The XXXIII Olympic Games will be held in Paris in a few months. As you watch the best athletes in the world prepare and compete, you may notice the coaches assisting with those preparations. Why would someone who is one of the absolute best in the world at what they do need a coach? What can an international business owner, investor, or US expatriate learn from an Olympic Athlete?
The answer is straightforward: You may be one of the best in the world at what you do, but you still need an experienced coach to help you develop additional skills, maximize opportunities, evaluate existing strategies for potential challenges and opportunities for improvement, and offer strategies to help take your performance to the next level. There is always room to improve your results.
A world-class coach brings experience, the immeasurable “been there, done that” confidence, the energy, and passion to look for new ways of doing things and potential areas of improvement. An Olympic-level coach contributes direct, unvarnished honesty to the present level of performance and insight into areas where even small improvements may be achieved. They have the wisdom of experience, yet the ability to communicate, counsel, and transfer their knowledge and skill to increase their client’s performance: the Olympic athlete.
The same is true for any international business owner, investor, or US expatriate. There is always room to improve your strategy to increase retained profits while protecting what you’ve worked so hard to build. While several professionals should be part of your “team,” one of the most important is your international tax attorney.
If you are conducting international business, whether as a constellation of companies, or as an individual investor or US expatriate, you need an experienced, skilled international tax attorney. US persons are required to pay tax on all income worldwide. You need a skilled international tax attorney who, like an Olympic coach, can analyze your strategy and recommend specific, actionable steps to improve your performance and increase retained profits.
International business and investments for a US taxpayer require attention to detail, careful planning, the proper structure, and a sense of timing. What is the best entity or structure of entities to protect assets and conduct efficient transactions while accomplishing your goals and objectives? Where should these entities be located and how can the relationship between the entities and their individual contributions protect the “whole” while reducing expenses and taxable events? How should accounting be structured to capture the details necessary to evaluate and report transactional outcomes?
Another important element of an Olympic-scale performance for an international business owner, investor, or US expatriate is the question of timing: not only how your gains and losses are realized, but when. How can you structure your work to allow you to accelerate or decelerate income or losses in order to minimize the impact of taxation in a given tax year? How would the effect of a “fiscal” year versus a “calendar” year impact your own tax picture?
Almost every world-class Olympic athlete has a coach. You may be one of the best in the world at what you do. However, you still need an experienced, proven tax attorney as part of your team to coach you, improve performance, guide you through challenges, and leverage opportunities to reach the next level of financial performance. When you are watching the exciting performances of Olympic athletes this summer consider the coaches who have helped them to reach this level of performance and how an experienced international tax attorney can help to improve your own.