US Pension and Social Security Benefits Claim
An 80 years old widow, nonresident alien (not a US citizen), living in Switzerland with a claim to her deceased U.S. citizen husband’s pension. Pension of USD 8,000 was due monthly since the date of death of her husband but eighteen months later, not a single pension payment was made and the U.S. company denies processing the payments because the widow is not a U.S. citizen.
Resolved: the claim for pension was successfully resolved, the lump sum amount of all past due monthly payments received and monthly payments started arriving. In addition, we successfully guided the application for social security benefits as a widow of a U.S. citizen and she also received a lump sum amount of monthly payments for the prior year as well as ongoing monthly social security benefits.
USD 60,000 Tax - Amended
Dual citizen, born with US and Swiss citizenship, never knew he had to file tax returns. Once he found out, he contracted a U.S. tax preparer, CPA, who prepared and filed five years of delinquent tax returns resulting in over USD 60,000 total tax due, including penalties and interest. He contacted us after he filed all these five years of tax returns and after he started receiving IRS notices for additional penalties and interest.
Resolved: upon learning more details of client’s background and the circumstances, we recommended to file several amended tax returns under the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures with filing status of Married filing jointly with his spouse opting to be treated as U.S tax resident under 6013(g) election instead of the original filing status Married filing separately. Taxes, penalties, and interest in excess of USD 40,000 were saved to the client.
USD 200,000 claim
for Inherited Retirement Account
A client living in Switzerland inherited 401(k) of USD 200,000 and life insurance benefits from her deceased brother who was living and working in the US. After her numerous unsuccessful attempts to distribute the pension and several denials of her application for an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) from the IRS, she contacted us.
Resolved: we obtained the ITIN on the client’s behalf and assisted with the due diligence requirements; the client received her check for the lump sum distribution.
