Professional help companies...

Hi all,

My wife and I will be using a professional company to file her tax returns. I have seen the promoted links for Taxes For Expats and Artio Partners in this forum.

Does anyone have any experience of using either of them? Taxes for Expats has lots of reviews but is the most expensive service.

Has anyone used any of the following? –

Bright Tax
Expatriate Tax Returns
Jaffe & Co

Many thanks

We used Taxes For Expats -- expensive, yes, but worth it to sort out a complex tax situation.

Thanks for letting me know.

They do seem to have a lot of good reviews. Just wondering if the others are reputable...

A few pointers on reputational issues:

1. In both the UK and most of the US there are no professional qualifications required at all to practice accounting or tax. Professional qualifications are of course desirable, but generally not mandatory in most of the world.  I would personally not choose an unqualified dentist; equally I suggest not choosing an unqualified accountant or tax adviser.

2. Out of preference I'd suggest selecting someone qualified in both countries.

3. The adviser should preferably be located in the jurisdiction where you live. This is simply so that in the really, really unlikely event that things go wrong you can complain to a professional body local to you about the problem (rather than a State CPA Society many thousands of miles away).

4. Someone who is a member of a professional body in the UK will be required to carry Professional Indemnity insurance. If things ever go seriously wrong the insurance may help pick up the eventual liability. The equivalent in the US (E & O insurance) is not mandatory and simply may not covers claims outside the US..

5. Practicing tax or accounting services in the UK requires that the adviser is registered with a supervisory body for anti-money laundering purposes. It is a criminal offence to practice tax in the UK without being supervised.

In summary do not be shy of asking your adviser who she or he is qualified with, when, where and who she or he is supervised by.

Appreciate that, thank you very much for the pointers.

I have had some good communications with Greenback Expat Tax ... so may go with them.

Thanks again

I often wonder how well these firms that specialize in US expat taxes integrate with UK taxes. Obviously a US citizen resident in the UK has to comply with both US and UK tax and use domestic laws and the treaty to pay the correct amount of tax in each country. So US tax is only half the story. How well do these firms do resourcing of income to the UK? How do they interface with your UK tax advisor or the customer, how much extra does that cost and what if there are arguments. Ideally both US and UK taxes should be done by the same firm or person.

I cannot think of US taxes without also considering UK taxes; the two are completely interdependent.

I often wonder how well these firms that specialize in US expat taxes integrate with UK taxes. Obviously a US citizen resident in the UK has to comply with both US and UK tax and use domestic laws and the treaty to pay the correct amount of tax in each country. So US tax is only half the story. How well do these firms do resourcing of income to the UK? How do they interface with your UK tax advisor or the customer, how much extra does that cost and what if there are arguments. Ideally both US and UK taxes should be done by the same firm or person.

I cannot think of US taxes without also considering UK taxes; the two are completely interdependent.

My company hired PWC to do both my US/UK taxes for me when I was on my Tier 2 visa.  I had two seperate teams, the US team and the UK team.  While they did share information back and forth regarding what had been paid in the UK, etc., they did not give me a level of confidence.  Every single return whether the US return or UK return had major errors that I caught and had to fight to sort out. 

I used Bruce Jaffe several years ago for a couple of years. He's good - he advised and sorted out some pension matters for me. He's an american lawyer, long time resident in the UK, based in NW London, and has the necessary tax/accountancy qualifications. He works with a partner who can do the UK tax end. His prices for doing tax returns were quite reasonable, certainly less than the boutique firms. You don't get tax planning, advice, explanation, etc but  that could probably be arranged