Sell the Determination, Not the Filing: Pricing Judgment in Cross-Border Tax

Four of the best-known expat accounting firms publish a price for the IRS streamlined catch-up filing: $1,195, $1,450, $1,750 and from $1,860, each stated on its own site in September 2026. One of them sells the non-willful certification, the signed statement on which the favorable terms depend, as a $300 add-on. Across eight law firms that compete for the same clients, reviewed in August 2026 and spot-checked in September, none published a price for a streamlined matter. The only law-firm figures were entry fees for a consultation or a diagnostic review.

So the market prices the paperwork to the dollar and leaves the legal judgment without a price. That gap is the opening. The IRS says a deficient certification means the returns are processed “in the normal course without the benefit of the favorable terms.” Whether a client’s facts support signing is a legal call about the client’s state of mind, and it is worth more than the forms around it. Price the determination, publish a sample, and let the trigger events bring the buyer.

The paperwork already has a price list

Source: each firm’s own pricing page, retrieved September 28, 2026.

Four firms, four numbers, all within a $665 band. For the buyer this is excellent: the clerical cost of catching up is known before the first call. For a law firm it settles one question for good. There is no margin in competing on the filing.

The certification is the legal act

The streamlined procedures have two tracks. Under the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures, a taxpayer who had no US abode and was physically outside the United States for at least 330 full days in one of the last three years files three years of returns and six years of FBARs, and “will not be subject to failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties, accuracy-related penalties, information return penalties, or FBAR penalties” (IRS, last reviewed July 11, 2026). The domestic track carries a miscellaneous offshore penalty equal to 5 percent of the highest aggregate balance of the foreign assets concerned (IRS, last reviewed July 10, 2026).

Both tracks rest on a signed certification, Form 14653 abroad and Form 14654 at home, that the failures were non-willful. The IRS defines that as conduct “due to negligence, inadvertence, or mistake or conduct that is the result of a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law.” And it states the consequence of getting the statement wrong: “Failure to submit this statement, or submission of an incomplete or otherwise deficient statement, will result in returns being processed in the normal course without the benefit of the favorable terms of these procedures” (IRS, domestic procedures page).

The stakes on either side of that line are published. The maximum civil penalty for a non-willful FBAR violation is $16,536, and for a willful one $165,353 (31 CFR 1010.821, effective January 17, 2025). Those amounts did not rise for 2026, because the Office of Management and Budget cancelled the 2026 inflation adjustment after the October 2025 price data was never produced during the shutdown; agencies “will continue using the 2025 civil monetary penalty levels” (OMB Memorandum M-26-11, April 17, 2026). The Supreme Court held in 2023 that the non-willful penalty accrues “on a per-report, not a per-account, basis” (Bittner v. United States).

A $300 add-on is the market’s price for deciding which side of that line a client stands on. Accounting firms prepare the certification. The question of whether the facts support signing it is a legal one, and it is the part a law firm can sell.

Trigger events bring the buyer, not the calendar

The clients in these situations did not start from the tax calendar. Something happened. The situations below are paraphrased from public expat-tax forum threads, and each one hides a legal call that no published price list covers.

Each legal call sits on a primary source. The FATCA regime requires foreign financial institutions to “report on the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders or be subject to withholding,” which is why brokers ask (IRS, FATCA page). A renouncing citizen is a covered expatriate if they fail to certify compliance “for the 5 preceding taxable years” (26 U.S.C. 877(a)(2)(C)); the dual-citizen-at-birth exception in 877A(g)(1)(B) disapplies only the income and net-worth tests. For 2026 the income test is more than $211,000 of average annual net income tax, and the exit-tax exclusion is $910,000 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32). The $2,000,000 net-worth test has no inflation clause: the statute indexes only the income figure (26 U.S.C. 877(a)(2)). The State Department cut the fee to process a renunciation from $2,350 to $450 in a final rule published March 13, 2026, effective 30 days later (Public Notice 12954).

The Form 5472 penalty is $25,000 per failure, with another $25,000 if the failure continues more than 90 days after IRS notice (Instructions for Form 5472). If the surviving spouse is not a US citizen, “no deduction shall be allowed” under the marital deduction unless the property passes through a qualified domestic trust (26 U.S.C. 2056(d)); the estate of a nonresident who was not a US citizen must file if US-situs assets exceed $60,000 (IRS), and lifetime gifts to a non-citizen spouse are excluded only up to $194,000 in 2026 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32). A foreign fund is a PFIC if 75 percent or more of its gross income is passive or at least 50 percent of its assets produce passive income (26 U.S.C. 1297).

Three further facts turn a worried reader into a client. The foreign earned income exclusion, $132,900 for 2026 (IRS, IR-2025-103), is an election made on Form 2555 with a return, and a late election is protected only if no tax is owed or the return arrives before the IRS discovers the failure (26 CFR 1.911-7). An unfiled information return keeps the assessment period open until three years after the information is furnished (26 U.S.C. 6501(c)(8)). And a gift or inheritance over $100,000 from a foreign person that goes unreported costs 5 percent of its value per month, up to 25 percent (IRS, gifts from foreign persons).

Publish a sample determination

The strongest proof a boutique can offer is the work itself. A sample determination is a written opinion on invented but realistic facts, labelled as illustrative, published in full: the facts reviewed, the non-willful standard quoted from the IRS, the analysis, a yes or a no, and the alternative route when the answer is no. Publish two. One client qualifies. The other does not, and the document explains why and what the person should do instead.

The one that says no does the most work. Every firm selling a filing package has a commercial reason to qualify every applicant.

A firm that shows, in writing, the case it would not certify is proving what it sells.

What a law firm may say about it

Law firms advertise under bar rules, and the determination model fits those rules well. Florida’s are a useful benchmark because the Bar publishes a detailed handbook (The Florida Bar, Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation, approved December 10, 2025). An advertisement “cannot include statements that a consumer can reasonably interpret as a prediction or guaranty of success” (Rule 4-7.13(b)(1)); that rules out “penalty-free, guaranteed.” A firm “cannot characterize or compare lawyers’ skills, experience, reputation or record unless the characterization or comparison is objectively verifiable” (Rule 4-7.13(b)(3)). Any advertised fee must disclose “whether the client will be responsible for costs or any other expenses in addition to the fee,” and advertised fees must be honored for at least 90 days unless a shorter period is stated clearly (Rule 4-7.14(a)(7)). Emotional appeals in place of “a rational evaluation of a lawyer’s suitability” are barred (Rule 4-7.15(a)).

Read together, those rules push a firm toward exactly this offer: a fixed price with its cost disclosure beside it, the IRS’s own words instead of promises, and a sample document instead of adjectives. Other states’ rules differ in detail, so check your own bar before publishing.

This dossier is general information about published rules and market practice. It is not legal or tax advice, and no reader should decide whether to sign a certification on the strength of it.