IACCGH in partnership with GOPIO (Global Organization for People of Indian Origin) conducted a free seminar on a highly discussed topic – American Tax laws as applicable to tax payers – both citizens and resident aliens who own/control overseas assets.  More than 200 people attended the event and could be seen jotting down notes while listening to the panel of seven renowned CPA’s.

Panel moderator, Ajit Thakur explained that the IRS is expanding its sources of information through the IGA (International Government Agreement) with India which is in the advanced stage of discussions and in all probability will be signed in May 2014.

CPA’s Kershaw Kumbatta and Umesh Jain enumerated the major tax law changes of 2014.

The initiator of the seminar, Swapan Dhairyawan along with Mahesh Desai addressed the highlight of the seminar –- the OVDP (Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program) which the IRS has initiated to encourage immigrants to voluntarily disclose their overseas accounts.  If one has more than $10,000 in an overseas account, and has not disclosed this in the past, it is advisable to enter this program.

“Obamacare” or the Affordable Healthcare Act was covered by Imtiaz Munshi. . He encouraged everyone to log on to healthcare.gov and admitted that he was pleasantly surprised to find a wealth of information about the different health plans in simple terms.

The last speaker was Atul Kothari, CPA who remarked that Al Capone did not go to prison for murder or extortion but evasion of taxes.  Apart from advising the gathering to declare their overseas income, he also suggested some ways of eliminating, lowering and deferring taxes.

A Q&A session followed during which several informative pointers emerged.

Crisp, to the point and audience friendly, the seminar cleared a lot doubts and concerns that the audience had.