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Tax News Now Ep. 15 - Asking the Right Questions: A CPA’s Playbook for International Tax Risk and Reporting with Andrew Leonard
434 Plays19 days ago
In this episode Mark Gallegos, Tax Partner at Porte Brown, and his guest, Andrew Leonard, focus on practical international tax awareness for CPAs, emphasizing how cross-border issues often surface unexpectedly through foreign investments, gifts, or life events. They highlight core compliance and penalty risks (including information reporting), how to ask better client questions to uncover exposure, and why proactive planning and clear communication are critical to keeping clients compliant.
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Transcript
Introduction to International Tax Complexity
00:00:02
Speaker
Music
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to the Tax News Now, the podcast where we cut through the headlines, decode complexity, and focus on what actually matters for CPAs and advisors working with real clients in the real world.
00:00:19
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I'm Mark Gallegos, and today's episode is one I've been genuinely excited about. Tax doesn't stop at the borders, but planning often does. We live in the world when people move for work, opportunity, family, and even safety.
00:00:32
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Capital moves even faster. Businesses expand globally across borders and long before they ever think of themselves as international. And yet the
Understanding International Tax Rules
00:00:40
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tax rules governing all this, foreign income, offshore reporting, cross-border compliance, are some of the most complex, unforgiving, and misunderstood areas of our profession.
00:00:50
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International tax used to feel like a niche specialty. Today is simply reality. It's to show up quietly through a foreign bank account, an inherited asset overseas, a green card, a remote employee, or business opportunity that suddenly spans jurisdictions.
00:01:06
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This episode isn't about memorizing acronyms or scaring anyone with penalties. It's about awareness. it's about judgment, and it's about relationships, because in international tax, trust is just as important as technical accuracy.
00:01:18
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That's why
Introduction to Andrew Lennard
00:01:19
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I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest to the Tax News Now podcast. Joining me is Andrew Lennard. He's a CPA, a Director of International Tax Services at Baker Tilly, and on top of that, he is a great friend.
00:01:32
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He spent over 15 years helping individuals, families, entrepreneurs, businesses, and anyone else you can think of deal with tax and even international tax. from inbound and outbound to structuring.
00:01:44
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He spent a lot of time in that area and he's someone who you wanna get to know. He holds a master's of business administration from Florida Atlantic University, a bachelor of science from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
00:01:57
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And beyond the credentials, which are impressive, Andrew is someone I've known and respected for a long while now. He's incredibly smart, deeply thoughtful, and someone clients and fellow advisors generally trust. In international tax, that combination isn't just valuable, it's essential.
00:02:12
Speaker
So, Andrew, welcome to the Tax News Now podcast. Mark, thanks for having me. Definitely excited to be here. Been looking forward to it since you asked me if we could do this together this year. Absolutely. So
Andrew's Journey into Accounting
00:02:23
Speaker
let's let's let's kick off this way. Let's start with your journey because, you know, I want to get to the international side and everything else we're doing there. But like, tell me about how you started off in accounting from day one or what brought you into accounting and give us the give us the back story.
00:02:41
Speaker
What brought me into accounting may may not be terribly interesting, but we'll try it and hopefully it goes well. I went into school at UNC Greensboro thinking I wanted to be a stockbroker or an investment guy. right I thought they made good money.
00:02:54
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i was worried about making money. That's why I went to college. And freshman year, I had accounting 101 as part of the base curriculum for the business school, trying to get there.
00:03:07
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And in Accounting 101, they said the words language of business. And I think that's gotten a lot of people interested in accounting over the years. And so that had me a little hooked initially. But then at the end of the semester, and think it was second semester freshman year, my grade was like a 97. And everybody else was in like the 70s or almost everybody else was in the 70s. I was like, well, maybe maybe I'm good at this.
00:03:33
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And that whole language of business thing is pretty interesting. So I think that was where ah kind of started thinking, well maybe I wasn't going to do what I initially thought. Maybe it was going to be accounting for me. That's great. No, i
Early Exposure to International Tax
00:03:45
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think I think, you know, that's just an interesting story. I mean, like at the end of the day, we have everybody that's in the profession has a different backstory of how they got there. And obviously, you know, you you start going one route and before you know it, you shift it into another route. And I think that's just normal.
00:04:01
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Where along the way did it in but in your profession, did international tax kind of creep into or you get exposed to it along the way? Yeah, so that's great. ah So my previous firm, before we merged with Baker Tilly at the beginning of January of this year, Berkowitz Pollock Brandt, I joined them in night 2007.
00:04:23
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And the very first project they put me on was an international project. And I'd been working for a few years, so it wasn't like tax was completely unknown to me, but I certainly had never really seen international tax.
00:04:35
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And that project included, we's we'll call it 24 or so foreign entities owned underneath three foreign trusts, which ultimately reported to a 1040 of a guy who was domestic, but had a lot of international stuff going on.
00:04:51
Speaker
Right. And that project went on for a number of years. I was in charge of it eventually, but at the beginning I was just, you know, doing the grunt work, figuring out how to get it all done. Learning actually under one of my current partners, Art Dichter, who still kind of, I go to with questions on things. He's very heavy international and focused on the trust side. So i got to learn a lot from him on that project and then a lot of subsequent projects.
00:05:17
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um And that project was, Probably, i don't even know, probably like 100 hours or 150 hours of my busy season for several years in a row.
00:05:29
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Just getting comfortable with 88.58s, 54.71s, 35.20s, 35.20As. I know we said we weren't going to talk about numbers, but it's really hard not to talk about form numbers when we talk about international tax. But that was my first taste.
00:05:42
Speaker
And honestly, everybody else was scared of it. And I was like, well, if everybody else is scared of it and there's this much going on, And i I'm a boring guy from Ohio, right? I've always been curious about the world.
00:05:55
Speaker
It gave me an opportunity to learn about other cultures and other places. At least that's what I thought. I could tell you 20 years in now or whatever it is that it absolutely gave me an opportunity to meet people from different places and learn about different cultures and everything else. So but that's how I got the international kind of bug.
00:06:13
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And well, we
Challenges and Opportunities in International Tax
00:06:14
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we really don't look back. and I think once you get comfortable with international and that that's something you want to do. Correct. No, I think that's great. And I mean, to work on a client right out the gate with that much complexity and that much going on, obviously, you know, you, you're just kind thrown into the fire and you're kind of figuring it out as you go. And obviously you got people you can rely on and lean on, which is always helpful in this business. um But, you know, with that, you know, early client situation where you have 150 hours of the busy season, essentially devoted to that client and, and probably even more, to be honest, um you know,
00:06:48
Speaker
You probably realize somewhere along the way, just like you did in school and like, hey, i'm I'm above the rest as far as like, you know, maybe I should be in accounting versus working international because, you know, when you talk to some people, they want to be auditors or they just want to be tax generalists.
00:07:00
Speaker
And you kind of start doing some stuff in tax, international tax. You realize it carries a higher stakes, right? than Than some of the other areas of tax, right? Yeah, I think that's true. And I think part of it was the timing, too. Like I said, I started in 2007 at Berkowitz. And in 2007, as I'm sure you remember, things in the international tax arena kind of exploded, right?
00:07:23
Speaker
Right. it's ah It's around the time that UBS started going after people or or got announced that that the IRS was going to go after those people who had been with UBS. Right. And they started creating things like the streamline process and the the OV, OVDP. Like we had a ah whole new world of all of a sudden international tax was like the most probably bright spot, hot point button the IRS was looking at.
00:07:48
Speaker
And if we could figure out how to help people either stay clean or get clean, it was a big opportunity at the time. So I think part of it was opportunity. Part of it was, yeah, I liked it. And everybody else that was around me didn't like it. I was working in a room, a staff room that had six other people in it.
00:08:05
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None of them wanted to do the work I was doing. So I was like, I like it. It's interesting. There's a ton going on right now. This could be like a real career path for me. Right. Not
International Tax in South Florida
00:08:16
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just a I'll work on projects as they come, but going to start asking for projects. Right.
00:08:20
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And as I developed, I was a ah third year, second year associate at the time, senior manager. It just kept gradually getting more and more. I would say nowadays, it's probably a little more balanced with the domestic again.
00:08:32
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But as I was growing up through the firm, international was what I liked. It's what everybody else needed me to do And honestly, the opportunity to do it here in South Florida, where I happen to have my career in my life, amazing.
00:08:47
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There isn't a person I meet who doesn't have something going on internationally. so it's just very prevalent as well. That's so great. I mean, i absolutely. And when you look at that, and obviously you're from Ohio, you're in South Florida, you're seeing people that, you know, a lot more culture, a lot more people that have international ties.
00:09:09
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um Do you believe that early on in your career, was it more important to know the technical knowledge or build relationships or how how did you balance that? That's a great question. So I think knowing me, you know, I never claim to be the most technical person in the room. I'm definitely not in most rooms. In this room by myself, I think I qualify.
00:09:28
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But yeah generally, one of my, i think, keys to being good at what I do is I keep as many smart people around me as I can who know the things I don't know.
00:09:39
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i like i like to think I know a good bit, but I also am aware of the things I don't know. So for me, I think it was a lot more relationship side. relationships with who I was helping, but also relationships with the people who could help me help those people.
00:09:54
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You and I have been friends for a long time because of that, right? We have to know people who can help get things done. I'm not always the guy to get things done, but I like to think I usually know somebody who can be that guy or woman that can get that done, right?
00:10:08
Speaker
I think that's one of the biggest skill sets I bring to every opportunity. That's awesome. No, I agree. Yeah, I mean, you, you I ah do think you sell yourself short though. you are You pretty much know a lot more than your claim. And Andrew is a genius when it comes to this stuff, but even more than just the technical knowledge and and understanding how this works in with clients, The relationship building, I've seen it firsthand over and over again with how that works. And I'm telling you, it matters. And for those listening, you know, if you're trying to expand your profession, even if you're not an international tax, the relationship side matters more than you think. Right.
Impact of Global Events on International Tax
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um So.
00:10:48
Speaker
When you're in school and you're kind of developing or even when you come into the profession, you're you're a young staff person. What skills did you develop quickly that you weren't necessarily taught in school that you kind of just learned along the way in this journey?
00:11:02
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Yeah, I think i I think I have a bit of a we'll call it advantage slash disadvantage at some point in some points in my career being Midwestern. I think I have a tendency to try to create relationships from everybody I meet.
00:11:16
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So I think that played well many, many times. But as I'm sure you've seen and many people have seen, not everybody wants to have that. kind of over sharing communicative relationship. So while it helps me with most clients to be very warm and want to talk about things with them, there have been clients over the years that we describe them as red. We use the disc I think you're familiar with the disk analysis. yeah the red The red group tends to be straight to the point. They're not looking to have a long, drawn-out explanation.
00:11:48
Speaker
Well, I'm a long, drawn-out explanation guy, so I have to try to tailor that when I'm working. So I think figuring out how to balance that over my career, I'm still not the best at it every day, but I try very hard to understand who somebody else is and what they need because in our profession,
00:12:05
Speaker
I think the most important thing is having the person you're trying to help feel like you're doing the right thing for them. Right. They expect you to do the correct thing. They expect you to know what you're doing, but they want to know that you're caring about how they need information provided, what needs to be done.
00:12:24
Speaker
It's more of a care process. job, then it really is a I got the right answer job most of the time. The relationship side makes a big difference. So figuring out how to talk to people who weren't like me that want to just get to know everything about somebody was a challenge for me, but also beneficial for the clients that wanted to have that or the firm members that wanted to have that over the years.
00:12:46
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And as you develop that, I mean, obviously, that's that's something that you know takes a lot of you know emotional intelligence
Discovering Client Tax Exposures
00:12:53
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and understanding reading the room and understanding people in general, the psychology of people. were you surprised What was surprising about that on that journey to you were on that kind of you know jumped out at you? is like, wow, I'm good at this, you know being someone from the Midwest as I am.
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think, again, I think we're innately kind of taught that just by being around the environment of of growing up in the Midwest. So I think that part was kind of there. um And I'm not saying that that makes us that much different than anybody else, but I think it's just culturally it's there in the Midwest. Right. You talk to everybody you run into.
00:13:24
Speaker
So I'm watching my parents do that at the donut shop or the grocery store or the bank or wherever. Right. Right. I think. For me, it really started clicking probably around the time I was a senior or a manager that, hey, I was pretty good at connecting with people, maybe more than I realized.
00:13:43
Speaker
And maybe that was a skill I needed to focus on, even though everybody else was telling me, you know get super technical, get super knowledgeable, get very deep in the code. I found that I was better off, at least it felt like I was better off connecting with the other people who were better at the deeper in the code and being the one who could communicate complicated matters in a way that was understandable for people who weren't accountants or lawyers.
00:14:07
Speaker
Right. A lot of the things that you and I do to help people, extremely thick, dense, verbose, not things that a lot of people are going to get. One of the skills I think I developed that around them and still try to carry forward is putting something wed we'd call it layman's terms. But I just want to say, make it understandable for somebody who's not in the profession.
00:14:30
Speaker
So I think that was a big surprise initially. But I think I figured that out pretty quickly and was able to kind of make that work. I love that. I think it shows. I mean, obviously, whether you're talking to people in the profession, you're talking to clients, you're just talking to someone at a restaurant. You know how to, you know, you're not talking down to someone ever. You're always talking at what level level they're at and you're bringing the information so that they can understand.
00:14:56
Speaker
But in a way that, you know, everyone's on the same playing field. And I think. And you're also a connector where you kind of bring people into that the same way. And I think that is a huge, huge skill you have, which is amazing.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you, Mark. Yeah. I think, um, I think trying to find commonality with people is another thing that I've, I've found over the years is a secret for success, right? If you can find something you share in common with a person, you can build on that and create a real relationship. Um,
00:15:28
Speaker
And I think that makes a difference. Right. Again, I talked about again, this is just my opinion, but that care factor, that how you take care of somebody is dramatically important in what we do for a living.
00:15:40
Speaker
And so finding that commonality, I think, helps with that, creating that relationship, that care factor.
00:15:48
Speaker
Now, talking about international tax, we know, i mean you mentioned earlier 2007, it kind of it opened the the floodgates. But even even since COVID, even more recently, we see international tax issues are basically showing up everywhere with clients, whether they know it or not know it.
00:16:07
Speaker
Why do you think that is for some for the most part? That's a good question. I think a lot of people got more worldly, we'll call it, in the 15 years since 2007. Is that right?
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah. route About 15 years, right? Maybe it's almost 20 now. Gosh, am I getting old? I think I'm getting old, Marla. No, no. So um in those years, though, I think that the businesses got more worldly. People moved around more. COVID caused people to move a lot.
00:16:36
Speaker
Right. I've got clients that moved to Italy in COVID when, you you know, they've talked about they were giving away houses in Italy. i have a client who moved to Italy because they basically got a free house to live out of and they work back in the state still.
00:16:49
Speaker
And their their tax
Managing Complex Tax Cases
00:16:50
Speaker
situation is pretty complicated, but they bought a house for basically nothing in Italy. So things like that, I think, have just been part of how the world works. And I don't want to try to go political, but turmoil in countries, regardless of the country, also creates more movement, right?
00:17:08
Speaker
Being in South Florida 20 years ago when I got here, Venezuelan people had been moving here for a while and continue to move here. They need help, right? Their situation different.
00:17:20
Speaker
And we're in South Florida, lots of Cuban heritage people here too. There's people from all over Latin America and Europe that come here regularly. And I think that doesn't stop, hasn't stopped. And honestly, some years is way more expansive than others.
00:17:34
Speaker
So there's always international lifestyle or business that's going to impact what you and I do. Having a bank account or a company or a trust that is onshore or offshore, depending on what that person is onshore offshore,
00:17:50
Speaker
I literally can't run into a potential client without there being something international on it. Even if they grew up in Ohio like I did, they just happen to live in Florida. At this point, they seem to have something international as well.
00:18:03
Speaker
I think the amount of companies that have realized the US market's good to sell in also is very big. The last couple of years, Dutch companies, English companies, Canadian companies, French companies, Turkish companies, obviously Latin American companies are trying to get part of our sales base, right? All these things we buy in the States.
00:18:25
Speaker
So I think there's a lot of reasons, but what I think is true That cross-border tax planning, consulting compliance that we do is not slowing down and probably will not slow down anytime soon.
00:18:40
Speaker
That's good. and That's good. Now, when you're talking to these clients and you're just having a conversation, maybe checking in on them, whatever the case may be, what are some innocent statements they could make that make you pause regarding maybe that they are exposed to international tax?
00:18:56
Speaker
That's a great question. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tells. um But fortunately, that's good for us to know them, right? Right. So, ah you know, there's a lot of times that people will talk about a company and you start asking like where the company is And they're like, well, it's not really a big deal.
00:19:15
Speaker
my My family has a company. And i'm like, oh, your family, do you own any of it yourself? Well, yes, but I don't own a lot of it. Mom and dad and my siblings own most of it.
00:19:26
Speaker
how much do you own? Well, I i own 20%. Okay, what kind of company is it? What country is it in? Where are you from? ah Is it one company or are there companies under it? Oh, well, it's actually it's actually the family's holding company.
00:19:44
Speaker
Oh, a great. What does it hold? Oh, it has seven companies in Peru. Okay. Oh, okay. And do you own anything directly in those? Well, no but between my parents and my siblings and i it's only the family who owns those businesses through this holding company. No one owns anything else.
00:20:04
Speaker
Oh, okay. So you probably have some reporting we should talk about. Maybe it's one year, maybe it's not, depending on certain factors. What do you do with the money you get from that company?
00:20:16
Speaker
Does it come back to the US? Yes. No. Where's the money go? I have a bank account in Panama that it goes to.
00:20:28
Speaker
Is the bank account in your name? Well, you see, my my parents set up a foundation for me one time few years back. So there's so many things, right, that happen in a conversation. and I'm sure you've had a ton of these conversations, too, because I know how much internationally you guys do as well.
00:20:45
Speaker
But it feels like if you don't keep asking questions, you're not going to get the answers. So one of my other partners, Barry Brandt, is a beautiful question asker. He is amazing.
00:20:59
Speaker
Phenomenal at And I've always tried to mirror that in my career. I want to ask questions the way he does, where you're always open-ended, you're always asking the next question, because you don't know what you need to know until people say the things you need to hear.
00:21:14
Speaker
And they don't know what to tell you if you don't give them the opportunity. And then there's always the clients who hold back because they know they shouldn't tell you something because they know there's a problem.
00:21:25
Speaker
Right. I like to think that through creating that relationship, the commonality, the the good at creat communicating with people, you can get through that ice of they're worried about telling you about something. It's
Communicating Compliance and Penalties
00:21:36
Speaker
As you know, we have to know kind of everything when we're helping disclose international tax or we create a problem without even realizing it. Right.
00:21:45
Speaker
Right. We clean it up and there's another company or trust or account that didn't get reported. Well, then the client has a bigger problem because they already did the cleanup and now there's something left.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's what you just described there is gold in itself. I mean, it's talking to clients, asking a basic question, getting an answer, and then not ignoring what they said, you know, and and just asking more questions from there. and And, you know, you're not interrogating them. You're just you're just getting to know them more. and you're And they mentioned about owning a business. And what does that mean? And your ownership and It just starts to unfold. And the description you gave there is, hey, this guy owns a holding company, 20 percent that owns a number of other companies. And then there's foreign bank accounts and there's foundations and all these things. and before you know it, there's a lot of stuff. And you've unraveled a mess. Yeah. and And now you realize they haven't reported any of this on a U.S. tax return.
00:22:45
Speaker
in any form or fashion, right? Many times that's the case. They didn't realize or or thought that their ownership was small enough or they were working with a little accounting firm that wasn't aware.
00:22:56
Speaker
I think one of the other things we've seen change in our profession over the years, Mark, over the last, let's call it 20 years, since I said 15 and that was way wrong, let's call it 20 years, is most professionals, I think, at least realize playing with international tax if they're not comfortable with it's a bad idea.
00:23:12
Speaker
So I think that's given opportunities for people like you and myself to get more of that opportunity. And I think that's good for the clients. It's good for those professionals not to touch the work because as you know, preparer penalties and professional penalties, if you don't do well on this type of disclosure can actually really hurt.
00:23:31
Speaker
Absolutely. yeah I mean, and, you know, and that that just dives to what was going to talk about next. And that is, you know, when you talk to that client and you realize that he's got a bunch of stuff going on and you start to explain to him, at what point in time do you bring U.S. compliance aspect of it or in the real cost of discovering these and and and making them aware of, hey, unfortunately, however you've been advised or maybe you haven't been advised, but we We got to now tell you that, you know, you need to get up to speed and there's penalties and there's, you know, there's we got to figure out a well way to get you compliant.
00:24:10
Speaker
And and there's some costs associated with that. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So I think what I try to do, usually my initial meeting with somebody who's going to have this kind of opportunity is going to be an hour. Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
And that first, we'll call it 35, 40 minutes of that call is me asking questions, them sharing information, trying to get an understanding. I always try before the end of the first conversation to explain the filing requirements I've heard them mentioned that I think they need to know about.
00:24:41
Speaker
And without being like, uh, You need to be afraid. I also let them know penalty exposure exists and what those penalties might look like and explain to them that there are ways to fix it, assuming they fit into the right, we'll call it box in this scenario. We can fix it without some of that applying and help them clean it up and also try to put them at rest that I've done this for, i wish I knew exactly how many, but I usually say at least 100 people personally, and my firm has helped way more than that.
00:25:13
Speaker
um So that's that's generally kind of how the conversation goes when I uncover these things. But I don't talk about fees usually. And I don't speak in um finality. I speak in this is what we know so far.
00:25:27
Speaker
And my next step is I follow up with an email asking for lots of documentation so we can see if what they've told us makes sense and if there's something else we need to ask about.
00:25:39
Speaker
so that I can then figure out how best to help them. And like you said, if they haven't reported it in the past, we might not be talking about a year or two. We might be talking about longer and figuring out that overall plan.
00:25:53
Speaker
And many times, as you as I'm sure you have encountered too, there ends up having to be a lawyer involved too, right, for some of this. Right. So also figuring out when the right time is to bring that lawyer, if we need them, into the case is really important.
00:26:07
Speaker
So good. So good. and And obviously, you know if you're not if though you're listening right now and you're not as familiar with the U.S. tax system, we have a global tax system. So you pay if i if I earn
US Global Tax System and Foreign Tax Credits
00:26:19
Speaker
a dollar in the U.S., I'm going to file a tax return and pay tax on that dollar. But if I earn a dollar...
00:26:23
Speaker
in the US and overseas, I'm going pay tax on my worldwide income. and and And that's something that's typically different than we see in other jurisdictions around the world where, you know, the client you're talking to says, hey, i've we've been filing all the tax returns in Peru or wherever the case may be, right?
00:26:41
Speaker
And I didn't think I have to do anything in the US, right? I just assumed I was good. and And that's not always the case, is it, Andrew? No, absolutely not. and Not only income tax, but you also have just a lot of reporting requirements, right? Those form numbers that I was spitting off earlier, there really isn't usually a lot of tax with them necessarily, but the amount of information that we have to disclose to the government about owning foreign companies or trusts or accounts, as you know, Mark, is voluminous. It's a lot of information.
00:27:11
Speaker
When you have to report a non-U.S. s corporation that you own and control, you're basically filing a very large corporate return that's only for information purposes.
00:27:24
Speaker
So the the i think the other thing you hit on a minute ago, Mark, that we hadn't talked about, but I think important is that education process right is one of our biggest challenges, I think, being tax professionals, right?
00:27:39
Speaker
Some of the things that have to be done to help somebody properly plan or comply with the rules don't make sense for ah for a person who's not used to the rules, right it's right? It's illogical that I have to report everything I own in Peru if I'm in America and I already took care of everything in Peru.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's illogical for the common person to have to deal with that. People who don't do this for a living, it just doesn't make sense to them. No, that's it's so true. And I think we see this quite a bit. And even even when someone has, you know, um it's an individual family and they're living in Ohio and they say, hey, my son or daughter, um they graduated and now they're working overseas in in in whatever country. Right.
00:28:30
Speaker
Do they still have to file a U.S. tax return? And then you say yes. And then you realize they haven't filed the tax return for the last umpteen years and they've been living there and working there. Right. These are things that, you know, we just got to keep asking questions and keep mining our way into finding the best answers and solutions then for them.
00:28:50
Speaker
Agreed. There are a lot of people who moved out of the states at some point that just don't report here. I have a client right now who unfortunately passed away. So we're working with the estate and they haven't reported in a very long time in the US.
00:29:04
Speaker
So we're trying to help them clean up the filings before the estate starts distributing assets. That's going to be a really interesting one because the person who knew everything isn't around any anymore to tell us what we need to know.
00:29:17
Speaker
We got to figure it all out. And wasn't trying to do anything wrong, just had been gone for 30 years, I think. They'd been gone out of the country for a very long time and just never never got good advice.
00:29:29
Speaker
Right. And that happens quite a bit, absolutely. Now, when someone has income earned outside the country, you know they sometimes people think, well, I'm paying tax in one country as I'm earning it, and now got pay tax in the US.
00:29:44
Speaker
Isn't that called double taxation? And there's so there is some mechanisms to help or at least try to help mitigate the double tax impact of that. We call that foreign tax credits and be able to use those on the U.S. side.
00:29:57
Speaker
um In practice, um what do CPAs underestimate most when dealing with foreign taxes and the foreign tax credit, do you think? ah Well, that's a good question. I think one of the big things that is important to factor in is whether or not FTC is better, a foreign tax credit, I'm sorry, FTC, or if you're talking about earned money, a lot of times that foreign earned income exclusion, which allows none what individuals to exclude FTC.
00:30:25
Speaker
foreign
Utilizing Foreign Tax Credits and Tax Treaties
00:30:26
Speaker
earnings up to a certain dollar amount that's indexed for inflation and also factors in cost of living if it's being reimbursed by the employer. Sometimes that's better. Sometimes the tax credit's better.
00:30:39
Speaker
Also, tax credits for um income that gets a beneficial tax treatment like qualified dividends don't necessarily work the same as you'd expect them to, right? You can only get it up to our tax rate and then the rest of the additional tax is lost.
00:30:55
Speaker
And then when we're talking about companies, depending on what kind of company, there might also be haircuts, discounts that you have to take off the foreign taxes. Right. Also, one very common, I think, misconception when we're talking about, let's call it dividends for a moment, is what the dividend taxable amount is. Oftentimes, people think of that as the money they received.
00:31:18
Speaker
But if they paid tax in that country, it's actually the gross up that matters. So I think that also gets missed a lot of times, right? It's not the net number you get taxed on. It's the gross number and the gross number you get to take the credit against.
00:31:33
Speaker
So I think it's a couple examples of where the default just take the foreign tax credit's not always the best. And obviously we have tax treaties with lots of countries.
00:31:43
Speaker
In some cases that could lead to better treatment. And if we don't look at it, then we're just going by default rules. Well, maybe somebody isn't even supposed to be taxed on something. We have people who have money coming from France or the UK or Switzerland, for example, that based off the treaty, it's not allowed to be taxed in the US. So we don't have to worry about tax credit for those items.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's some really good points there. And obviously, a lot to look at just in one particular situation, as we talked about here. Now, you mentioned earlier that, you know, you're dealing with a client and you you find out they have some exposure or maybe it's even exposure. Maybe they just, it's brand new and they're just starting to go in somewhere.
00:32:25
Speaker
What documentation challenges come up most often with them where you're like, hey, can you send me, here's an email list of things I want. Do you get the entire list in clear format all the time? Or what's that look like, your challenges with that? I would say almost never do we get everything we're asking for.
00:32:41
Speaker
I think the most common thing we like to have, and I create with my team if we don't have is an organizational chart. When we start talking about multiple entities or trusts, we try to create if we don't have a structure chart.
00:32:56
Speaker
Because i think... excuse me, we talked about commonality. I think another thing that's helpful in that conversation, getting to know people is pictures, right? A picture is understandable and can be kept, right? We'll have that picture the next time we talk and the next time we talk.
00:33:14
Speaker
So I love org charts. Almost no one has one. So that's something we end up creating usually, but it's always one of the first things we ask for. The other challenge, fortunately for me, living in South Florida, it isn't as challenging for me, but it could be for a lot of people.
00:33:31
Speaker
Most documents when we're talking about foreign companies are in English. Right. Documents being available but not readily read becomes a problem.
00:33:43
Speaker
<unk> I'm fortunate. I think I have more than two dozen languages spoken in my team because I'm in a melting pot in South Florida. So I speak English, maybe not even that well sometimes, but I have many teammates who speak two, three, and even more languages.
00:33:59
Speaker
And many of them also are primary first language isn't English. They came from another country at some point. So they can also find commonality. I love to put somebody Facebook.
00:34:11
Speaker
a relationship that has the same native language as the person they're working with. And generally, the clients say it doesn't matter. But I think i think it and enhances that opportunity to serve those clients.
00:34:24
Speaker
and And obviously, when it comes to documents, you got to be able to read the information they provide. And that's definitely a big challenge when we start asking for information. Right, right. And when you, when you, and that's a great way to kind of connect people where they're, you know, you want the client to be comfortable, to be able to communicate and to have someone that can speak their native home language always makes it, you know, it just gives them the the sense that, you know, you know, the value in the, that you care is more there, even though, you know, they say it doesn't matter, but I think it does my experience.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, i think I think it's a challenge sometimes to explain complicated things by translation. So if I send it in English and they're trying to use a translation app, it might not help them very much.
00:35:10
Speaker
Correct. Or if they're trying to listen to me and translate it in their head, it might not help them as much. So we we try to pair people up with somebody who speaks the the native language, just just because it's better for communication to communicate in your primary language.
00:35:24
Speaker
Wow. That makes sense. Now, when you have situations where you got some records and maybe it's not everything, it's not perfect, but you know that you still got to file something and you know you need it needs to be defensible.
00:35:38
Speaker
How do you deal with that? Because I know this is a question I get from outside CPAs all the time. Like my client only has so much data to give me, but I know we need more. What are they to do?
00:35:50
Speaker
Yeah, so depending on the situation, um i think yeah handle you handle that in different ways. I have a client that we we've worked with for, well, this will be our, I think our third year helping them. And they have a dispute with the rest of the family and they're a minority owner, similar to the story I was telling, but a different country, different kind of scenario. But they own part of a business. The family owns the rest of the business.
00:36:12
Speaker
They don't get along with the family. yeah And in order to disclose for them, we would need significantly more information than we're able to get. In that one, we prepare the best we can, and we we add a statement to the the tax return explaining to the government they've done everything they can. They even tried to take legal action to get the information they needed.
00:36:36
Speaker
We write a nice letter. We include it with the return, and if the IRS comes to ask about it, we'll talk with them about it, right? We're not trying to hide anything. They're not trying to hide anything, but it was legally determined they weren't allowed to have the information that's required to be put on these forms.
00:36:52
Speaker
Right. So sometimes you, it's not even about the client not wanting to. They have no choice. They cannot get the information in that scenario. And you just have to find the right way, the best way that you can to disclose it.
00:37:05
Speaker
While we always like to follow the letter of the rules, sometimes you have to do the best you can with the spirit because you just can't get the data that you need to do the letter. That's always our goal, right? We're accountants. We want to be as precise as possible.
00:37:19
Speaker
Right. But sometimes, you know, the world's conspiring against us being precise like we like to be. Sometimes
Handling Non-compliance and Penalties
00:37:26
Speaker
there's other people involved that just won't share. Absolutely. No, it's it's a it's a good thing. But I think there's there's always a way to remedy it And there's always a way to do our best to make sure it's disclosed.
00:37:39
Speaker
Now, on international compliance, penalties don't scale gently with clients or or anybody for that matter. So when you have FATCA and FBAR and PFIX, there can be devastating even without bad intent.
00:37:53
Speaker
Where do you see that CPAs or clients get burned most often in this arena? Yeah, I think you're right. I think penalties increase crazy. um They multiply very quickly every year, every account, every trust.
00:38:10
Speaker
I think the biggest challenge I have seen over the years is whenever they decide to levy a 3520 or thirty five twenty a penalty, those penalties are usually percentage of assets, percentage of gifts, percentage of transfers.
00:38:23
Speaker
right And those penalties can be very, very large. um They did have some relief over the last couple of years, but doesn't apply to 24, 25 and forward, where the government went back and basically said, if you had penalties of certain types, they got rid of them.
00:38:43
Speaker
And that helped a bunch of our clients get clean. And we had a date that we had to get them filed by. And we pushed to get a bunch out. I'm sure your team pushed to get a bunch out. But going forward, those penalties are are a real challenge. And I think you you'll you'll remember, too, we had a couple of court cases that were being fought.
00:39:00
Speaker
Right. Trying to make all of those international disclosure penalties against, I guess, unconstitutional, illegal, remove them from the code. Right. And those all went to appeals. And some of them are still in appeals, but it just doesn't seem like the taxpayers are going to win.
00:39:16
Speaker
in those cases. So we continue to do what we think is important for the client, which is disclose and help them again in that understanding teaching mindset. It's not hurting you to give this information.
00:39:28
Speaker
And ultimately later, if you get money from it, it could help you if you've properly disclosed, right? For instance, if you have a foreign a gift and you don't disclose it,
00:39:39
Speaker
on a 3520 properly, the IRS could decide that's income if you don't disclose it as a gift. And they say, where did this money come from? And you don't have a good explanation. They can try to tax that.
00:39:51
Speaker
And a gift shouldn't ever be taxable, especially from a foreign person. But even from a domestic person, the recipient does not pay tax on that. So there's there's a lot around the 3520, 3520A, I think that's really challenging.
00:40:05
Speaker
And I think, as you know, the other one that's a big nasty is the 5472 penalties, right? Automatically hit with a $25,000 penalty the second you file per number of that form that's on the return.
00:40:18
Speaker
And there's no easy way to deal with that, regardless of the intention of the taxpayer, right? They might've been doing everything they could try to do to be proper, but they didn't understand something or the names of companies were too similar and they miss one.
00:40:35
Speaker
um But yeah, those, I think those 54, 72, 35, 20, 35, 28 penalties are monsters yes And now another one that we you know hey then the average CPA may run into that thinks they don't operate in the international realm ever is the FBAR, the Foreign Bank Account Reporting, FinCEN 114.
00:40:58
Speaker
We see that a lot of times this has not been reported. Innocent mistakes, client never mentioned that they had an account in in in the UK or somewhere else, right?
00:41:09
Speaker
um This is stuff that seems innocent, but there's huge penalties with that. Am I right? Yeah, absolutely, Mark. Yeah, I mean think you're familiar that the the penalty on these forms is 10,000 per account per year, regardless of whether there's a balance if you're required to disclose the account, it counts, right?
00:41:29
Speaker
So what we see a lot of times with international people who've done international business and lived in more than one country, they have a whole bunch of zero accounts at a whole bunch of different institutions.
00:41:39
Speaker
And if they've exceeded an aggregate 10K in the year, You have to report every account that you have after that, even if only one account had money in it. All of those accounts have to be disclosed. So that's the kind of nightmare scenario where you've got figure out the best way to clean it up.
00:41:56
Speaker
And I'm not saying that you're going to end up paying $10,000 per account because there are ways for professionals to help you get it cleaned up. that will limit and maybe even eliminate those penalties. But if you just file one or the IRS just fines you, FinCEN just fines you having not filed those forms, it is potentially going to be a very hefty penalty.
00:42:18
Speaker
And there have been people, in most cases, people who did a lot more wrong than just improper tax filings. But there have been people who have gotten very large penalties over the years.
00:42:29
Speaker
And this rule was designed to catch bad people, right? Right. it's designed It's designed under like the RICO rules and trying to stop drug dealers and kidnappers and and people ah movers and like all these bad people. But The code's not designed only at bad people because that doesn't work, right? Everybody has to comply.
00:42:51
Speaker
And that's a big part of that education process when we're talking to somebody new who's never reported an account. I'm like, I get that your money's your money. That's great. We're not going to have any tax on it, but you do need to report it.
00:43:04
Speaker
Again, the same thing as the thirty five twenty a though, or the thirty five twenty if you get the gift. If you all of a sudden have money you didn't have before and you can't show them where it came from, that you already owned it, that also could be problematic. It could end up causing not actual tax probably, but a lot of back and forth with the government to explain what it is and then clean up those disclosures so you don't pay tax on taking your own money into your new US bank account in this example.
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it can be a headache and it and it and it puts a lot of stress on people when they start to realize that, oh, wow, what are they dealing with? Now, when you have potential penalties there and you're talking to the client or prospect, how do you explain the risks and the penalties without really overwhelming them? Because obviously some people, you know, they have that fight or flight concept where, you know, maybe it's like, well,
00:43:58
Speaker
I may owe bunch of penalties, so I'm just going to pretend it never existed, right? So how do you handle that with clients? Yeah, well, I think it's interesting. I have a way of handling it. We'll definitely talk about that. But I think as many times as that goes well, there are probably as many times as somebody ran away.
00:44:13
Speaker
Right. Right. And I don't think it's so much about our delivery. I think it's more about the mentality of the person you're talking to than it is about delivery. I think I'm pretty good at delivering those messages. But some people are really adverse to putting themselves in what they would consider to be harm's way, even though we can help with it.
00:44:30
Speaker
um I try to talk about the penalties in a way, not so much to scare, but also to just provide that, hey, this could be a problem, but here's possible opportunities to solve.
00:44:43
Speaker
I don't want to use a fear tactic. There definitely are people out there who will use a fear tactic sell a project. Right. I don't think that's a good way to start a relationship. Again, if we go back to the very beginning of our conversation, relationships are the most important part in my mind in public accounting and in my life. right I like creating good relationships. So starting off with a scare factor just really isn't good for starting a relationship.
00:45:08
Speaker
And I don't want to help somebody one time. I want to be there accounting for however long they're going to need an accountant. And so I try, you have to tell them, right? You can't not tell them about the exposure because then we wouldn't really be doing a good job.
00:45:21
Speaker
But I try to make sure that as I'm doing it, I'm cushioning it with, here's ways we might be able to solve for some of the problems you have. The government gives opportunity to fix these things if you do it the right way and not have the same challenge that they would have if it was found.
00:45:38
Speaker
And the government, while they would like to know who's not in compliance, isn't isn't really actively looking for the average person on the street who missed an FBAR account or who didn't report a company, right? That's not what they're doing.
00:45:53
Speaker
So they're probably not going to find it. So somebody like us is also going to have to teach them and help them get it cleaned up because otherwise it's going to remain undone. And I think that you
Opportunities for Young Professionals
00:46:01
Speaker
asked earlier, why do we see that still? Well, just think there's so many people who have lots going on that just haven't talked to the right person who really knows what they're doing yet.
00:46:10
Speaker
there aren't There aren't enough people who focus on cross-border international tax reporting and consulting in the States. There just aren't enough, which is, I think, what I saw when I was deciding to do this as a profession and a focus back in 07, 08, right, when I started into that first project.
00:46:31
Speaker
I think that opportunity is huge still for young professionals to decide that this is something they want to do. I think we'll continue to propel careers for a long time, no matter how difficult or easy the US code tweaks.
00:46:47
Speaker
This area interacts between countries and that's always going to be complicated in my mind. It's always going to be an opportunity to differentiate oneself from other professionals that that client might meet and to provide professional capital, right? having Having a differentiator like that when you're competing for a client or a job or or whatever, right, is is big, right? It's big to have differentiators.
00:47:16
Speaker
So I think that's going to continue to be because it's not like the world's going to agree on one PAC system probably anytime soon. Probably not. No.
Timing in Tax Planning
00:47:25
Speaker
Now, one of the most powerful, in my opinion, most missed areas in international tax is timing.
00:47:31
Speaker
You know, businesses investing in the U.S. inbound or U.S. businesses investing internationally or even individuals coming into the U.S. or exiting the U.S., right?
00:47:42
Speaker
Do you think that, you know, planning matters in this area? And do you think this gets missed quite a bit for people coming in or or exiting the country as far as what they should be doing, what they should be gathering, et cetera?
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah. So when I was developing in my career, I talked about in 06, 07, starting to get that that exposure to it, probably around 8, 9, 10 in that area, I started getting into pre-immigration planning with some of my team here at the at the firm and realizing how much could be done on the front side to really help people who wanted to come to the States.
00:48:17
Speaker
And then later, expatriation planning became more of a thing for me and learning what people need to do before they leave the States. That is very often missed because people are more focused on what they need to do and don't necessarily go look for professionals who really know how to help.
00:48:34
Speaker
They probably keep working with whoever helped them do their taxes over the years, which could have been even ah an app on the computer at this point, right? You might not even have a person advising you at all.
00:48:46
Speaker
And while I'm sure those technologies do a pretty good job, if you don't if you don't see the right question, you can't give the right answer, right? We went back to the beginning of just asking good questions.
00:48:58
Speaker
Well, maybe AI is going to do that one day, but I'm i'm not thinking we're there yet. And if the AI can't do it, then it has to be a person doing it And you have to have the right person doing it, because if you don't ask the right questions, you're never going to hear the things you need to know.
00:49:12
Speaker
So yes, timing, coming in, going out. Bringing a business in, bringing a business overseas, making sure the planning is done on the front side is a huge opportunity and many times does not get done. Many times people do something and then look for help.
00:49:34
Speaker
And that is going to cause potentially more tax relief. Almost certainly unwanted reporting requirements that are different than what you could have done. Right.
00:49:47
Speaker
And in a lot of cases, um just we'll call it frustration and pain for the for the the client, right? they They don't know what they need to know.
00:49:58
Speaker
They're just going to have that much more frustration if they don't talk up front. yeah
Importance of Relationships in Tax Advisory
00:50:02
Speaker
And obviously our job is to try to make it as as least frustrating as possible, but knowing that it's not a fun situation for the taxpayer, the client.
00:50:11
Speaker
Correct. And all we can do is listen and try to provide a solution and help mitigate you know what that looks like as they go through the choppy waters, right? so try Try to make sure they know you're a friend in this, trying to help them through it. And it's going to be painful, but you're going to hold their hand and help it be as comfortable as possible.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah. and And that's a good segue. I think, you know, I want to pause on something that doesn't necessarily always get enough airtime, and that's relationships. um you Yeah, obviously, you know, your technical depth, you can, you can understand it as you're speaking on all these different issues. But you're very known for building trust and building relationships out there.
00:50:49
Speaker
Why do you think relationship building is so important? And why is it important to you? think being connected to each other is powerful. I think Like I said earlier in the conversation, i don't ever really think of myself as the smartest in the room, except again, while I'm sitting here by myself with the hedgehog, right?
00:51:10
Speaker
I'm probably the smartest in this room. But having that ability to bounce ideas off of other people, understand how they think about things, right recognizing that the the depth of information is really hard for one person to possess, right?
00:51:27
Speaker
At our firm, we have something called the think tank for our international tax group. We meet once every other week and we just talk about things with a bunch of other international focused professionals because sometimes the idea is not so easy to come up with.
00:51:42
Speaker
Sometimes the technical answer is easy, but how do you actively deal with it when you can't be perfectly technical, right? Sometimes you have to find that answer that is,
00:51:56
Speaker
um as close to perfect as can be, but but solves for what can be done now. So the relationships are important to me, one, because I value it personally.
00:52:07
Speaker
Two, it helps me be better at what I do in the world. And three, i think I can add something for other people. And I want to do that, right? I'm a helper. I've i've always been a helper.
00:52:21
Speaker
And I think that's part of being an accountant. If you don't want to help, It might not be the best profession for somebody who doesn't feel like helping others. I think you have to be a little humble. i think you have to be interested in helping other people to be in this profession.
00:52:35
Speaker
No, i agree. And it makes a lot of sense. And you and I met through, you know, we're we're not in the same firm. You're in South Florida. I'm up in Chicago ah through the Prime Global Association. um and And for people listening, there are ways that you you might be sitting there listening to this right now and going, that's great.
00:52:54
Speaker
um You guys know something about international tax, but I'm running a small firm a whatever. And we have international issues. We don't know who should we talk to. can't, I don't have the time to research this. And this is where the relationships building comes in, right? To be able to reach out across, outside the firms to be able to say, who are those experts out there that you can reach to? Am I right?
00:53:15
Speaker
No, absolutely, Mark. As you know, you and I have known each other through Prime Global for probably around a decade, I would imagine, maybe even a little longer. um And your firm and I have done a lot of things together over the years. And that is very common across our friends at Prime Global, right? We got the the privilege of seeing each other in San Juan with a big group of our friends recently for that conference. And those relationships help each other solve problems. And we probably give out at least as many questions as we give out answers across our friend groups internationally and domestically. And Prime Global is a great example of how we got to make those relationships.
00:53:58
Speaker
And just because somebody is not in Prime Global doesn't mean they don't have the same opportunities, right? There are other associations and networks. um ah For instance, Baker Tilly, my new firm, is part of a network that I'm really hoping to start meeting people with, right?
00:54:16
Speaker
I want to go meet them. I want to develop those relationships. I want their help. I want them to help me. That's part of... I think being a well-rounded professional, I said earlier, i like to know people who know things I don't know. Well, this is just putting that in action, right? Prime Global for so many years was an excellent way for me to do that.
00:54:35
Speaker
And I'm hopeful that I'll be able to expand on that, not losing any of those friends, but making some new friends, right? I don't want to but don't want to go back on the relationships i've I've managed to create and lose them. They're really important to me.
00:54:47
Speaker
And I got... i got uh you know a couple more decades let's say youre trying to do this and ah you know it's going take more relationships to get there more knowledge to get there and as things change i used to be really great at picking up new things i'm not going to lie i'm getting a little slower at that i'm getting a little older it's nice to know other people who can pick those things up and i have great people in my team but sometimes it's good to have people outside of your team because again Not everything is black and white, right? Sometimes we have to interpret what's being told to us by the government and getting other people's opinions on how to interpret that many times is very important. I think you and I, and we'll call it another half dozen of the prime global affiliates have had emails going back and forth for a long time when we have something we want to talk through right to figure it out together.
00:55:39
Speaker
Because
Advice for Young Accountants
00:55:40
Speaker
sometimes What it says and what you can do just don't really match up very well. So the relationship side in public accounting, and we've just talked about international, right?
00:55:51
Speaker
I think it's important to create relationships with people who do other service lines at all firms that you get a chance to meet with because you you never know in this career where something is going to be an opportunity or a challenge and you're going to need somebody to help you solve it.
00:56:07
Speaker
And that's good, right? We can't solve everything ourselves. So make make relationships. Real relationships is the key, though. It can't be just, hey, I met you. Here's my business card. Give me your business card.
00:56:20
Speaker
It has to be tangible. or You have to actually care about each other, just like you have to care about a real client. You to care about these relationships. If somebody gives me a business card or I give them a business card, I do not expect anything to come from that other than hopefully another dialogue where we can get to know each other better.
00:56:38
Speaker
I love it. I love it. And you know, i mean, you you you hit it right on the head. Relationship capital, um like it's a two-way street, right? As you build relationships, it's not all about technical, whether it's international or or state local or general tax or or whatever it is, right? The bottom line is there are times where you just need to send the email, pick up the phone, fly somewhere, drive somewhere, and just say, hey,
00:57:04
Speaker
how can I help you solve this? Or maybe it's, how can you help me solve something? And I think that's where relationship capital comes in handy. And I mean, this is something you do fantastically. It's definitely something I work hard at because I care about it. And it definitely helps me professionally, Mark, to know people like you who can help me get stuff done and who I can help, right? Through my team. Well, that's so good.
00:57:26
Speaker
Now, if you could give one piece of advice to an accountant, the CPA, earlier than early in the career about whether it's international tax or just building a meaningful career, what would it be?
00:57:40
Speaker
So I actually talk to students quite a bit. I do a lot of recruiting for the firm. And I think the one thing I always try to leave a young professional, call it a student, call it ah a first couple of years professional with is,
00:57:52
Speaker
What we do is not innate. You can't just know it from being smart. It requires practice, training, and attention.
00:58:05
Speaker
So I like to tell young professionals, Be okay with failing because you're not going to know how to do most of the things you need to know how to do to succeed in this job. And that never really changes. It's just the things you don't know that you need to learn change over time. But being comfortable that you're not going to be perfect because many accounting students are very, very good. Many young professionals were great students. They're used to getting all A's.
00:58:37
Speaker
right It is not that way in public accounting when you get started. Some of the best people that I've worked with over the years probably, if they hadn't had this ability to fail, would not have stuck with the career. And I've seen many people over the years, my firm and other firms, didn't make it because they couldn't accept the fact that they didn't already know everything.
00:59:00
Speaker
They'd always got perfect grades. They were always class presidents or the first the first one to do different things. our Our career is not something you can know without practicing with other people.
00:59:14
Speaker
It is part of learning from the other professionals that makes you good at this career. You can know how to read things and how to research things, but mean you're going to know how to practically apply those things and how to get them done in the right way and to pay the right amount of attention.
00:59:31
Speaker
The precision in our career of getting things right A little checkbox or improper typo on a form can make a big difference. So making mistakes and failing in this career is part of learning, as it is in many careers. But I think i think there's a ah strong line in our career where people need to be able to do that. They need to be able to fail and accept it and move forward.
00:59:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important, especially, you know, working with young people and trying to show them the ropes as they come through um this industry and really try to make a name for themselves and do the best they can.
01:00:11
Speaker
How does curiosity and humility show up in this type of work? Do you see along the way? Curiosity and humility are are very important traits in this career. I think you you're you're asking great questions, Mark. So curiosity, I think, is why I am where I am, right? I was curious about other cultures. I was curious about how businesses work.
01:00:32
Speaker
I was curious about ah what makes people make money. i was curious about how to save them money. I was curious about All of those things. So I think curiosity is extremely important.
01:00:45
Speaker
Also recognizing that if you run out of things to be curious about, probably you're not asking the right questions because there's always something new to learn and do in this career. So curiosity is huge.
01:00:59
Speaker
And humility, um being Being the right type of professional is important, right? We work with extremely successful people, extremely successful families, and helping them deal with the things they're dealing with is always important, but helping the people who don't have a lot but still have these problems is probably the hardest part of this career.
01:01:27
Speaker
You run into somebody who has very little money, let's say, but they're from another country and they have all these reporting requirements, trying to figure out how to help them might be more challenging than trying to help the most complicated case we'll ever see.
01:01:42
Speaker
Right. Because Ultimately, we're humans, right? And I think most humans want to help each other. i definitely want to help people. I know you do. Being able to help the people who don't have the means to help themselves is a challenge. And I'm not saying poor people, right? Not people who don't have anything.
01:02:01
Speaker
i hate I hate that that is a thing, but even just the amount of work that we have to do, the fees can be stifling for people making pretty good money, right?
01:02:12
Speaker
We get to work with ultra wealthy people a lot, but the other people who you know are making good livings, sometimes paying our fees is a lot. Right. We're not we're not in a profession where it's easy to know the things you need to know.
01:02:26
Speaker
So helping all types of people and companies is huge. And if you stop being curious, probably you're doing it wrong. Right. There's so much to learn and know and an ask about in what we do. So I think I think both humility and curiosity are are huge factors in what we do, Mark.
01:02:45
Speaker
That's great and incredible
Conclusion and Key Insights
01:02:46
Speaker
explanation. and And I can't thank you enough, Andrew, for joining us. As we wrap up, one thing that keeps coming through clearly from our conversations, great advisors aren't defined by what they know. They're defined by how they listen.
01:03:01
Speaker
how they ask questions and how they show up when things are complicated and uncomfortable. And I think, Andrew, you you gave us all kinds of great nuggets and tidbits on what we can be doing in in situations to help ourselves. So thank you so much for that.
01:03:16
Speaker
Mark, it's a pleasure. I would be happy to do this anytime you need. And i can't I can't imagine having gotten to listen to some of the questions you've asked and hopefully the answers I've given as ah as a growing professional would have been super helpful.
01:03:31
Speaker
I've been privileged to have a lot of great people in my life to teach me. But you know you can't always be in front of the people who can teach you things. So hopefully these webinars that you guys, are these I'm sorry, these podcasts you guys keep doing, I'm sure they're adding a lot of value to the young professionals in the career.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's what we're hoping for, right? And for everyone listening, here's the takeaway, right? International tax or tax or public accounting doesn't announce itself, right? It sneaks in through life events, investments, and opportunities.
01:04:03
Speaker
The key isn't knowing every rule because even though we want to try it to, we can't. and It's recognizing when something crosses a border, slows down, or you need to just ask better questions.
01:04:15
Speaker
So, Andrew, thank you for joining us on the Tax News Now podcast. And thanks for not just sharing your technical insight, but your perspective on relationships and bringing who you are to the table, because it really means a lot hearing what it is to be an advisor from you.
01:04:31
Speaker
Thanks, Mark. Thank you. And thank you to our listeners. Remember to stay curious, stay thoughtful and invest in relationships. And we'll see you next time on Tax News Now. Thank you.