Why international tax work is so expensive
March 30, 2010 - Phil HodgenTax and TrustsForm 8865 (Return of U.S. Persons with Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships) [PDF] has a comment request published by the IRS. No changes to the form, but comments requested nevertheless. Here’s the important information:
Estimated Time per Respondent: 89 hours, 44 minute. [sic]
That’s the amount of time the IRS thinks is required to prepare Form 8865.
Give yourself an extra 90 hours of work to do if you are a partner in a foreign partnership. Every stroke of tax planning genius is balanced by a metric ton of paperwork.