Treitel is a former tax director at US Tax & Financial Services, which also specialises in looking after Americans in the UK.
Treitel said his new company, American Tax Returns Ltd, will prepare both American and British tax returns, in addition to offering “sensible, joined-up advice” on tax matters affecting people whose finances fall on both sides of “the pond”.
In addition to holding both US and UK qualifications, Treitel, who is British, is a member of the Private Client committee of Tax Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Britain and Wales (ICAEW), as well as the Membership & Branches committee of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. He is also a founding member of the FATCA working group at the ICAEW.
Most Americans have now got the message that the Internal Revenue Service is playing a more serious game of hardball than it has in the past, according to Treitel, but there are some who do may have come abroad while young, possibly not intending to stay for very long, and who somehow have managed to survive for years without having ever realised that they are required to file a tax return every year for their entire lives, even if they don’t earn a penny.
“Now that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is forcing every non-US financial institution on the planet to report to the US authorities on every American client they have, such individuals are beginning to come forward,” Treitel added.
“They are typically the ones who have only just found out that America wants tax returns, and often can’t sleep with the worry that they might owe tax to the United States.”
Treitel is hopeful that a new “overseas American” initiative due to come from the IRS next month will be good news for such tax-worried insomniacs, saying that it could be “possibly the best tax amnesty this decade”.
Other accountants, IFAs, lawyers welcome
Because “IRS-speak” is not an easy language to pick up on one’s own, Treitel said, he is hoping to help other accountants as well as lawyers and financial advisers with their American questions, in addition to American clients.
Treitel’s office is located in Wimbledon in Southwest London, and his website may be viewed by clicking here.
