Slate: What Happens when an Embassy Closes?
In Closed for Jihad--What happens to an embassy's staff when the building closes? Christopher Beam explains the consequences for staffers, visa services and the two nations affected. He provides valuable historical balance. As a bonus, he puts it, he adds information on the ownership of the land where embassies are built. -- Clemens Kochinke, partner, Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP, Washington, DC, whom the Slate author consulted.
Mon, / Embassy Law Link
IRS Announcement re Local Hires
A continuing and global problem relates to the taxation of local hires at embassies, consulates and similar missions. The number of nationalities and tax regimes governing them seems unlimited. Confusion abounds, and good faith actions may insufficiently protect against penalties.
The Inernal Revenue Bulletin 2010-2 of January 11, 2001 seeks to clarify the situation at German missions in the United States and correspondingly at U.S. missions in Germany by way of a competent authority agreement.
By taking into consideration the potentially conflicting provisions of the Convention Between the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital and to Certain Other Taxes, signed at Bonn on August 29, 1989, as amended by the Protocol, signed at Berlin on June 1, 2006, as well as Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights between the United States and Germany, signed at Washington on December 8, 1923 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the agreement provides for the application of certain exemptions in one nation which correspond to tax liability in the other. Thus, taxation is assured while double taxation is avoided. -- Clemens Kochinke, partner, Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP, Washington, DC.
Mon, / Embassy Law Link