US-UK

1 hour ago, Lemonslice said:

You can live in the UK, and still be considered a US person for tax purposes.

I made an assumption they wouldn’t hit on Substantial Presence, but that would get picked up as soon as they fill in their tax calendars. (These calendars are my nightmare, especially days in multiple countries or US jurisdictions. Don’t be like me and wait until your tax planner deadline to do this piece of the work!)

gregcrs2,, I’m glad someone has finally mentioned the FBAR (FinCen 114) and FATCA (IRS 8938) on here, as the finances posts tend to focus on being up to date with taxes and ignore these two additional requirements. This reporting, especially FATCA, may impact a lot of people here who don’t realize it.

Where the proceeds sit is immaterial. If you are a US tax resident at the time of sale, the sale is a US taxable event.   

Talk to tax professionals before you move to maximize your tax efficiency now and to understand what accounts, in what order, in what amounts you should pull from in the future.

We are lucky that our employers pay most of the bill to have our US, UK and EU taxes prepared by large firms with global expertise. But the planning advice (x2 hourly rates to have both the US and UK advisors on our calls), and the “unusual circumstances” that our companies won’t cover (like declaring the UK trust to the IRS), routinely cost us a several thousand dollars out of pocket each year. 

As a caution on the US/UK tax issues:  We ended up with US tax liability on selling our house in Europe and paying off the mortgage due to currency fluctuation creating a taxable gain. Also be careful if you have things like UK trusts (which must be reported and may be taxed in the US) or decide to rent out your UK home instead of selling (which requires non-resident landlord paperwork and an annual HMRC self-assessment).

You will be well served (but potentially shocked at the cost) to engage a very good tax consultancy with both UK and US experts on staff. 

Second opinion which would, among other things, revisit how your role was titled and described in various documents (e.g., Articles of Incorporation, SEC filings) and policies (e.g., D&O).

As we were confident to meet EB-1A requirements (or as confident as one can be given the vagaries of immigration) we did not consider NIW nor did our lawyer suggest it. We used premium processing and the 15 day timeline for approval was met. The frustrating wait was to receive the AP for travel. Interview was about 1 month after that and then a few more months to receive GC in the mail from our lawyer. Sorry not to be more helpful on the process. It was all done behind the scenes via counsel. We never bothered to check status online, just waited for him to call with updates at various inflection points in the process.

O-1A with premium processing was about 6 weeks in 2017 from initial filing by our lawyer to getting the passport delivered back from the embassy post-interview. It was a ton of work on the front end to ask for letters and consolidate them and other evidence, but easy and fast after uploading it all to the lawyer to handle. 

The EB-1 process was more frustrating in 2018. That was more like 4 months from filing to EAD/AP combo card, and 9 months total to have the GC in hand.