Monday, August 3, 2015

Providing Proof of Business Financial Stability to Vietnam Government

Working with DNAS to put together the documents I need for in order to apply to open a Representative Office in Vietnam has bee farily simple when I look back at it,   most of the forms and passport requirements have been simple,  however they also have a requirement to submit to them either a Certificate from the Federal Tax Authority stating that all Taxes have been paid and that our business is in good standing.  Or we have to get audited financials which are able to accurately show our balance and income sheet.

We spoke with the IRS agents on the phone and could not find any kind of a form or anything that the IRS could provide in order to prove that we are up to date.

We were about to give up when I decided to do some new searches
If you are an alien or you are about to expatriate,  you can file for a Certificate of Compliance to prove that you have paid your taxes before leaving.
http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040c/ch01.html

I called the IRS and they refered me to a form
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1120idq.pdf
which I quickly discarded, as we do not have these types of loans

So I followed the advice on the 1040-C and decided to go into the local IRS office and talk to the 'Area Director'.
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Contact-My-Local-Office-in-Idaho

They require that you schedule an appoint ment
http://www.irs.gov/uac/How-to-Schedule-an-Appointment-in-Idaho and I called  1-844-545-5640  in order to setup an appointment.    The wait time on the phone just to make the appointment was 7 to 10 minutes.


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Update: 8/4/2015
The scheduled appointment was just a way to avoid too many people showing up at once,  when I went in, I just told them when my appointment was,  without any checking they said okay and gave me a number (however the lady mumbled that someone there wasn't being honest about their appointment time because there was not 4 people even working to handle all of the appointments)
So I waited 45 minutes and was just about to assume they would not be able to get to me since lunch was coming up in just a few when a lady called our number.

She quickly identified that she is not well versed in International affairs but she did describe that the only thing she could thing off was the 6166 form which seems to to simply certify that the individual does pay taxes in the US.   This document is normally used to give to another country in order to let the other country know that the individual is paying taxes under certain US treaties.

She recommended that I call the International Group whose number is on the instructions to the 8082 form you file in order to get the 6166 to ask more questions.

So I had a transcript printed out which indicates the amount owed by the company.  Since we are an S Corp,  the amount owed is $0 as the the K-1 section the 1120S just allocates the full amount owed to the shareholder.

When I called the International Tax they could only think of the 'sailing' papers which is the 2063 form.   This form is something that a departing alien can fill out in order to demonstrate that they do not owe any more taxes.   However the form only has a place for a SSN and an ITIN,  it does not have a place for an EIN for a business.

So,  as a next step,  I sent the transcript off to the DNAS lawyer,  asking him if this was enough.   In addition I think I will simply fill out the 2063 form out for me personally,  my wife and the company EIN and I will go in and try to get something signed.

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8/3/2015
Another avenue we have been going down at the same time to try and figure out an audit: 
So we went to an accountant and asked about getting an audit done.  The time consuming process of getting an audit,  as well as the cost can be rather prohibitive for a small business ,  but the accountaint described that there are three options "compiled financials, a review and an audit",  each of these ends with an accountant opinion  letter attached to financials.  However we quickly found out that compiled financials is not enough,  and that the accountant opinion letter actually with compiled financials would actually state "this is not an audit" and "the accuracy of the financials was not validated".  Our DNAS attorney described that the financial audit is most importantly looking to determine the accuracy of the financials.  SO we are having to start a new process of getting our accountant to do a review.

It seems the best way to find out what level is acceptable,  is to request a 'proposed' letter from the accountant that they would send,  and forward that to the attorneys to confirm whether it is acceptable.  So when we connect with the accountant again we will verify first what options we will have.

The DNAS attorney came back and was not happy with the form of the opinion which states that the compiled financials is NOT an audit,  and it turns out that they want an audit,  which is cost prohibitive (and now time prohibitive for me in this project).   While the way that I worked with my accountant some how anchored them to give me a very low price,  the audit would still cost upwards of $5000 and could take a couple more weeks.  Being this late in the game  this would blow my October timeframe.   Since the accountant was already 75% of the way done with the financials I told her to finish them,   Perhaps they will come in handy when seeking a loan or something in the future,  or maybe I will ALSO be able to submit these financials  to the Vietnamese Authority in order to "help" with the application in the case that the other method we come up with is not good enough on its own.

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