Ask HN: As a foreigner in the US, how do you find filing taxes here?
5 blackhaj7 8 5/16/2025, 2:19:55 PM
I am from the UK but living in the US and filing taxes has been a complete disaster.
The issue mainly stems from bad tax accountants and the fact that I have investment accounts in the UK where the tax year is different so collating the info for the US tax year is harder. I have lived in other countries and it has never been a problem.
The accountants I have had here have been completely unable to read basic investment account data. They have fabricated numbers out of thin air, repeatedly made the same mistakes over and over.
Despite paying them to do it, I ended up manually doing all the calculations and writing a script to work out my income/divs/gains in the format they need and they still managed to copy/paste the data incorrectly.
Have you had a similar experience?
Despite being a CFA Charterholder (fancy finance qualification), I would be worried doing it myself as there are so many nuances to taxes
You should be able to find a CPA who can help you with a business, and a capable person to help with tax planning for personal taxes.
Taxes in the US aren't as simple as some places, but I've never had a problem finding competent help for more complex situations. Just make sure you're finding someone with experience with your situation(s).
I called around 6 firms including some that were recommended. Most were awful and the ones I chose seemed the best option intially
Were these independent accountants and not something like an HR Block? If so, I guess I'd look for recommendations and calling them ahead of time to see if they have experience with UK x US taxes. Unfortunate if that's been the case you've seen.
If it was something like a chain service, I've heard nothing but awful things about how they're essentially a keyboard proxy for entering your taxes into software without any understanding.
Second time was an independent account that seemed really good and on it initially but ended up being awful