparation experience, specifically for expats. We put that knowledge to work for you — our clients. It’s critical to inform the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that you are moving abroad and to call our accounting team to make sure you’re prepared before you make the big move.

A few things to remember before you become an expat: update your contact information with the IRS so they can properly send your refund or any future correspondence. You can update your address with the IRS by completing Form 8822, Change of Address at any time during the year. Failure to notify the IRS of an address change can be costly. For example, it can keep you from contesting a lien for unpaid taxes. At Expatriate Tax Returns, we understand that planning for the big move abroad is challenging and there are already so many things to think about. We can help you alleviate the stress by walking you through this journey hand-in-hand. We’ve helped thousands of U.S. expatriates successfully transition to their new country and we’ll help you too.

No matter where you are in the process of your preparation for becoming an expat, call us for trusted, professional assistance. There are some many wonderful advantages to being an expatriate, but it’s also a time full of important decisions to make. Here’s an easy one: Call ExpatriateTaxReturns.com today at 877-382-9123 or fill out the form on our Website. We’ll be with you every step of the way.

Our Expatriate Clients are First & Foremost

Have you noticed that in our society, taking responsibility isn’t what it used to be? Too many service related companies have made customer service a low priority. At Expatriate Tax Returns, we put our clients first and their tax needs are foremost for all of our tax professionals.

While some service related companies try to shift the blame, we take responsibility. When it comes to tax preparation, taking responsibility is the utmost principle. Our professionals take their responsibility to our clients, who are living abroad, very seriously and we understand the trust our clients place in us can never be taken lightly. As expats, your tax returns are your own responsibility, but you have placed the trust in us to prepare them efficiently and effectively.

Expatriate Tax Returns

Our team of tax experts feels that sense of responsibility for your tax returns. We are cognizant that you have a responsibility to the U.S. government to file your expatriate tax returns in a timely manner. When we all place value on being responsible, we are all successful. Your tax returns to the U.S. are filed and paid on time, and we maintain the trust that you have placed in us.

It’s not easy for American citizens to relocate to another nation, far from home, and we understand this. We take it as our responsibility to ensure you understand the Foreign Tax Credit, your rights as an American expatriate, and that you are reminded of the IRS deadlines for tax filing.

No matter where in this world you currently live and work, the expatriate tax laws must be respected. It can certainly be a hassle to have to file these taxes each year, but we thank you for placing that trust in us and know that we will honor and respect your trust by serving you to the best of our ability at all times. This is the cornerstone of what we stand for at Expatriate Tax Returns — your expatriate tax professionals. Call us today at (877) 382-9123.

The World’s Getting Smaller

No young person likes hearing those famous words from their elders, “When I was your age.” However, it’s true that only a few generations ago, the world was a much larger place. Or, at least it felt that way. Thanks to globalization and technology — two things that seem to go hand-in-hand — the world feels like a much smaller place.
Globalization, the process through which products, people, ideas, culture and capital, are transferred around the world creating a system of global integration, has led to much more fluidity when it comes to employees moving around the world. In the 21st century, it is no longer a big deal for an employer to expect its employees to relocateher family for a year to a country half way across the world. The increase in American expatriates has led to more complications in the expat tax laws, rather than fewer.
On the positive side, globalization has opened the borders that once kept people from experiencing life in other nations. On the negative side, the U.S. government hasn’t made it very easy for American expats to comply with the expatriate tax code. That’s where Expatriate Tax Returns comes in. We are the national leader in tax preparation and filing for U.S. expats. Call on us to handle the challenging side of being an expatriate. You’ll enjoy the experience of living abroad while we handle the frustrating tax filing. Call us today toll free at 877.382.9123.

MOVING BACK? WE’RE HERE TO HELP

Of course all of our clients at ExpatriateTaxReturns.com are American expats who are living and working abroad. However, we often get contacted by our clients who tell us they’re moving back home. They became accustomed to having us handle every aspect of their tax preparation each year and now that they’re relocating back to the United States, they want to remain our client.

We always tell them, “No problem!” We handle tax prep for all U.S. citizens no matter where you live? That’s right… even Stateside!

If you are an American expat and you move back to the United States, simply call us and we’ll prepare your tax returns. We already have your information on file so there’s no set up involved. You know us, you trust us… you’ve come to depend on us. Let’s keep the relationship strong! Call us today at 877-382-9123. We love to hear from you!

WWW.EXPATRIATETAXRETURNS.COM

Diane Siriani Featured in the Detroit Jewish News

Route To Success

 

Local women entrepreneurs grow their businesses through technology.

 

It’s well documented that there is a dearth of entrepreneurial women in leadership positions in the technology industry. At tech conferences, there are long lines for the men’s restrooms, with uncharacteristically short lines at the women’s.

 

Beyond Marissa Mayer at Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, most people would struggle to name other women running tech companies. Camp Inc., a new summer camp in the Rocky Mountains focusing on entrepreneurship and technology, finds it challenging to recruit teenage girls for its second summer, despite significant scholarship grants specifically for female campers.

 

The majority of entrepreneurs who have launched successful startups are men, and few Fortune 500 technology companies have women in top executive positions. Both business graduate schools and technology institutes are struggling to enroll more women to help change this imbalance.

 

Four entrepreneurial women, each with local roots in Metro Detroit, are bucking the trend and have found business success by using technology. They are not recent college graduates who have grown up with Facebook, Twitter and e-commerce; these serious entrepreneurs are middle-aged professional women who have discovered ways to exploit the Web, mobile apps and social media to grow their businesses.

 

Taxes For Ex-Pats

 

Diane Siriani, a local CPA, says that “technology” has been the buzz word in the accounting and tax industry for as long as she can remember. She started her career with a midsize firm more than 25 years ago, but after 9/11 she recognized that how the industry does business was going to change.

 

“In 2007, I purchased a tax service in Wyandotte and a significant side to this purchase was my ability to gain Internet presence with the help of the prior owner, who already had a tax preparation website.”

 

Little did Siriani know that website development was the easy part. She still had to find a niche, which proved more challenging.

 

“In March 2008, my daughter and her husband moved to London. The next year, when their tax return was due, they asked me to get involved. The wheels started turning and ExpatriateTaxReturns.com was born.”

 

Diane SSiriani recognized that countless American citizens live and work abroad who are confused about a special U.S. income tax they had to pay. Known as an expatriate tax, all American expats must file income taxes with the IRS each year even if they are being paid a salary from a foreign entity.

 

Siriani’s business model was to market to these expatriates through the Internet and have tax experts around the country prepare their expat tax returns. Her company has grown from preparing 100 returns the first tax season to more than 2,500 today.

 

Using Skype to videoconference with clients from around the globe, Siriani and her team of tax professionals patiently walk their clients through the complicated process of preparing expat tax returns. Even though Siriani has a local office in Metro Detroit, her business is borderless. She hires accountants from all over the country and uses social media to market her expertise.

 

“As a result of my development of ExpatriateTaxReturns.com,” she said, “we have brought our high-tech systems in house to our CPA firm, which keeps us ahead of the technology curve.”

 

Harnessing The Internet

Carrie LachmanCarrie Lachman is a fourth-generation owner of Lachman & Co., a custom awards and engraving store in Southfield. Her great-grandfather started the business more than 120 years ago as a jewelry store in Detroit. Succeeding her grandfather and then father, Lachman became the first female to lead the company. She likes to say she took a bricks-and-mortar business in Southfield and made it global, thanks to the Internet.

 

“Engraved awards and customized promotional products are a highly personalized industry, but with a dynamic website and an international reach on social networks like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, we’ve found new corporate clients all over the country and in Canada,” she said.

 

“We used to rely on sending out large catalogs of our items through the mail and on customers calling in or faxing us their orders,” Lachman explained. “But as soon as we had to change an item or its price, it was cost prohibitive to reprint the entire catalog. The Internet has made everything easier for us. Our catalog has moved online, and we use social networks to tell our clients and prospects about new products.

 

“The Internet has changed everything in our industry. For clients, everything is an emergency, and we were one of the first to embrace the new technology that allows us to provide products quicker than ever before.”

 

 

 

Artist Banks On Social Media

 

Former Detroiter Julie Staller-Pentelnik has been a professional Judaic artist for more than 30 years. She specializes in Judaic art, ketubahs, mezuzahs and calligraphy pieces. Living in Cincinnati, with its small Jewish community, limits her ability to sell her artwork traditionally, but this entrepreneurial artist has turned her business into a thriving e-commerce company.

 

Julie Staller Pentelnik

 

Staller-Pentelnik sells most of her artwork online through her well-trafficked website (jspjudaic.com) and social networks. Displaying her artwork, like ketubahs, on social networks like Pinterest, a website that brides-to-be flock to before their wedding, has really spiked her annual sales.

 

She created a web presence about 10 years ago and, in the past few years, has realized that social media significantly expands her marketing reach.

 

“Through social media connections, I have been able to share my work, as well as learn what other Judaic artists have to share,” she said. “These connections have been made possible and enhanced by my ability to follow and share on different social media outlets.”

 

 

Online Marketing Boost

 

Cathi Lefton of Cathi Lefton’s Closet Redesigns found technology was changing her industry and she had to take part if she wanted to remain relevant in a crowded field. “Almost all of the new products coming out in my industry are introduced by email and on the Web,” she said. “All of my own marketing is done online.”

 

Thirty years ago, Lefton began working for the company that redesigned some of the closets in her own home. She learned the basics from the owner and, when he closed his shop, Lefton launched her own company.

 

“I used to advertise every week, but it really ate into the profits so I began looking to social media to market my company,” she said.

- use bestShe recently received a call from a new client who said she asked on Facebook for a closet designer and immediately received three responses to call Lefton.

 

Traditional “word of mouth” has moved to the Internet, Lefton realized. Now, she shows off her expertise on her website, closetsthatwork.com, where she posts before-and-after images of closets she has redesigned. She also launched Facebook and Pinterest accounts.

 

Lefton’s business has grown many times over because her clients and friends are able to share photos and videos online of her work. She also uses LinkedIn, the business social networking site, to network with home builders, architects and interior designers who refer clients to her.

 

Women entrepreneurs have the same access to 21st-century technology as their male counterparts. It’s a level playing field for all business owners when it comes to putting a business on the Web.

 

While women still trail men when it comes to business ownership and launching startups, these four women entrepreneurs demonstrate that with dedication and the willingness to expand beyond the traditional walls of a company through the Internet, the sky is the limit.

 

Each of these businesswomen has found success through technology in ways that were not possible even a decade ago. These women say they’ll keep adapting as new technology emerges and will continue to watch their businesses flourish.

 

 By: Rabbi Jason Miller, Contributing Writer

 

Rabbi Jason Miller is an entrepreneur, educator and blogger. He is the technology expert for the Detroit Jewish News. Miller owns Access Computer Technology, a local computer support, web design and social media marketing company. Follow him on Twitter at @RabbiJason.