Recent UK-Yankee tax webinar

Here is a recent tax Q&A video posted on UK-Yankee. I'm a bit disappointed in some of the content and that it is not specific to US expats in the UK. I found myself disagreeing with several of the answers the tax professional gives.

http://uk-yankee.com/articles/event-free-online-american-expat-tax-seminar-30-may-2012

The section on pensions in particular is just plain wrong.

The section on pensions in particular is just plain wrong.

Yes I was thinking that too. But she never mentioned the treaty and absent that I think she was correct in what she said........of course to ignore the treaty when talking about pensions is a pretty big omission.

The section about anything new would have certainally warranted mention of the 8938. You could easily need to file if you sold your house, or deposited an inheritance for example.

Sad to say, I found it a total waste of time, albeit a very small amount of time. I had great hopes of hearing some definitive answers (based on tax law) to specific questions, but that was definitely not the case.

Frankly, the 'professional' sounded anything but IMHO.

The section about anything new would have certainally warranted mention of the 8938. You could easily need to file if you sold your house, or deposited an inheritance for example.

I thought that too.....she went on about FBAR which is not new at all. Also she stated that pensions are FBAR reportable which I don't think is correct for employer sponsored final salary pensions. But I will give her credit for doing the the webinar. Sure there was a lot of selling going on, but at least it's a start.

I thought that some of the posters here could have done a lot better.
What killed me though was the money - $300+ and 2300 clients, that's only one accountant, and about 80% of expatriates don't owe any tax. When I think of how that money could be better spent, it makes me weep. And it's not the accounants I'm pointing the finger at - it's down squarely to Congress (my hobbyhorse).

I thought that some of the posters here could have done a lot better.
What killed me though was the money - $300+ and 2300 clients, that's only one accountant, and about 80% of expatriates don't owe any tax. When I think of how that money could be better spent, it makes me weep. And it's not the accounants I'm pointing the finger at - it's down squarely to Congress (my hobbyhorse).

I get you point, but $300 sounds very reasonable to me considering I spend $100 a year on tax software to do my regular US taxes.

If any of you have any questions, I can answer them more in depth. I can give you my phone number or e-mail address.  It was our first time doing a webinar, and we cannot talk about everything, but I will be gladly to answer any of your questions you have.