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§00Filings & Penalties

What has to be filed, and what it costs not to.

The annual returns a foreign-owned U.S. business owes, the penalties attached to missing them, and the routes back into compliance when years are outstanding.

9 dossiers · View every dossier

Dossiers

№1336m
Filings & Penalties

The Year-End Checklist for Non-U.S. Residents: 12 Things to Settle Before 31 December

Twelve items that are cheap to fix before the year closes and expensive afterwards: the day count, expiring treaty forms, undocumented intercompany charges, and the four deadlines that land between January and April.

Open Dossier
№1365m
Filings & Penalties

Year-End for a Foreign-Owned U.S. Company: Four Things to Settle Before 31 December

Expiring W-8 forms, related-party charges that need a written basis, the transactions that belong on the annual information return, and the timing decisions that stop being available once the year closes.

Open Dossier
№329m
Filings & Penalties

Late Form 5472: Reasonable Cause and What Relief Actually Requires

The $25,000 penalty is not a tax penalty, it does not scale with income, and filing late with a reasonable cause statement does not guarantee it will not be assessed.

Open Dossier
№339m
Filings & Penalties

Delinquent International Return Procedures: Choosing the Right Route

More than one route exists for coming back into compliance, built for different taxpayers. Filing under the wrong one is one of the more expensive mistakes available in this area.

Open Dossier
№349m
Filings & Penalties

BEA Surveys: The Mandatory Filing That Has Nothing to Do With the IRS

A foreign-owned U.S. business can owe a federal survey to the Bureau of Economic Analysis at a 10% ownership threshold, triggered by the transaction itself rather than by being asked.

Open Dossier
№359m
Filings & Penalties

ITIN Renewal: Why Numbers Expire and How Rejections Happen

An ITIN can expire from disuse, and filing a return with an expired number can mean credits and treaty benefits are quietly disallowed, discovered only when the refund does not arrive.

Open Dossier
№369m
Filings & Penalties

What a Certifying Acceptance Agent Actually Does

The one authorisation that lets an ITIN applicant keep their passport rather than mailing it to the United States, and the easy-to-miss difference between this and an ordinary acceptance agent.

Open Dossier
№479m
Filings & Penalties

The Stripe Atlas, Firstbase and doola Compliance Gap

These platforms are genuinely good at incorporation. None of them file the annual federal return a foreign-owned entity owes, and paid 'compliance' tiers often cover only the state filing, not the federal one.

Open Dossier
№5111m
Filings & Penalties

State Income Tax Nexus for Foreign Sellers

A federal treaty position and full IRS compliance say nothing about what an individual U.S. state can assert. Physical and economic nexus rules now reach many sellers who assume they are protected.

Open Dossier