Advisor’s Edge – Tax tips for non-compliant cross-border clients

Matt C. Altro was recently interviewed by Michelle Schriver from Advisor’s Edge to discuss the IRS’s offshore voluntary disclosure program (OVDP), which ends of September 28, 2018. The analysis was published in the September edition of the Advisor’s Edge magazine and also appeared online on Advisor.ca.

In the article, Matt reviews the use of foreign tax credits and how they may be applied towards tax owed to the IRS when tax has already been paid to Canada. Matt also briefly discusses the cost of becoming compliant and other considerations for Americans living in Canada.

To read the article you can see it in part below, or click here to view it on the Advisor.ca website.

Tax tips for non-compliant cross-border clients

Michelle Schriver
Advisor’s Edge
September 10, 2018

Certain cross-border clients with undisclosed foreign assets will soon lose an option to get compliant. The IRS’s offshore voluntary disclosure program (OVDP) for willfully neglectful taxpayers ends on Sept. 28.

The program’s end (more on what it means below) serves as a reminder that cross-border clients should be timely with their tax reporting.

For non-willful non-compliant cross-border clients, the IRS’s streamlined filing compliance procedures continue, but clients shouldn’t wait to take action. Like the OVDP, the streamlined program could end “at some point,” says the IRS website.

With the streamlined program first offered in 2012 and expanded in 2014, “If people are interested in getting caught up, it’s probably better to do it sooner rather than later,” says Max Reed, a cross-border tax lawyer at SKL Tax in Vancouver.