QUESTION: Does your subscribers' web site include information on how
to fill in various tax forms "blank-by-blank"? I'm interested in the
forms for foreign corporations, foreign mutual funds and foreign
partnerships.

REPLY: We don't provide that information because the IRS instructions
to the various tax forms provide most of the information needed to
complete a tax form. In addition, most of the computer software
companies that include international tax forms in their system do
provide "blank-by-blank" instructions. A list of tax software company
web sites is available at
http://www.taxsites.com/software.html#international but you would
need to contact each company to ask if they include whatever forms you
are trying to complete.

I'm the chairman of an AICPA task force formed to prepare a practice
guide for the preparation of Form 5471 for members of the tax
division. It's currently going through (hopefully) final review by
other members of the task force and should be available on the AICPA
web site in a month or less. And other task force groups are working
on similar guides for other international tax forms.

We do provide some general information about various international tax
forms at http://www.offshorepress.com/AICPA/index.htm but these
articles do not attempt to explain how to complete the forms
"blank-by-blank".

If you are not a tax professional with extensive experience in
preparing international tax returns, I would strongly encourge you to
find an experienced preparer to assist you. Even if you use a local
tax preparer to do your Form 1120, 1165 or 1040, it would not be cost
effective to ask that person to spend the time required to learn how
to fill out the international tax forms like the 5471, 8865, 8621,
3520, 3520-A and others. Members of the International Tax Compliance
Group (http://www.itcgpros.com/) provide assistance to domestic tax
preparers with the preparation of these international tax forms.

From 1962 through about 1993, my focus was on domestic tax work and I
had no clients in those years who were involved in international
investment or business ventures. Starting in 1993, I began to study
and write about international tax matters in conjunction with my
reports and articles on various methods of asset protection. That
generated some inquiries from taxppayers who needed help with some
international tax returns. I had to spend an excessive amount of time
reading the IRS instructions, the applicable tax law and IRS
regulations but I did it because it gave me better insight to
incorporate into my articles, seminars and books. By about the year
2000, I made the decision to focus entirely on international tax
matters and to quit doing any domestic tax work. But after more than
ten years of intensive study and working with various international
tax forms, I have to admit that I continue to learn more every year.

These international tax information returns require an understanding
of the underlying tax law more than any domestic tax forms I have ever
prepared. Just having some "Blank-by-blank" instructions and even
having a computer software program to help prepare the form is only
scratching the surface of what the preparer needs to know.

The tax law presumes that taxpayers should be able to comply with the
tax law and to complete the required returns without professional
help, but the law has also reached a point where it so detailed and
complicated that it is almost impossible for a taxpayer to correctly
fill out these forms without professional help.

Vern Jacobs