Do I file Form 8992 even if no tax is owed?
Information return obligations of this kind are generally required on the facts rather than on the tax result, so a nil position does not remove one. US shareholders of controlled foreign corporations — including individual founders, not only multinational groups.
What happens if I have missed Form 8992 for several years?
Missed years are dealt with as a package rather than one at a time, because the route chosen for the first year affects the relief available for the rest. We map the years and the obligations before anything is filed.
Is Form 8992 the same as the other reports I already file?
No. Computes a US shareholder's global intangible low-taxed income inclusion from controlled foreign corporations. Satisfying a different obligation, even one covering the same accounts or entity, does nothing for this one.
Do I owe US tax on my foreign company's profits if I took no dividend?
Quite possibly. The global intangible low-taxed income rules are deliberately blind to whether cash was distributed. Where a US shareholder controls a foreign corporation, the active profits above a routine return on the company's tangible assets are pulled into that shareholder's US income for the year, whether or not a single dollar left the company. Form 8992 is where the inclusion is computed. Founders are caught by this most often, because they leave profits in the company to fund the next stage of the business and reasonably assume that nothing is taxable until they take money out. The computation has to be done before the return position can be taken.
I am one founder with one foreign company, does GILTI really apply to me?
It can. The rules are written around US shareholders of controlled foreign corporations, and an individual founder who owns enough of an overseas company is a US shareholder of a controlled foreign corporation in exactly the way a multinational group is. Nothing in the definition requires a group, a board or a treasury function. The practical difference is not whether you are caught but what happens next: the reliefs that soften the inclusion for corporate shareholders are not automatically available to an individual, so the same underlying profit can land quite differently depending on who holds the shares.
Why is my inclusion bigger than a corporate group's would be on the same profits?
Because the relieving provisions do not follow the shareholder automatically. The inclusion itself is computed the same way from the foreign company's results, but the mechanisms that reduce the resulting US tax for a corporate shareholder, including the treatment of foreign tax already paid on those profits, are not simply available to an individual holding the same shares. That is why two shareholders with identical companies can report the same inclusion and pay very different amounts. It is also why the question is worth modelling before a structure is fixed rather than after the first inclusion appears.
What is the routine return on tangible assets in the GILTI calculation?
It is the part of the foreign company's profit the rules treat as the ordinary reward for having capital equipment in the business, and it is taken out before the inclusion is measured. Everything above it is treated as the kind of return the regime is aimed at and is pulled into the US shareholder's income currently. The practical consequence is that the calculation is sensitive to the company's tangible asset base, so the asset register and its basis are working papers for this computation, not just accounting records.
My foreign company owns almost no equipment, does that increase my inclusion?
In general it pushes it up. The allowance for a routine return is measured against tangible assets, so a company that earns well with very little plant or equipment has very little to set against its profits, and a larger share of them falls into the inclusion. Services businesses, software companies and consultancies sit at that end of the range by their nature. Knowing this early matters mainly for cash: a shareholder can face a US liability on profits that are still working inside the company, and the money to pay it has to come from somewhere.
Would holding my foreign company through a US company be better?
It is the right question to ask, and it is a modelling exercise rather than a rule of thumb. Because the reliefs that soften the inclusion for corporate shareholders are not automatically available to an individual, the identity of the holder changes the outcome on the same profits. Against that sits everything else a holding company brings, including the tax consequences of moving shares into it, the later cost of getting money out, and the compliance the new entity carries. Work the numbers on your own figures and the whole ownership chain before anything is transferred.
Why are corporations double taxed?
Corporate double taxation happens because the company and its owners are separate taxpayers. The company pays tax on its profit; when the after-tax profit is distributed, the shareholder pays tax on the dividend. Canada softens this with the dividend gross-up and credit, which is meant to leave a shareholder roughly where they would have been earning the income directly. The United States taxes the C corporation and then the dividend, with no equivalent integration. See dividends to a foreign parent.
Can I set up a trust that works in two countries?
You can, but the two systems classify and tax trusts differently enough that a structure which is efficient in one is often a reporting problem in the other — a Canadian family trust with a US beneficiary, or a US revocable trust holding Canadian property, are the classic pairs. Canada's twenty-one-year deemed disposition, the US grantor rules and each country's reporting have to be read together, before drafting rather than after. See cross-border wills and trusts.