We at DIRECTS spend each day working to help non-US persons obtain refunds of IRS mandated withholding taxes from US real estate sales. It is (often) not a simple process, not easy work, and there are frequently large refunds at stake. In our efforts, we are frequently required to call…
By: Michael W. Brooks (President DIRECTS) The revised IRS Forms 8288 and 8288-A became effective January 1, 2023. The Form 8288 and 8288-A are extremely important forms in any non-seller (of US real estate) transaction. Proper preparation of these forms can mean the difference in a non-US seller receiving their…
We have many foreign individuals (or foreign entities) who sold their US real estate in a prior year (say 2020 or 2019), and simply can’t obtain their refund. Hugely frustrating of course. And this refund is very often a large amount (15% of the gross sales price of a US…
By: Michael W. Brooks, Esq. And it drags on… this Coronavirus. And the Coronavirus continues to be a drag on the departments and services provided by the United States government. The government and services of the State of California continue to have major difficulties as well. Plus, we hear stories…
By Michael W. Brooks, Esq. michael@directsllp.com The IRS Had Not Been Issuing ITIN’s for Months, But Just Now, in Late July 2020, the IRS Has Finally Resumed Issuing ITIN’s At DIRECTS, as of the beginning of July, not one of the hundreds of clients for whom we applied for an…
By Michael W. Brooks, Esq. michael@directsllp.com Following up on our previous posts earlier this year, where we informed you the IRS employees in offices throughout the United States left those offices in late March, due to concerns about the virus (and stopped processing any foreign seller tax returns and paper…
Despite the IRS “ordering” over 10,000 employees back into IRS offices a couple weeks ago, it appears many IRS employees have respectfully declined to follow this IRS directive. Recall on April 27, the IRS ordered its “mission critical” employees back into the IRS offices. This request for employees to return…
Following up on DIRECTS’ most recent blog post, where I discussed the concerning issue of IRS employees who had become frightened to go into the (cramped) IRS offices and do work which I really believe can only be accomplished in their offices, the story has taken a profound and potentially…
By: Michael W. Brooks, Esq. Purchases of US real estate by non-US (foreign) persons slowed considerably during the period of April 2018 to March 2019, per a recent report issued by the National Association of Realtors entitled “Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2019”. This report generally…
By. Michael W. Brooks, Esq. The US government shutdown finally ended on January 28th– five weeks after it started. The full force of the IRS is back at work. What does this mean for the (in many cases) large refunds due to the non-US persons who sold US real…