Serbinski Accounting Firms

RE: "the TFSA is still a 3520 trust account". No CPA to this date has proved that such statement is true and to the contrary a tax lawyer has proven that under US tax law such is not true and that TFSA does not require foreign trust 3520 reporting. IRS too has never disclosed their positio...

RE: 3. Can I submit 1040NR with my wife and son not having ITIN? 4. ITIN takes 8 weeks, but late filling will incur penalty. what should I do? You mail the W-7 & 1040NR to ITIN dept (not 1040 dept) and internally your return is sent to the tax return dept and when the ITIN dept issues the ITIN i...

Just be aware: The Internal Revenue Service allows small businesses to choose between the cash method and the accrual method for reporting income and expenses on their tax returns. To qualify as a small business, according to the IRS, your average annual gross receipts for the past three years must ...

Reporting Principal Business Activities and their associated codes is designed to classify an enterprise by the type of activity in which it is engaged to facilitate the administration of the Internal Revenue Code. A less polite way of saying this is: IRS knows how much income and expense is in a no...

RE "My bank accounts in Canada stay below $10k, so I have not had to file an FBAR (and would like to keep it that way). " FBAR kicks in when the aggregate of all FBAR accounts is $10,000 (can be five accounts with $2,001 in each of them). Accounts is a broad FBAR term that includes more th...

Why don't you consider HOH status, which is better than MFS. Two married Americans cannot use HOH status but a USC married to an NRA can as they are considered unmarried for this status. Further, if your wife does elect to file a NIL US return and you thereby attain MFJ status, your principal reside...

nelsona - your link shows that tuition to religious school not deductible to IRS and not considered a donation. The link I posted above http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/ic75-23/ic75-23-e.html shows that CRA allows a donation receipt. It says: two exceptions to the rule where a portion or all of an ...

For religious private schools Canada treats tuition/donations differently than US.

The issue raised at hand is whether or not it can qualify under the treaty for a US tax deduction given that it qualifies for a T1 deduction. There are two ways to view this and each leads to an opposite conclusion. For Cdn treatment if a religious school see http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/ic75-2...

Whether or not technically correct, some USC Cdn residents deduct as itemized charitable donations the tuition they pay to private Cdn schools that qualify as charitable organizations and who issue Cdn donation slips to parents. Then they file 8833 to disclose a treaty position. Now, this helps only...

timf: you've misunderstood my advice and have reached incorrect conclusions that should you follow your stated plan, you'll be incompliant. Note that there is a BIG difference between "non-recognition" and not owing tax and being exempt from withholding and being entirely exempt via 8288-b...

If no tax is required and no FIRPTA is withheld do I still have to file a 1040NR return? While "Yes, IRS requires you to PROVE that you owe no tax, if your income is above ~$5,000" is a correct statement, FIRPTA return filing requirements work differently and of their own accord require a ...

There are still numerous scenarios that could trigger a US income tax filing requirement even where " that business has (a) no physical assets in US -- that would rule out rental property -- and (b) you don't spend more than 1/2 of your time there.", so I would suggest that you don't rely ...

Jessica- there is no requirement per se to file a US tax return to report rental income, as a matter of fact the default system is withholding at 30% of gross rents. It just usually works out cheaper to file a return and elect on it to do so and pay gradated tax rates on net income, thus allowing de...

RE:I'm comfortable with the Canadian side, including foreign tax credits. I'm just stuck on the US side. I realized that and my only intention was to advise you strictly on the US side. In doing so I advised that the US tax treatment differed from the Cdn (and merely then listed the Cdn for context ...