Month: September 2019

The IRS announced a new program “Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens” to help those who have expatriated incorrectly and are worried about being deemed a “covered expatriate.” So before you convince yourself you need this program, it may be a good idea to know a covered expat is and what happened is you don’t take any action, right?

Obviously, not filing a Form 5471 at all when required to do so can trigger a Form 5471 penalty. But also, any Form 5471 that is filed but that the IRS considers not “substantially complete” may result in Form 5471 penalties. In this article we will discuss what types of mistakes on a Form 5471 could lead to “substantially incomplete” penalties and what you can do to protect yourself from an IRS international audit team that admits it is hyper-aggressive when it comes to assessing Form 5471 penalties.