James baker CPA

James baker CPA International Tax Advisor for us abroad and Non-Us residents

08/11/2026

Most non-residents spend months applying to banks that were never going to approve them in the first place. Nobody tells you that upfront.

Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America. These banks are not built for non-residents and they will not tell you that when you walk in. They will just keep rejecting you until you give up and assume it is impossible.

It is not impossible. You are just applying to the wrong banks.

Comment TAX and I will send you the exact list of banks that approve non-residents
The banks that actually work with international business owners are specific.

Community banks that specialise in cross-border business.

Fintech banks built for global entrepreneurs.

The moment you find the right one you will know because they will not flinch when you say you are a non-resident with an LLC. They will tell you they do it all the time. Is
Stop wasting time on banks that were never going to say yes.

Comment TAX below and I will point you directly to the ones that will.




07/30/2026

The IRS does not announce an investigation. It builds a case quietly while your business runs normally.

By the time most non-residents notice something is wrong the damage is already done.

Here are 5 signs your US LLC is already on the IRS radar.

Your bank sent a compliance request asking for documentation you were never told to keep. That request did not come from nowhere.

Form 5472 has never been filed and your LLC has been active for more than one year. The IRS already knows this.

You applied for an ITIN using the wrong exception code. There is now an official record suggesting you are subject to US income tax when you are not.

Your registered agent address and business address are the same virtual mailbox. This is flagged automatically in IRS systems.

Money has moved between your personal account and your LLC with no documentation. Without Form 5472 on file this looks like unreported income.

Comment TAX
And I will review your LLC and tell you exactly where you stand before anything escalates.





07/27/2026

Most people never even knew Form 5472 existed until the $25,000 penalty showed up.

This is not a form you only file when you make money.

The IRS requires it from every foreign owner of a US LLC every single year regardless of income, revenue or activity.

Zero profit this year? Still required.
LLC sitting dormant? Still required.
Just formed and not started yet? Still required.

Comment TAX and I will make sure you never miss this
One missed filing and the penalty hits automatically.
No warning letter.
No second chance.

Just a $25,000 charge that wipes out any tax advantage you thought you had.

The LLC is easy to form. Keeping it compliant is what actually protects you.

Comment TAX below before the IRS finds you first.





07/21/2026

You post about your business growth. You share client wins. You talk about expansion.

Everyone thinks you're crushing it.

But behind the scenes? You're barely holding it together.

This is the LLC struggle nobody posts about. The kind hiding behind your "successful entrepreneur" content and engagement metrics.

Here are 5 signs your LLC is failing even though Instagram doesn't know:

1️⃣You avoid even thinking about compliance until panic
hits
You're "too busy with client work" to deal with tax filings.
All that productive energy? You're using it to run from the paperwork that terrifies you.

2️⃣You're always chasing CPAs and formation companies
for answers📧
You send the emails. You follow up. You ask questions. And when you stop reaching out? Silence. Nobody's checking on you.

3️⃣You have business connections but nobody who
understands your LLC problems
Surface-level networking. Other entrepreneurs. But zero people who actually get what you're dealing with for U.S. compliance as a non-resident.

4️⃣You smile through client calls but panic about compliance alone
Everyone sees the successful business owner. Nobody sees the 3am googling "Form 5472 penalty" and "can the IRS freeze my accounts."

5️⃣You're exhausted from pretending everything's handled
Your content says "thriving." Your reality is terror that one missed filing destroys everything.

Comment TAX if you're done pretending and ready for actual help.





07/20/2026

Nobody warned you about this part
Forming the LLC takes a few days and a couple hundred dollars. What comes after is what most non-residents find out about the hard way six months later when the bill arrives and there is nobody to blame but the process they were never walked through.

Form 5472 was never filed because nobody mentioned it was required with zero income. Penalty is automatic. No warnings. No second chances

The registered agent address was set up incorrectly so IRS correspondence went somewhere you never saw it.

The bank account got frozen because the compliance documentation was never properly structured and the bank had
every right to close it.

A tax treaty that could have eliminated the liability entirely was never reviewed because nobody told you it existed

The LLC is the easy part. What protects you is everything that gets built around it correctly from the start. Most people only find that out after it costs them.

Comment TAX
And let us make sure you are not the next person learning this the expensive way

07/18/2026

After years of cleaning up broken LLC structures, l've genuinely stopped being surprised by what I find

What still does surprise me, every single time, is how preventable almost all of it actually was, if someone had simply been given accurate information from a qualified person at the very beginning instead of relying on guesswork or generic online advice.

An LLC running a full year, sometimes several, with
zero compliance checks ever performed

A foreign owner who has never once spoken to a
licensed CPA about their actual situation

A bank account opened with no understanding of what
could trigger a sudden freeze
A tax treaty completely ignored simply because
nobody ever mentioned it existed or applied

Every single one of these situations costs significantly more to fix after the fact than it would ever have cost to set up correctly from day one.

That gap between what people could have spent upfront versus what they end up spending to fix it later is exactly what I try to close for every client I work with.

Make sure you're following me so the DM reaches you

Comment TAX and I'll send you exactly what to check today




07/17/2026

Fifteen years of opening non-resident LLC files and I still see the exact same gaps show up every single time

It's never because people are careless. It's because nobody ever sits them down and explains what compliance actually looks like for a foreign owned US company, so they end up guessing their way through one of the most heavily regulated areas of US business law.

1️⃣Form 5472 missing entirely from year one, often because the client genuinely had no idea it existed

2️⃣The registered agent address doing double duty as the actual business address, which flags instantly with most banks

3️⃣A tax treaty that technically exists between countries but was never reviewed to see how it actually applies

4️⃣Banking built without ever considering what a real
compliance check would uncover later

5️⃣The wrong entity type chosen for the business from the very start, which creates problems that compound over time

These issues stay completely invisible right up until a bank rejection or an IRS letter forces them into the light. By the time that happens they've usually been sitting there quietly building risk for years, and fixing them retroactively always costs significantly more than getting it right from day one would have.

Make sure you're following me so l can send you exactly what I check first when I review a new client

Comment TAX and I'll send you the full breakdown




Address

175 SW 7th Street STE 1517
Miami, FL
33130

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5am
Tuesday 8am - 5am
Wednesday 8am - 5am
Thursday 8am - 5am
Friday 8am - 5am
Saturday 8am - 5am
Sunday 12am - 12am

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