Many Americans living abroad are unaware of the fact that they need to file a US tax return each year.  This includes expats who have been living outside of the US for just a few months, and US citizens who were born outside the states but have citizenship.  Expats are required to file tax returns even if they have no income in the US and they pay taxes to a foreign government.

While it is required for expats to file a yearly tax return, there are several tools that the IRS gives to reduce or eliminate the total tax bill.  The first is the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.  This tool allows the taxpayer to exclude up to $100,800 of income earned abroad from the taxable income.  This means that if an expat earns less than $100,800 and meets all the requirements, then the taxpayer can expect to owe no taxes to the IRS. However, the expat is still required to file a tax return.  If a taxpayer revokes this exclusion then it cannot be used for the next five years.  For this reason, it is important to plan ahead when revoking the Foreign Earned Income exclusion.

The second main tool that the IRS gives to expats is the Foreign Tax Credit.  These are credits given to a US taxpayer for money paid to a foreign government.  The taxpayer can use these credits to reduce or eliminate a US tax bill. If a taxpayer paid more money to a foreign government than the taxpayer would otherwise owe to the IRS, then it is possible that the taxpayer will owe little or no taxes. For example, if a taxpayer would owe 100 dollars to the IRS, however the taxpayer already paid 150 dollars to France on that same income, then the taxpayer can use the Foreign Tax Credit to reduce the taxes owed.  There are some exclusion ratios and limitations, so the taxpayer should consult with an expat tax professional when calculating the amount of the tax credit that can be used. These credits can also be carried forward or backwards to reduce the tax bill in future or prior years.

Many countries have tax treaties with the United States.  Each treaty is different and lays out different rules and regulations for a taxpayer living in another country.  For more information on the US tax treaty, see http://universaltaxprofessionals.com/2016/01/26/what-is-a-us-tax-treaty/.

In addition to filing a tax return, a US citizens (living in the US or abroad) also need to file an FBAR if he or she has over $10,000 in aggregate in foreign financial accounts.  Financial accounts include bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and  pension accounts.  In addition, any account with signature authority needs to be included on the FBAR.

About the Author:

Joshua Katz, CPA is the founder of Universal Tax Professionals, a US expat tax firm dedicated to helping Americans living abroad with all their tax and accounting needs. Joshua can be contacted directly at [email protected].

Despite the prevalence of other marketing materials and tools such as digital marketing, pop up Internet ads, and more, printed promotional materials such as banners still make up a big chunk of the pie. Why, you may ask? Well, simply because banners have already established themselves in the minds and consciousness of most people, and seeing a banner, whether it’s a pop up banner, pull up banner or roll up banner – and looking at it – is simply one of the things we do every single day. Imagine walking down the street and not seeing a banner or any type of poster at all – it would actually feel strange, wouldn’t it?

So even if there are different types of marketing strategies nowadays, banners are here to stay. Below are a few other reasons why banners are still one of the most effective tools for marketing you can ever use:

Reach out to a wider, broader audience

 With a banner, you can easily reach a wide audience, as it is simply visible to a larger number of individuals even from just one central location or spot. So even if individuals look at your banner or just pass by the banner without glancing at it, your banner is still strategically-positioned and can reach more customers than you think. Make sure, though, that your banner is placed in an area with lots of foot traffic and at eye level as well.

Inexpensive

For those on a budget, it can be difficult to spend money on a marketing tool that is not really guaranteed to bring in some sales. But with a banner, you won’t really be pained at spending, since banners are not as expensive as other marketing tools and materials. In fact, as a marketing strategy, the placement of a banner on a wall or shop window can be one of the least expensive methods ever. And, if you have more than one banner printed, you may also be able to get a better price or discount.

No time limits

If you put up a banner in an area which has a high rate of traffic day or night, then you are sure that your banner will do its magic at any time of the day. There are basically no restrictions on its effectiveness. The same isn’t true for passing out leaflets or flyers, however, as you can only really do this during the day. And, if you hang a banner near or in front of your shop or commercial establishment, then you can hang it there for as long as you want – years, even.

A good choice in printing services

Today, there are more printing services available than ever – just make sure that they can provide you with high quality prints and a good service to boot. Printing specialists such as http://www.rollerbannersuk.com come to mind, and they are available to print a wide range of materials, from outdoor banners to roll up banners, desk top displays, and more.

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I discuss many business matters on this blog, and one thing that makes me so good at managing money is the fact that I know when to buy used things such as guitarcenter used. When it comes to musical instruments, sometimes buying a used one is a lot better option, especially if you are short on money, but still would like to continue with your hobby. There is no point giving up on music only because you don’t have money.

It’s fair to say that most business owners these days aren’t experts. You might disagree, but it’s become incredibly easy to set up a business and get it started. Whether it’s a success is an entirely different matter of course. But the point is that just because you own a business doesn’t mean you’ll know how to handle every aspect of it. Some business owners refuse to ask for help and instead focus on dealing with issues the best way they can. But this is a mistake. If you can access expert advice from professionals who can help you run your business, you should. What am I talking about?

I’m suggesting that on occasion it might be in your best interest to seek out the advice of a consultant. You might also want to look into services that will deal with issues in your company so that you won’t have to worry about them. This doesn’t diminish your role in the company or even suggest you shouldn’t be running the company at all. The best leaders know when to pass a job on to someone else and choose a team or individual that they can trust. Let’s look at some scenarios where this might be the decision you should make.

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Employee Advisor

Why is the hiring of employees a decision that you might not want to leave to yourself? To understand the answer of this question you have to know how important your employees are to the success of your business. Your employees are who your customers are going to interact with the most. They are going to be the people who the judgement of your business is based on. Therefore, it’s crucial that you get the best employees for your business that you can find.

You might not have the experience in business that you need to know who would be suited to each job. When looking for employees you need to be able to recognise certain traits in individuals. Remember, these traits aren’t going to be at the surface in every case. When an individual interviews for a job, they’re trying to fit a role that they think you want. But this might not be who they are. A career consultant will be able to pinpoint those who match the job description perfectly. They’ll be able to pick the name out of a list who could take your business to the next level. But it’s not just about experience.

An advisor may also have the connections you need so that you can pick employees from the right pool. You want to hire employees who are being represented by the top recruitment agencies, not the bottom of the barrel.

Marketing Consultant

When you market your business, you might think that you are promoting your company to a massive audience. But that’s not what you should be doing at all. If you’re a small business your product or service isn’t going to appeal to everyone. It’s only going to appeal to your target customer. To market to your target customer you first have to establish who they are and what traits they have. Once you understand this, you can base your marketing campaign around them.

A marketing consultant will be able to identify who your target customer is. They will then be able to advise you on how to market to them and how to build brand recognition in their minds. As an example, your company might be B2B. If it is, your clients are going to be looking for a completely different voice in your marketing material. A Business client is looking for a company that feels professional and already has helped their other clients reach success. The general consumer on the other hand, will take a chance on a new company, if they have a friendly attitude. That’s why a consultant might recommend that you interact with your followers online. You can get them interested in your business on social networks.

You shouldn’t underestimate just how important marketing is to the success of your business. Without it, the name of your company will be completely forgotten. A marketing consultant can ensure this doesn’t happen.

Legal Advice

It can be said that you should, without a doubt, seek out legal advice when running a business. There are so many different ways that a business could be affected by the law. It’s highly unlikely the typical company owner will understand all of them.

Generally speaking, a business owner will not need legal advice unless they are dealing with a particular issue. But there are certain situations where legal help could be useful even if there is no problem. For instance, you might need legal advice on dealing with employees and how to make sure they are properly treated. Small business HR outsourcing services from Peninsula offer this possibility. By using their service, you will have a team that you can use for 24/7 advice on important issues in your business. As well as this, you will be able to set up legal coverage for your company and gain assistance.

Account Management

You should also look into account management. As a business owner, one of the most difficult problems you will face is trying to make sure that your funds are dealt with effectively. You need to handle how much money your business has to spend and be certain you are not wasting money where it’s not needed. It’s also true to say that many business owners have more money to spend than they realise. But, due to the fact that their accounts are not handled properly, it is lost or forgotten. Other funds are lost by not knowing how to deal with taxation.

This is where an account management service could benefit a business like yours. They will be able to look after your accounts, ensuring you have the money you need. They can also help you manage funding so that money is not wasted.

Good luck with the future of your business. Using these services, you will definitely find running it a lot easier.

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Affiliate marketing has long been a good way for people with a good online presence to earn money working from home. The way it works is quite simple – you promote things on your blog, social media accounts or via email (or really any way you can think of that fits with the company’s model), and when customers buy from the site you are promoting after getting there via one of your links, you get paid a commission on the sale.

Photo by Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

Product Reviews

As you might expect, one of the easiest ways people have been able to promote products while retaining the credibility of their blogs – that is, without writing what reads like blatant advertising copy – is by doing product reviews. Because so many people now like to research things before they buy them and see what other real consumers think, a well placed review by a trustworthy blogger can be a good way to lead people in to buying a product. Equally, if a blog has a good following, then when the blogger reviews a new product, their readers may be interested in reading about it and ultimately buying it when they may otherwise never have heard about it.

This has been an approach that has worked well for a lot of affiliate marketers, but what if writing reviews or making video reviews doesn’t appeal to you? Can you do well as an affiliate without producing that kind of content?

Sign Up Based Affiliate Schemes

One type of affiliate scheme that lends itself to different types of content, other than reviews, is the kind of affiliate scheme that rewards you for getting people to create an account with a site or company, rather than for getting them to buy an item. There are lots of affiliate programs like this, for example for online games, dating sites, and sites like Survey Junkie that give people opportunities to make money at home. Some apps also have this kind of model, where marketing them is not about getting users to buy a product, but to join a community that makes money in other ways.

Because you are not selling a fixed product, you can be more creative in the kind of content you use to drive your readers or followers towards the goal, and don’t have to only use reviews to make the content interesting to your readers as well as promotional.

Other Ideas

If you prefer one of the affiliate programs that sells products, for example Amazon’s well known affiliate scheme, then you can still find interesting ways to write about the things you are marketing. Gift idea lists relevant to upcoming holidays can be one easy option, or you can do a comparison between two or more products (because you can include links to all of them, you can gain commission on all of the products compared regardless which you pick as the best). Alternatively, you can write things like fashion ideas, fitness programs, recipes or craft tutorials, all linking to the products that could be used to follow them.

If you are stuck in a rut of writing reviews, or want to get into affiliate marketing but the thought of reviewing a load of things leaves you cold, these are just some of the ways you can be a bit more creative with it!

Even though English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world it does not mean that everybody speaks it. Believe it or not, Chinese or Spanish are also two languages that are widely spoken and used in the world. Only because the English language is the language I speak every day of my life does not have to mean that everybody else uses it as well. There are billions of people out there who never learned to speak it. This is why translation services are so valuable to them.

In case you want to find a perfect translation service for you and your company, what should you look for? In my opinion, a perfect translation agency is an agency that will not charge you too much for their services but at the same time will offer you translations that are up to your standards and that exactly what you are looking for.

When you look around, you will probably notice that there are indeed tons of translation agencies out there, especially when you look on the Internet. The truth is that some of them do a better job, while some of them do a poorer job. The key here is to choose such as a translation company you can trust to do the translation job for you the right way. You only want to hire somebody professional for the tasks. You are not interested in translation companies that will charge you too much and that will not spell check the work they do for you. You want to avoid such unprofessional agencies at all cost, but you want to focus on the ones you can trust.

Feel free to check the above link if you are considering hiring a translation company. This should be a lot easier than doing everything on your own.

Hiring a family lawyer is important. There are many advantages that you will get from hiring a reliable one. You may think that it is a bit overboard to do this but believe it or not, it is for your own good. In this article, we will discuss different advantages that you will get from hiring a family lawyer.

What is family law?

Family law or also known as matrimonial law is an area of the law that deals with family matters including estate getting ready, cohabitation arrangement, adoption, child custody, challenging a will, insurance coverage protection, and many other problems associated to members of the family.

Advantages of having family lawyers

1. They specialize in family law – most people are not aware of their rights until they felt they have been wronged or abused. This usually happens when a family member has done something that seems unlawful. Your family lawyer can give you lecture about the necessary course of actions you need to take.
2. They help you protect your rights – when you have a family lawyer, you can be assured that your rights are being protected. And this covers you, the children, your parents, and everyone in the family. This protection covers cases like divorce, child custody, property purchases and disputes and others.
3. They can give you reliable advice – another advantage of having a family lawyer is that they can serve as your confidant and adviser. They will coach you what to do on a specific legal case or matter. Your lawyer is the most credible person that you can talk to about law and legal matters.

 How to find a credible lawyer?

 To be able to enjoy the benefits of having family lawyer, it is important that you ensure that you find a credible one. Here are some tips on how you can find a reliable and credible family lawyer:

1. Ask family and friends for recommendation – you may ask friends or relatives in case they have recommendation of lawyer that you can contact and hire.
2.  Consult a law firm – consulting a respectable law firm is also good move to find a lawyer. Make sure that you’re clear about your requirements and that you are looking for a family lawyer.
3.   Check yellow pages – going old school and checking the yellow pages wouldn’t hurt as well. Some of the best lawyers in different fields are listed in yellow pages so you may check it out and contact them.
4.    Look online – most law firms these days have official websites and included in formidable listings online. You may check some names online and then read some recommendations and testimonials from other clients.

Hire the best family lawyer and protect the interest and welfare of the entire family. This is not about being paranoid or going overboard. Your lawyer will assist and advise you for every legal action that you may face. It is also best that you have someone that knows the history and background of your family issues so you do not have to explain everything every time.

An ever increasing number of forex traders are using forex trading software.  There is a large variety of such trading software in the marketplace.  Here, we’ll talk of different kinds of forex trading software that may be used to make superior deals.

Before talking about trading software, let us first understand why traders at XFR Financial Ltd should start using them.  Like any other software, trading software also facilitate and hasten the process of making trades. Those already into forex trading would be well aware that doing all things manually for this kind of trading is such time consuming that they would get tied to their computer chair most of the time. For instance, creating you trading strategy manually would demand thousands of hours for its testing. Added to that is innumerable number of hours you’ll need to spend to keep track of frequently changing markets for making gainful trades.

As you can see it is automation that prompts forex dealers to patronize forex trading software. 

Different Software You Can Use With XFR Financial Ltd

Trading platforms – These enable you to handle and execute your trades manually.

Technical analysis programs – These are designed to give historical charts showing rates of exchange and other parameters.

Forex robots – They execute trades automatically as per a trading algorithm that is already programmed in the software.

Trading signal generators – These give out helpful suggestions for trading

As a novice forex trader you may be left wondering which software to use with XFR Financial Ltd. Every program has its own pros and cons.  So, the best way for you would be to try various programs, understand their capacity to find out how they prove helpful in your trading efforts.

Learning From Forums And Reviews

Before you finalize on any trading software you would benefit by going through various forums and the reviews posted by other traders. You will find number of forums plus reviews and do well to read as many as you can. This is how one can gain from the experience of seasoned traders from all over the world.

Of late, the markets have witnessed a tremendous increase in the quantity of forex trading software because of the large population that is continuously getting attracted to try their hand at forex trading for making large sums of money. Though such trading software can prove to be of immense help, these are no substitute for spending time understanding the fundamental of forex trading at XFR Financial Ltd and thus the factors that influence forex markets.  Unless you learn the basics of trading, you’ll cry foul on using these. Therefore, it is vital to understand working of forex market before procuring and using any software.

Even after you have made up your mind to buy any particular forex trading software, it is imperative for you to first try it out. Thankfully, most vendors permit you to do that on opening a dummy account with them so that you can practice trading without investing your hard earned money. XFR Financial Ltd is one of the providers that offers this option. Additionally, many vendors provide a money-back offer for a limited period of time, during which you may reject the program and get refund of your money and thus try another program.