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Austin Business Trip | February 2022 | International Tax Lawyer & Attorney

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In early February of 2022, Mr. Sherayzen, an international tax attorney and owner of Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd., traveled to Austin, Texas. Let’s discuss this Austin business trip in more detail.

Austin Business Trip: Goals

While the business trip to Austin was very short, Mr. Sherayzen set forth three main goals for the trip: (1) meeting with a client; (2) familiarizing himself with the city, which is a major source of clients to the firm; and (3) conducting important marketing activities to promote the firm.

All of these goals were accomplished (though #2 may still need more work) despite the fact that he came to Austin at the worst possible moment – right after a winter storm when the temperatures plummeted to the twenties (Fahrenheit) from the usual upper fifties/lower sixties and there was still ice on the roads.

Austin Business Trip: Client Meeting

The first goal was very easy to achieve as the meeting with a client was set prior to his arrival to Austin.

Austin Business Trip: Getting to Know Austin

The weather and the brevity of the Austin business trip presented a formidable challenge to the second goal. Despite these problems, Mr. Sherayzen was able to familiarize himself with the old-city Austin. Even more important, he was able to visit the IRS campus in Austin that processes streamlined disclosures: Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures. Both of these options are known as Streamlined Compliance Procedures.

Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures belong to the core practice of Sherayzen Law Office. This is why visiting the Austin IRS campus was an indispensable part of the Mr. Sherayzen’s trip to this city.

One may ask: why does Mr. Sherayzen want to know Austin in person? The answer is very simple: he wants to understand how his clients live, what their particular needs are, what logistical problems they may be facing and what are the peculiarities of their everyday life. At Sherayzen Law Office, we take an extra step in delivering customized services to our clients; for this reason, we strive to understand not only the financial situation of our clients, but also their logistics.

Austin Business Trip: Marketing

Marketing is Mr. Sherayzen’s crucial goal in almost every business trip. Nothing can replace the authenticity of marketing materials made in the city where the client lives. For this reason, more than two-thirds of his trip to Austin was devoted to marketing activities.

Given the presence of an IRS campus in Austin, offshore voluntary disclosures of course constituted the focus of these marketing activities. Besides Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures, Mr. Sherayzen also covered IRS Voluntary Disclosure Practice and other voluntary disclosure options.

Additionally, as always, Mr. Sherayzen promoted the awareness of the FBAR and FATCA reporting requirements in his marketing activities. The attorney also covered important US international tax information returns such as: Forms 8865, 5471, 3520, 3520-A, et cetera.

Austin Business Trip is Part of a Major Marketing Strategy

The Austin business trip is merely one part of a major marketing strategy that Sherayzen Law Office launched last year. It is projected that this strategy will run through the end of the year 2027.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office for Professional Help With Your Offshore Voluntary Disclosure and US International Tax Compliance

Sherayzen Law Office is an international tax law firm that specializes in US international tax compliance and offshore voluntary disclosures. We help clients with their US international tax compliance issues throughout the world, including in all fifty states of the United States.

Contact Us Today to Schedule Your Confidential Consultation!

FBAR and Form 8938 Filings Continue to Grow

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On March 15, 2016, the IRS announced that there was continuous growth in the FBAR and Form 8938 filings. While the IRS attributes this growth in FBAR and Form 8938 filings to the greater awareness of taxpayers, one cannot underestimate the impact of the FATCA letter and the increasing knowledge of foreign financial institutions with respect to U.S. tax reporting requirements.

Background Information for the FBAR and Form 8938 Filings

FBAR and Form 8938 are the main forms with respect to reporting of foreign financial accounts and (in the case of Form 8938) “other specified assets”. The Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, FinCEN Form 114 (commonly known as “FBAR”) should be filed by U.S. taxpayers to report a financial interest in or signatory authority over foreign financial accounts if the aggregate value of these accounts exceeds $10,000. This form is associated with draconian noncompliance penalties.

IRS Form 8938 was created by the famous Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”). Generally, U.S. citizens, resident aliens and certain non-resident aliens must report specified foreign financial assets on Form 8938 if the aggregate value of those assets exceeds the required thresholds (the lowest threshold is $50,000, but it varies by taxpayer). The noncompliance with respect to Form 8938 may result in additional penalties, including $10,000 per form.

IRS Registers Sustained Increase in the FBAR and Form 8938 Filings

Compliance with FBAR and, later, Form 8938 is one of the top priorities for the IRS according to the IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Recent statistics with respect to the FBAR and Form 8938 filings support the conclusion that the IRS has been largely successful in achieving this task.

The IRS states that the FBAR filings have grown on average by 17 percent per year during the last five years, according to FinCEN data. In fact, in 2015, FinCEN received a record high 1,163,229 FBARs.

Similar, but far less successful trends can be seen with respect to Form 8938 filings. In 2011, the IRS received about 200,000 Forms 8938, but the number rose to 300,000 by the tax year 2013. However, it seems to have stagnated at the same number judging from the statistics for the tax year 2014.

While the lower number of Forms 8938 could be explained by the novelty of the form as well as higher thresholds, it appears that some Forms 8938 might not also be filed due to mistaken calculation of the asset base used to determine whether Form 8938 filing requirements were met.

Nevertheless, overall, it appears that the FBAR and Form 8938 filings have grown sufficiently for the IRS to be satisfied with its progress.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office for Professional Help with Your FBAR and Form 8938 Filings

U.S. international tax law is incredibly complex and the penalties are excessively high. If you were supposed to file FBARs and Forms 8938 in the past, but you have not done so, you need to contact Sherayzen Law Office as soon as possible. Mr. Sherayzen and his legal team will thoroughly analyze your case, assess your potential tax liabilities, determine the available voluntary disclosure options, and implement (including the preparation of all legal documents and tax forms) the voluntary disclosure option that fits your case best.

Contact Us Today to Schedule Your Confidential Consultation!

Austin FBAR Tax Lawyer

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A question that I would like to explore in this article is: Who is considered to be an Austin FBAR tax lawyer?

It seems to be an odd question, because a lot of people would say that an Austin FBAR tax lawyer is an attorney who resides in Austin and does FBAR law.

This, however, is an over-simplistic and incorrect view. First of all, there is no area of “FBAR” law. Rather, FBAR is a tax information return which is being administered by the IRS on behalf of FinCEN. This means that FBAR “law” forms part of a larger compliance framework within the area of international tax law. In essence, all “FBAR tax lawyers” are in reality international tax lawyers who must be knowledgeable not just about the FBARs, but about all relevant areas of international tax law.

However, despite its technical deficiencies, the term FBAR tax lawyers is commonly used to describe an international tax lawyer who helps his clients with FBAR compliance.

Second, an Austin FBAR tax lawyer does not mean that the tax lawyer must reside in Austin. FBAR is part of US federal tax law and can be practiced by an international tax lawyer who is licensed in any of the 50 states of the United States.

Thus, an international tax lawyer who is able to help his clients with FBAR compliance in Austin, Texas, is an Austin FBAR tax lawyer. This means that an Austin FBAR tax lawyer can actually reside in Minneapolis or any other city.

In this case, the modern means of communications usually come into play: email, Skype video conferences, telephone and regular mail. In fact, aside from initial consultation, your communication with an Austin FBAR tax lawyer who actually resides in Austin is likely to be limited exactly to these modern means of communication with very rare (if any) face-to-face meetings.

With this information in mind, we can now go back and answer my original question: Who is considered to be an Austin FBAR tax lawyer? The answer is as follows: An Austin FBAR tax lawyer is an international tax lawyer who is licensed to practice in any of the 50 states of the United States, resides anywhere in the United States (Minneapolis, for example) or any other country, and helps his clients in Austin with FBAR compliance with the help of modern means of communication.

Contact Sherayzen Law Office If You Are Looking for an Austin FBAR Tax Lawyer

If you are looking for an Austin FBAR tax lawyer, contact Sherayzen Law Office, Ltd., an international tax law firm that specializes in FBAR compliance and helps its clients in Austin, Texas.

Our professional legal team is highly experienced in FBAR compliance, including current FBAR compliance and FBAR voluntary disclosures. We have helped clients with every major IRS voluntary disclosure program (2009 OVDP, 2011 OVDI, 2012 OVDP and the currently-existing 2014 OVDP), both types of Streamlined Disclosures (Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures and Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures), Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedures and Delinquent FBAR Submission Procedures.

Contact Us Today to Schedule Your Confidential Consultation!