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F.I.R.P.T.A. Revisited -- Things To Remember When Nonresidents Invest in U.S. Real Property

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F.I.R.P.T.A. Revisited -- Things To Remember When Nonresidents Invest in U.S. Real Property

The year 2025 marks the 45th anniversary of the enactment of the Foreign Investors Real Property Tax Act. It is a good time to revisit issues that are faced by nonresident investors considering an acquisition of real property in the U.S. For the private investor, many decision points must be addressed. Here are a few that come readily to mind: (1) Will the investment generate passive or active income? (2) Now and possibly in the future, will the investment be limited to one property or will there be multiple properties? (3) Is it better to own the property directly or through a holding company? (4) Should the holding company be formed in the U.S. or abroad there, or should there be holding companies in both places? (5) Should the holding company be tax-transparent or tax-opaque? (6) Will the structure prevent death duties from being imposed in the U.S.? (7) If the initial holding structure produces suboptimal results, can the structure be revised, and if so, at what cost? (8) Is it better to hold all U.S. properties through one U.S. holding company or is it better to hold each U.S. property through its own separate U.S. holding company? Stanley C. Ruchelman and Wooyoung Lee provide guidance to foreign investors and their home country advisers so that well-reasoned investment structures can be formulated at the front end that take into account U.S. tax rules, foreign tax rules, and preferences of the particular client.

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Indian Businesses Investing in the US – Tax Challenges – Part I→

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Published in Taxsustra: September 2015.

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Reinsurance Case Invalidates Tax on Foreign-to-Foreign Withholding Transactions

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A “cascading tax” is a tax that is enforced more than once on the income from the same transaction or related transactions. A common example involves a back to back license in which:

  • A non-U.S. individual or corporation (“A Co.”) licenses the rights to use intellectual property (“I.P.”) in the U.S. to another non-U.S. corporation (“B Co.”); and
  • B Co. then sub-licenses the same rights to use the I.P. to a U.S. corporation (“C Co.”).

J.C.T. Report on Competitiveness – A Step Toward Consideration of New Rules

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volume 2 no 4   /   Read article

By Stanley C. Ruchelman

This month, our team delves into the Joint Committee Report addressing international tax reform in a series of articles. Stanley C. Ruchelman leads with comments on the J.C.T. analysis of Subchapter N of today’s Code – the foreign provisions.  See more →

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Tax 101: Tax Planning and Compliance for Foreign Businesses with U.S. Activity

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I. INTRODUCTION

The U.S. tax laws affecting foreign businesses with activity in the U.S. contain some of the more complex provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Examples include:

  • Effectively connected income,
  • Allocation of expenses to that income,
  • Income tax treaties,
  • Arm’s length transfer pricing rules,
  • Permanent establishments under income tax treaties,
  • Limitation on benefits provisions in income tax treaties that are designed to prevent “treaty shopping,”
  • State tax apportionment,
  • F.I.R.P.T.A. withholding tax for transactions categorized as real property transfers,
  • Fixed and determinable annual and periodical income, and
  • Interest on items of portfolio debt.

One can imagine that it is no easy task to identify income that is subject to tax, to identify the tax regime applicable to the income, and to quantify gross income, net income, and income subject to withholding tax. Nonetheless, the I.R.S. has identified withholding tax obligations of U.S. payers as a Tier I audit issue.