MsElui

for the past 2 tax returns - the company have paid for a firm to do both our US and UK tax returns. This year we are on our own.

Essentially DH is still on a UK contract and paying NI and contributing to the UK company pension but being paid in dollars and withholding all the various taxes.. We own a house in the UK which we rent out. We have a tiny amount of interest income from bank accounts (very tiny). I hae no income other than the jointly owned ones mentioned above.

Do you think we can get away with turbotax or similar (ie can it EASILY handle the international stuff) or do we really need a CPA?

If we need a CPA does anyone have any tips on finding one? DH was all up for going to HR Block - but I explained to him the 'dim view' of them expressed on here before - so how do i do better? I know if i ask any cpa can they handle tax treaty stuff they will all say yes - so how do i get around that. I hae asked on the local expat forum but no-one has answered so im not sure how to source anything if turbotax cant do it. Could you go to HR Block and require someone with 15 plus years of experience or would they not care?

we do have printouts of what KPMG did for us the previous 2 years but they make you fill in an enormous all encompassing e-form with every single money related thing imaginable and then just pick out what they want to use. I imagine they are not cheap so we wont likley use them Plus they are very conservative in their prep and we might like to push the allowances a bit more if thats applicable?.

any ideas/opinions gratefully accepted

ian-mstm

Without stating the obvious (too much)... could you hire the same firm to do your taxes? I'll admit I have no idea how much that might cost, so feel free to whack me over the head if it's not viable!


Sheila and I use TurboTax, but since I'm not allowed anywhere near her computer when she's working on taxes (for fear of contamination, I suspect ), I have no idea whether or not it's versatile enough to handle international tax stuff. My gut feeling is no, it isn't.


We tried H&R Block the first year I moved here... they were useless! We actually struggled through the return on our own that year. Fortunately, we ended up getting a small return... so I guess it could have been worse!


Sorry I couldn't help more than this! Good luck.

Ian

MsElui

i had imagined they are VERY expensive but will check and find out.

Rete

I thought the forum had a cpa (he is a Brit) as a member who posts on the US forum occasionally. Many of them will do your taxes through the post so that might be an option. You can do a search. I recall posted to a tax thread not all that long ago.

MikeyT

My company paid for first two years too, then I was on my own. They used corporate accountants (KPMG) so too expensive to retain for me personally.

Would recommend you ask around for personal recommendations for CPAs. I found a local one who is excellent and was able to handle my international tax issues with no problems - have used her for the last 3 years.

Bob

Peter Newton?

KPMG aren't cheap...what's wrong with looking at previous filings and essentially copying it, substituting the numbers?

MsElui

thats what we were hoping we could do with turbo tax - but not sure if we can pump in the internat bits?

Ray

This FAQ may be helpful

http://www.americantaxhelp.com/faq.html

Peter Newton

Funny that my name got mentioned in a post along with KPMG - I used to work for them

Would definitely agree they are expensive; they have to pay for all the partner "overheads" like the golf club memberships, lunches at the Four Seasons (well, here in NYC anyway) etc. etc.

To answer the original post, I don't honestly know how well TurboTax handles international stuff. The circumstances that the OP mentions aren't all that out of the ordinary but there are a number of tax treaty provisions that apply and no software that I know of is able to handle those (even the professional software that I use myself doesn't deal with treaty provisions).

chartreuse

Would you mind popping round to our house and explaining that to SWMBO, next time she asks me why I'm wasting time doing our return by hand?

MsElui

Thanks- i suspected as much even though i hoped for some other news On the plus side i have had 2 local CPAs recommended to me since i asked on facebook.

Would anyone care to share with me the price they pay for their stuff to be done? so i know the expected ballpark?

augigi

I own property and bank accounts in Australia and get rental income, plus work in the US. I do my tax via Turbo Tax, super easy and does include foreign income and rent etc. Only time I couldn't do it was the first year as dual status alien, was all too hard.

tonrob

My employer paid Grant Thornton a couple of grand a year(!) in connection with my taxes.

Lazzza

oh bog I don't think we remembered to add tax returns/accountants into our relo package?

traceym

We've just done ours on turbo tax and trying to tell it that we were married last year but I only arrived in january was VERY, VERY hard work, so I dont think it will handle the heavy stuff!