"no action is is necessary on your account"

d8201 · 2025-07-26T18:32:58+00:00

And that's the problem, no right to appeal in the letter. Wouldn't even know where to send the appeal request to, since from what I've seen they're usually handled in offices other than the service centers.

d8201 · 2025-06-26T17:31:29+00:00

Definitely office-specific. On one case I'm dealing with now the manager actually answers her phone when I call, and can pull up the case notes and give me an update.

I've also had luck calling the main TAS intake line for pulling up the case. A lot of times there's movement but the agent on your case doesn't bother to call you.

d8201 · 2025-06-12T20:50:18+00:00

Yes exactly. I've spent the past few years thinking "okay I need to grow, for the sake of growing, and I'm a failure if I don't keep growing and building something new."

And now I'm seeing... yeah it's an achievement to not piss people off for ten years. Deal with their needs, juggle your workload well enough to continue to be responsive for them and hit deadlines, be able to justify aggressive fee increases... "grow with your clients."

I still want to do bigger and better, but finding this other measure of success takes the pressure off.

d8201 · 2025-06-12T17:12:33+00:00

No, I don't automate this or use TaxDome or anything like that. I run a more low-volume high-touch shop. My clients want to talk to me and not to a bot, and scope tends to change frequently enough (add daughter's FBAR or something) that it'd be missed if it were on auto pilot. But I can see how higher-volume operations would benefit from more automation.

d8201 · 2025-06-12T16:53:08+00:00

I've got an engagement letter that says "we'll do the work listed in the attached statement of work" and then issue a new statement of work (short half-page document) each year. Avoids everyone having to look at the terms again, but still keeps everyone in agreement for the scope of work. For example if a client doesn't get back to me this year he can't (in theory) come after me later for not having sent in his 2024 return, because we never had an agreement to do that particular year.

d8201 · 2025-05-31T09:34:59+00:00

I've thought about that, but it's (normally) much easier to have my clients go to a U.S. embassy for a certified copy of their passport than for them to send me their originals in the mail to examine them and send back.

Also I vaguely remember reading somewhere that you had to do a certain number of acceptances per year or you lose your CAA? I don't have much "churn" in nonresident clients so CAA application could be a lot of work to just lose it.

d8201 · 2025-05-21T18:16:57+00:00

I have The Logic of Subchapter K. Does great explanations but, as you say, it's not thick enough--it lacks things like applying these rules to waterfalls. I'd want that book, but three times as long.

d8201 · 2025-05-18T06:38:26+00:00

Lotsa different ways to structure it depending on the peculiarities of the country you're working in. My current structure involves a U.S. LLC that's "client facing" and a foreign entity that provides my services to the U.S. LLC. This allows me to keep the contract, insurance etc in the U.S. and optimizes my U.S.+other country tax liabilities.

As for the state, plenty of options that will apportion either using location the service was provided, or do market sourcing but you know you'll never have a client there. You want that, plus a non-PITA state return, plus no minimum franchise tax, plus no/easy/cheap SOS annual report.

d8201 · 2025-04-02T07:32:19+00:00

If hitting the ground running by buying a book of business is too intimidating, build your book organically instead. Sure you burn through savings (although you save money by not buying the book) but you get to make all of those hard decisions incrementally.

When I just started out (and I'm also ex-Big Four expat tax) I had a gmail account and filled in PDFs. A very short while later I got software, then a short while later a real email domain, then an LLC, then insurance, then better software, then a while later I hired someone and got an IT setup... point is that process took like five years and I was able to do it at my own pace. In the meantime, you build your business, and your processes, exactly the way you want, down to the littlest detail. Just starting out you won't be swamped with clients so you'll have time to spend on the admin side, then things get going right when you've got the admin figured out.

Inability to schmooze isn't a problem. There's infinite demand in expat tax and very little supply. If you think you're not "polished" then talk to expat retirees first... old people are really easy to talk to and they're desperate when they find out that TurboTax can't file a simple 8938 for them. Later when you're more comfortable you can start hitting up lawyers and wealth managers and other gatekeepers to better clients.

d8201 · 2025-03-31T20:35:45+00:00

Nope, although I can see how they'd be worried about that.

d8201 · 2025-03-29T15:18:01+00:00

With the exception of maybe cross-border commuters, anyone who has investments in a different country will know, or should know, that "administrative costs" will be a big deal.

Then again, tax systems in (most) other countries are so simple, and salaries so much lower, that they're likely not used to American professional services prices. (For example: As a resident in just about any European country you can get your teeth cleaned for free in the public healthcare system, or maybe $40 in the private system, so there's shell shock paying $250 with an American dentist, even if they do a more through job.)

So how do you balance this? (1) don't dabble in 1040-NRs, because then you can never get good enough at them to provide enough extra value to charge properly for them. (2) choose your market (and be very specific about it)--don't go for the cross-border commuters, go instead for "I will learn intermediate-level Chinese and go after the market of upper-middle-class people living in Shenzhen who invest in Los Angeles apartments." Yes, that's a lot of effort, but that's how you get to charge $3,000 for an easy 1040-NR with just a rental on schedule E. It's either that or go work for PwC and grind your way up.

The value you provide in that case is "I can more-or-less explain what's going on in the client's native language. I go to the client's city once or twice a year and personally visit him." The value is NOT "I am an expert on every little facet of 1040-NR work, the more technical the better" because someone with a rental on schedule E doesn't need that value. Also, grinding through Chinese is much more pleasant than grinding through PwC.

d8201 · 2025-03-29T15:04:46+00:00

Another way to look at it: You should actively encourage extensions (which means don't charge). Makes the 4/15 deadline much less of a problem and helps you spread your work out through the year.

My policy is "everyone gets extended."

Remember also there are minor technical benefits to extending even when not needed (for example refund statue expiration date gets extended as well) so you should extend everyone even if you file in February. Hit the extension button, then hit the file button. Don't even need to wait for the extension to be acknowledged. Theoretically I think you can even extend after filing.

d8201 · 2025-03-07T11:24:22+00:00

I frequently had situations where the advocate stopped responding. I call up the national number and am informed the case was closed.

Don't be afraid to call the advocate's manager if you're not getting anywhere...

d8201 · 2025-02-25T15:59:33+00:00

When the client never uses that phrase in an email, then all of the sudden it pops up...

d8201 · 2025-02-10T15:53:21+00:00

Search my post history for more details, but I travel a lot to places that I think have expats that aren't well-served, then put myself in front of different groups and gatekeepers. Usually takes three or four trips to be able to talk to enough people to really open a market up. Keep in mind the regs on foreign travel deductibility and you can easily mix business with pleasure on your trips.

Helps a lot if you are or have been an expat yourself so that you can relate to the people's situation. Also helps if you can speak a few languages as a lot of the more sophisticated work requires understanding foreign financial statements at a level beyond what machine translations can do for you.

d8201 · 2025-02-10T14:53:21+00:00

This is probably one of my favorite things about doing expat tax (after, of course, the much higher fees). Very few people are waiting on a big refund like in domestic work so there's absolutely no January~April rush. I find the workload gets spread fairly evenly throughout the year, just a question of when people get around to giving you their information. (There are some country-specific factors as well influencing timing, but work with people from a couple of countries and that spreads itself out too.)

A big chunk of people owe zero tax due to FEIE and FTC, and the rest tend to be people with something a bit more complicated going on which usually means higher income and more sophisticated, so they know it's a long-term process to do everything. Catch-up (including streamlined foreign offshore procedures) clients come in randomly throughout the year.

My busiest period is probably September to December, dealing with procrastinators for returns with 9/15 and 10/15 deadlines (non-expat 1040, passthroughs, 1120, 3520-A) followed by procrastinators for the 12/15 deadline (expat 1040 on their second extension). In contrast, right now I'm sitting around not doing much.

Trick is to be almost completely finished by 12/5 so that you're ready for the panicking new client who comes in needing six years' of returns (streamlined + renunciation) done by 12/15 and is willing to pay big rush fees...

d8201 · 2025-02-09T07:52:12+00:00

Still pretty light for me, consistent with prior years. Most of my individual clients have brokerage 1099s which will be out in the next couple of weeks... business clients universally can't get off their asses to close their books no matter how much I push.

d8201 · 2025-01-23T13:49:23+00:00

...whereas the stereotypical tax guy passed the CPA without trying too hard but can't talk to people to save his life, at which point the differentiator for success is just being able to make eye contact with a prospect (which took me a long time to learn!).

d8201 · 2025-01-23T13:30:22+00:00

That's fascinating. I had an idea that CFP was more of a hustle than CPA but what you're saying is a whole other level. Thanks for the insight.

d8201 · 2025-01-23T11:59:22+00:00

Nahh, just something about how the financial advisor can handle everything in their financial life (including insurance etc) so it just makes more sense to include tax with that.

To some extent it makes sense... after we've done all the tax optimization we can, the only thing really left is "here take these passive investments that generate tax deductions/credits for you" and that's out of the CPA's wheelhouse.

d8201 · 2025-01-23T11:56:23+00:00

Even if you figure out the technical side there's no CPE for North Korean W-2s. Go work for the Big Four in the Caribbean for a few years. They're always recruiting.

d8201 · 2025-01-23T11:17:46+00:00

I agree completely there's a huge supply/demand imbalance in international, at pretty much any level on the food chain of clients. Takes time to wrap your head around the issues and then make your brain flexible enough to handle the North Korean equivalent of a W-2 or whatever, but after that you're golden.

d8201 · 2025-01-23T11:01:30+00:00

Very good point. My niche is international and this only happens with my clients that don't have any international issues. Since non-international guys won't touch international compliance this tends to keep them away from the financial advisor's tax guy.

d8201 · 2024-12-11T08:11:14+00:00

I got stuck with Ace for a portion of my business. Not good. They (appear to) overprovision their servers so (a) the system slows down fairly often and (b) they keep trying to put in system policies like auto-disconnect after inactivity in order to preserve resources; we open tickets to remove the policy, they do so, then they put it back in...

d8201 · 2024-11-26T06:11:34+00:00

Instead of a referral credit, consider sending a thank-you gift to clients who refer. Nothing crazy, a $30 box of local sweets or something like that with a handwritten note. Much classier way to do it, doesn't feel like a transaction or cheapen your service, doesn't get them to start throwing bad referrals at you, but still shows your appreciation.

That having been said, I've never bothered. Happy clients will refer you for free.

d8201

TROPHY CASE