GTN Mobility Tax Blog

The United States continues to strengthen its position as the global hub for high-net-worth earners. In fact, the US population of high earners climbed 7.6 percent last year, making it the fastest-growing location for this group. But the US also features complicated tax rules for high-earning non-citizens. Too often, a high-net-worth individual (HNWI) will relocate to the US only to be hit by unexpected taxes, overtaxed investments, or penalties for misreporting.

In this article, we lay out the most common tax misconceptions for relocating HNWIs and provide three money-saving relocation tax planning tips to help high-net-worth earners reduce their tax anxieties.

This year marks GTN’s 25th anniversary. Since our founding in 2000, we’ve seen the world of global mobility transform in ways few could have predicted. From the early days of spreadsheets and manual tracking to today’s digital platforms and strategic mobility programs, the pace of change has been extraordinary.

For us, our 25-year milestone is more than just a number – it’s an opportunity to reflect on the lessons we’ve learned while helping companies support their mobile employees across industries, countries, and business cycles. While every client program is unique, certain themes have stood out over the years.

Here are six of the most important lessons we’ve learned from 25 years of supporting mobile workforces.

Hosted by MWC

Managing mobile employees across borders can get complex fast. From tax residency and short-term business visitor rules to payroll, social security, and treaty relief, there’s a lot to coordinate to stay compliant and reduce risk. That’s why the Mobile Workforce Collaborate (MWC) is hosting a corporate-only roundtable designed to help HR and mobility teams tackle these challenges in Canada, Mexico, and the UK, with clear, practical takeaways.

Business travel is on the rise, and it’s putting C-suites at risk of tax violations. According to the Global Business Travel Association, 71 percent of travel buyers say business travel increased at their company in the last year. What many corporate leaders don’t realize is that, as business travel ramps up, they may not be reporting taxes for equity compensation correctly.

This article outlines why equity compensation compliance is so challenging for traveling C-suite executives and what your team can do to help protect both your employees and the company from tax headaches.

Managing mobile employees comes with more than just logistical and HR challenges. It also requires careful coordination between your global mobility and corporate tax functions. Mobile employee activity can trigger corporate tax exposures such as permanent establishment risks or tax reporting obligations. At the same time, your company’s corporate tax position can directly impact the individual tax outcomes for your mobile employees.

Important note on streamlined filing compliance procedures -- This article specifically discusses the streamlined foreign procedures, not the domestic procedures. To qualify for the foreign procedures, a taxpayer must meet the IRS’s non-residency requirement. For a US citizen, this means that in one of the past three years for which the original or properly extended US tax return due date has passed, they did not have a US residence and were physically present outside the US for at least 330 full days.

US citizens and permanent residents (green card holders) working outside the United States generally are still required to file annual US tax returns, and the IRS is constantly updating its technology to better locate non-filing taxpayers and bring them into compliance. However, in addition to increasing its enforcement capabilities, the IRS has also taken steps to encourage non-filers to come into compliance by waiving penalties for those taxpayers eligible to take advantage of the streamlined filing compliance procedures (streamlined procedures).