Entries Tagged 'California' ↓

This one is for the people who were in my Foreign Investment in U.S. Real Estate class yesterday in San Francisco.

In re B & G Properties, Inc.  (PDF) is an opinion from the State Board of Equalization that helps you answer the question “Does this foreign corporation register with the Secretary of State?”

The answer is that a corporation which passively owns a California house which is used for personal purposes is not “doing business” and therefore does not have to qualify to do business in California.

This is not precedent.  But the logic is right.

<hyperbole>

Of course, the Franchise Tax Board believes that everyone, everywhere, should pay tax in California.  No matter where you live, no matter what you do, if you ever thought about shaking hands with someone who once had a secret thought about a postcard with the word “California” on it — you have to pay tax in California.

</hyperbole>

. . . just try getting something done with the sales tax people.  Nice people, but . . . sheesh.

The IRS has a neat web page on the life cycle of a private foundation. There is also a handy 5-page graphic overview of the whole process.

My recent experience with setting up private foundations is that the IRS is pretty quick in getting applications approved. The Franchise Tax Board, however, is a different matter. They DO get it done, but they are slower. No nit-picky questions, either — the whole thing just flies through the IRS and FTB.

I am on vacation this week (22 August - 26 August). Back next week. SMS/mobile phone works.

Some U.S. documents must be notarized. This procedure is an arcane holdover from medieval times (as near as I can figure) where some third party examines a small subset of the known universe (looks at your document), gazes deep into your soul (aka asks for identification), mutters certain incantations (”Sign here, please”) and scrawls magic marks on a piece of paper that you sign (practices vary by location). Congratulations. Do you feel any different?

But I digress.

If you are outside the United States, the way to get this done is to hie thyself to a convenient U.S. Embassy or Consulate. There you will find a practitioner of the ancient art.

More information? Look at the explanation of notarial and authentication services of U.S. consular officers from the U.S. Department of State.

I’m adding a new category of posts to the site. This category will contain brief descriptions of recent interesting projects we’ve worked on. Interesting to all of us, at least. And usually interesting to our clients–by definition when we’re solving problems we’re minimizing the tax man’s bite.