Is it possible to die of bureaucracy?

[desperance]

I've just filled in (I think?) a one-page form to do with the tax regime of a Foreign Power. This form - which asks for nothing more than my name, address, nationality and tax details - comes with seven pages of notes.

Random para:

[do not use this form if] You are a disregarded entity with a single owner that is a US person and you are not a hybrid entity claiming treaty benefits.

Uh, okay, then...

Seven pages of that. Much of which I entirely do not understand, although I am not actually stupid.

It's like US immigration, I think: they make it deliberately mean, just to scare you.

That works.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

You're applying for an ITIN, then?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Got one of those. Very spooky, sending off the passport and everything, but at least you only have to do that once. This is the W-8BEN for the new publishers. "If you check this box, you must provide the withholding agent with the required statement for income from a notional principal contract that is to be treated as income not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business in the United States." It must be possible to say these things in a way that is both legally accurate and easily understood. Surely...?

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I've never signed one of those. Funny. Must be a side-effect of working through an American literary agency (who do the US tax paperwork).

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

A disregarded entity is a business entity (as defined in Reg. 301.7701-2(a) that is disregarded as an entity separate from its owner for Federal tax purposes. Examples of disregarded entities include a domestic single member limited liability company (SMLLC) that does not elect to be classified as a corporation for Federal tax purposes, a corporation (as defined in Reg. 301.7701-2(b)) that is a qualified REIT subsidiary (within the meaning of Sec. 856(i)(2)), and a corporation that is a qualified subchapter S subsidiary (within the meaning of Sec. 1361(b)(3)(B)).

So if you set up a company called "Desperance Ltd" and the US Fed decide that as far as they are concerned, you and that company are identical for federal tax purposes, then it is a "disregarded entity".

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it, which probably makes you even sadder than I am (if this is possible) but don't you mean the Infernal Revenue rather than the Fed(eral Reserve)?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. I think. I'm just battered into numbness by seven pages of this, for what is at heart a very simple form. I want my teddy bear.*

*Happily, of course, I have my teddy bear. He and I are identical, for tax purposes; he is a disregarded entity. Shush, though, don't tell him. The Wrath of Softly is not to be sneered at, even by the US Fed.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Dang. I thought a "disregarded entity with a single owner that is a US person" was the neglected pet of a US person living abroad.

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

What's really sad is that I know what the form is from your description...

[euphoricstimuli.livejournal.com]

Ace, as I'm reading that they've already got provision for species from other planets to apply for US visas.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

When I used to get the splendid W-8BEN forms for non-resident enemy aliens they came without the official instructions you seem to have, but with a guide written by someone else on how to actually fill them in, which was just the straight-forward stuff. Years later I'm still not in federal prison so it seems safe not to worry about the gibberish - it's probably too opaque for them to tell whether you're doing it right anyway.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

they came without the official instructions you seem to have, but with a guide written by someone else on how to actually fill them in, which was just the straight-forward stuff.

See, this is exactly my grumble; I knew that it must be possible to write a straightforward guide. If I know this, so must they. And yet, they have chosen to issue this terrifying document alongside the form...

[madkestrel.livejournal.com]

[do not use this form if] You are a disregarded entity...

Gee whiz, that's a kick in the self-esteem. *grin*

It's like US immigration, I think: they make it deliberately mean, just to scare you.

The IRS is the same way. Reading the tax books every spring makes me feel alternately stupid and angry.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Reading the tax books every spring makes me feel alternately stupid and angry.

'Zackly. And there is no need for it; they don't actually have to intimidate us, to make us do the necessary. Treat with me like a reasonable being and I can be entirely reasonable in return. This is deliberate intimidation, though (they cannot be doing this unknowingly; no one could look at these instructions and think that they were a reasonable way to treat with the public), and I resent that. So very much.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

> they don't actually have to intimidate us

The old link between taxation and extortion isn't far beneath the modern paper veneer, initially the largest meanest gang would go around collecting the peasants' resources and then have a party with them. Now we use longer words for it, but in essence it's still a bigger kid demanding your dinner money to spend on toys.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Imagine having to deal with this every year. Twice now, since I file 1099 MISCs for royalties for my US authors. I've never been confronted with that particular language, but all Domestic Power documents strike me the same way. Fortunately, our wonderful tax person speaks DPese and can translate into English. We just had a long conversation about how much money and in what form and made out to whom I can transfer to my daughter for her college expenses.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

That sounds familiar... what's that old saw about death and taxes? Bored to death reading the small print on US tax forms, for sure.