2bretired

I am presently planning on temporarily moving back to UK to take care of my aged parent and am looking at using Greenback expat tax service to figure out my tax liability if I move back and become a resident for tax purposes.

I am wondering if anybody has had any dealings with this company and can give me an unbiased review.


Thanks Bob

JAJ

General discussion on finding a U.S. tax practitioner:
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Choosi...Accountant-USA

Mummy in the foothills

Are Greenback based in UK to do US taxes?

robin1234

I just looked at their website quickly, it looks like they have a lot of potentially useful information there, which is a good start.

I may be in a similar position soon and the prospect seems daunting. Sure, I have thirty, almost forty years experience of filing increasingly complex taxes with the IRS and US states, mostly MA and NY. For six or more years, FBAR too, now form 8938 also. Now we're retired, other new forms of income coming on stream like the British State Pension, NYS pension, distributions from 403 b plan etc. my experience of doing US taxes, as long as there's only one or two new things for me each year, it's still way within the comfort zone. I usually do the taxes manually, don't use TurboTax or similar.

But if I spend extended time in the UK (my wife remaining in the US except for briefer trips to the UK,) and I become liable to UK tax, all kinds of new complications. Never done British tax, since I always relied on PAYE. I believe there is no married filing joint in UK, and yet that's how we'd continue to file in US. Different tax year, so you have to slice and dice the same piece of income two different ways?? And yet our total assets and income are modest so it is not really on to pay a specialist many thousands of dollars to do first the British then the US tax return.

2bretired

First,
"mummy in the foothills" not sure if they do US tax returns they are based around the world, the CPA I am dealing with is in Argentina but you can email them and ask. They probably do as they are supposed to be CPA's.

"Robin 1234" There are all sorts of new stuff about residency in UK for Tax purposes. There is a new test called "“The Sufficient Ties Test”. I have decided to pay a consultancy fee to at least get a second opinion on what these rules mean. I am hoping that if I stay less than 183 days a year I can bypass becoming a tax resident and spend the rest of the time maybe in a holiday apartment in Spain and just split my time between UK and Europe. That a least put me closer to UK in case of emergency's and allows us to travel Europe before we return to USA.
My income is modest basically state/union pension and we do our USA tax on turbox tax. My wife was a tax prepare and there has been no difference between what was done manually and the software. We use the software because we can electronically file.

Bob

Sue

I haven't used him, but one of our BE Members Peter Newton does UK/USA taxes and quite a few members have used him.

http://www.britishexpatstax.com