Do I need to file Form 5471 if my UK property company made a loss?

Yes. The Form 5471 filing requirement depends on ownership and control, not profit. A US citizen who owns more than 50% of a UK property SPV, or is a 10% shareholder of it while it is a controlled foreign corporation, files every year the conditions are met, including loss years. The loss years still matter, because the E&P deficit and brought-forward UK losses affect later Subpart F figures and the high-tax test.

Is rent from my UK buy-to-let limited company Subpart F income?

Usually. Rents are foreign personal holding company income unless they are derived in the active conduct of a trade or business and paid by an unrelated person. For real property, Treasury Regulation 1.954-2 requires the company itself, through its own officers or employees, to regularly perform active and substantial management and operations. A company that relies on a letting agent does not meet that test under the regulation's own apartment example.

My UK company pays 19% or 25% corporation tax. Do I still owe US tax on its rents?

Not if the high-tax exception is elected and the test is met. The UK tax attributable to the rents must exceed 90% of the 21% US corporate rate, meaning more than 18.9%, measured on income computed under US tax principles. The exception is elective, so the controlling US shareholders must attach an election statement. Brought-forward UK losses or a property sale can push the effective rate below the threshold.

Can a UK property company be a PFIC for a US owner?

Yes. A company whose income is mainly rents managed through an agent usually meets the PFIC income or asset test. A US shareholder of a controlled foreign corporation is protected by section 1297(d), but a US spouse holding 50% alongside a non-US spouse, or a US investor holding under 10%, is not a CFC shareholder and generally files Form 8621 and faces the PFIC regime instead.

Does the UK mortgage interest restriction apply to my property company?

No. HMRC's Property Income Manual confirms that the finance cost restriction on dwelling-related loans introduced from 2017-18 does not apply to companies within corporation tax. A UK-resident property company deducts its mortgage interest in computing profits, and the corporate interest restriction only applies where net interest and financing costs exceed £2 million in a 12-month period, which few family SPVs approach.

What happens if my non-American spouse owns half of our UK property company?

With a 50/50 split, US shareholders own exactly 50%, so the company is not a controlled foreign corporation, because section 958(b)(1) stops a nonresident alien spouse's shares being attributed to the US spouse. The American spouse then faces PFIC rules rather than Subpart F. If the couple elect to treat the non-US spouse as a US resident for a joint return, both are US persons and the company becomes a CFC.

Form 5471 for a UK Property-Holding Company: US Guide

Form 5471 for a UK property-holding company is an annual IRS information return that a US citizen must file when they control the company or are a 10% shareholder of it while it is a controlled foreign corporation, and an American who sets up a buy-to-let SPV alone or with other US persons usually meets both tests from the day the shares are issued. The return is attached to your Form 1040 and filed by its due date, including extensions. Once the company is a controlled foreign corporation, its rental profits can be taxed on your US return every year whether or not a dividend is paid, and for most portfolios run through a letting agent those rents fall under Subpart F rather than the new net CFC tested income regime.

This guide is written for US citizens living in the UK who hold residential or commercial property through a UK-resident limited company, the structure UK lenders and accountants commonly call a property SPV. It covers what changes on the US side when the company's business is holding and letting property: how rents are characterised, why the Subpart F high-tax election usually decides the outcome, how UK accounts must be restated, what happens when a non-US spouse holds shares, and what the sale of a property or of the company triggers. In the returns we prepare, property companies produce more Form 5471 errors relative to their size than almost any other structure, largely because the UK accounts look simple and the US rules for rents are not.

Who files Form 5471 for a UK property-holding company?

A controlled foreign corporation, or CFC, is a foreign company in which US shareholders together own more than 50% of the vote or value. A US shareholder is a US person who owns 10% or more of the vote or value. A UK private limited company is not on the IRS list of entities that are always treated as corporations (only the UK public limited company is, under the entity classification regulations at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/301.7701-2), but because every shareholder has limited liability it is classified as a corporation by default unless a Form 8832 election is filed. So the typical SPV is a foreign corporation for US purposes, and a sole American owner makes it a CFC on their own.

The IRS instructions at https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i5471 sort filers into categories, and a property company owner usually falls into more than one:

Category 3: a US person who acquires shares that take them to 10% or more, which catches the year the SPV is incorporated and any year shares are issued or transferred.
Category 4: a US person who controls the company, meaning more than 50% of the voting power or value, which brings in the income statement (Schedule C), balance sheet (Schedule F), current earnings and profits (Schedule H) and transactions with shareholders (Schedule M), among others.
Category 5: a US shareholder of a CFC, which brings in Schedule I (the shareholder's income summary), Schedule I-1 (net CFC tested income and tested income information), Schedule J (accumulated earnings and profits), Schedule Q (CFC income by income group) and Schedule R (distributions).
Both Category 4 and Category 5 filers complete Schedule E, which reports the UK corporation tax that drives the high-tax analysis discussed below.

The penalty for failing to file is $10,000 per company per year, with a further $10,000 for each 30-day period the failure continues more than 90 days after IRS notice, capped at $50,000, plus a reduction in available foreign tax credits. Just as important for property owners is the statute of limitations. Under section 6501(c)(8), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6501, the assessment period for the related return does not close until three years after the missing information is furnished. A property company that has never been reported keeps each affected year of the owner's US return open, in full unless reasonable cause limits the extension to the related items.

Are rents from a UK property company Subpart F income?

Usually, yes. Section 954(c)(1)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/954, lists rents as foreign personal holding company income, and that income is Subpart F income which the US shareholder includes currently. The statute then carves out rents derived in the active conduct of a trade or business and received from a person that is not related to the company. For rents paid by ordinary, unrelated tenants, this active rents exception is the main route out of foreign personal holding company income, and the regulations make it narrow.

The rule for real estate is in Treasury Regulation 1.954-2(c)(1)(ii), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.954-2. Rents from real property qualify only where the lessor, through its own officers or staff of employees, regularly performs active and substantial management and operational functions while the property is leased. The regulation's own examples settle the typical SPV. A company that buys a complex of apartment buildings and engages a real estate management firm to lease the apartments, manage the buildings and pay over the net rents does not have active rents. A company that owns an office building, acts as its own rental agent and employs a substantial staff for management and maintenance does.

Measured against that standard, the common UK buy-to-let SPV fails. The company usually has no employees, a letting agent finds tenants, collects rent and arranges repairs, and the director reviews statements a few times a year. That is the apartment example almost exactly. The regulation also contains separate tests for property the company itself develops or substantially improves through its own staff as a regular activity, and for leasing supported by a substantial foreign marketing organisation, but for a portfolio of let flats they rarely change the answer. Features that point firmly towards foreign personal holding company income include:

A managing or letting agent performs the tenant-finding, rent collection, maintenance and compliance work.
The company has no payroll, or its only officer is the owner-director acting part-time.
Some tenants are related persons, for example a flat let to a family member or premises let to the owner's own company, because the active rents exception requires an unrelated payer.
The management that does happen is occasional oversight rather than regular, day-to-day operational work by the company's own people.

Two further rules are worth knowing, although they seldom rescue a property company. The same-country exception in section 954(c)(3)(A)(ii) excludes rents received from a related corporation for the use of property in the country where the CFC is organised, so a UK SPV letting premises to the owner's UK trading company may fall outside Subpart F on that ground. The de minimis rule in section 954(b)(3) ignores foreign base company income below the lesser of 5% of gross income or $1,000,000, but when almost all of a company's gross income is rent, that income will never fall below 5% of it.

Subpart F, NCTI or the high-tax election: which one taxes the rents?

If the rents are foreign personal holding company income, the US shareholder includes their share of the company's net Subpart F income each year as ordinary income. If the rents qualify as active, they become tested income instead, which feeds the regime formerly known as GILTI. The 2025 legislation, Public Law 119-21, renamed that regime net CFC tested income, or NCTI, for tax years beginning after 31 December 2025, and removed the deemed return on qualified business asset investment that used to shelter part of the income of asset-heavy companies, as the amended statute at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/951A shows. Property companies that relied on that tangible-asset shelter under the old rules lose it from 2026.

For an individual owner, both regimes share the same problem: the inclusion is taxed at ordinary US rates and, without further steps, the individual gets no credit for the UK corporation tax the company paid. Section 962, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/962, lets an individual elect to be taxed on these inclusions as if they were received by a domestic corporation, with an indirect credit, and the 40% section 250 deduction for net CFC tested income available to corporate shareholders applies from 2026. The election carries its own tax when the earnings are later distributed, though. In practice, the cleaner answer for most UK property companies is the high-tax exception.

Section 954(b)(4) excludes from Subpart F any item of income that was subject to an effective foreign rate greater than 90% of the maximum US corporate rate in section 11. With that rate at 21%, the threshold is 18.9%. Under Treasury Regulation 1.954-1(d), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.954-1, the exception is elective. The controlling US shareholders make it by attaching a statement to an original or amended return, and it must be applied consistently to all eligible items of passive foreign personal holding company income for the year. Income excluded this way is also carved out of tested income, so it does not reappear under NCTI.

Where the rents are active and therefore tested income, the separate high-tax exclusion in Treasury Regulation 1.951A-2(c)(7), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.951A-2, does the same job. It uses the same 90% test, is applied tested unit by tested unit, is made by the controlling domestic shareholders, binds every CFC in the same CFC group, and is made on a return filed within 24 months of the unextended due date.

UK corporation tax is charged at 19% on profits under £50,000 and 25% above £250,000, with marginal relief in between and both limits divided among associated companies, according to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-corporation-tax/rates-and-allowances-corporation-tax and https://www.gov.uk/guidance/corporation-tax-marginal-relief. Both headline rates exceed 18.9%, but the test is not run on the UK headline rate. It is run in US dollars, dividing the UK tax attributable to the item by the item's income measured under US tax principles before that tax. That is where property companies surprise people. Situations where the effective rate on the US-measured income can fall to 18.9% or below include:

UK losses brought forward are used, so little or no UK tax is paid in a year that shows a US profit.
A property is sold and the US gain, computed on a basis reduced by US depreciation, is larger than the UK chargeable gain.
UK capital allowances on plant and fixtures in commercial property reduce UK taxable profit in a way that US depreciation does not mirror.

How is a UK-resident property company taxed in the UK?

The company in this article is resident in the UK, so it pays UK corporation tax on its worldwide profits and files a UK company tax return and statutory accounts. That is a different position from a non-resident company that owns UK property, which is outside the scope of this guide. HMRC's Property Income Manual at https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/property-income-manual/pim1005 confirms that a company's property business is taxed under Part 4 of the Corporation Tax Act 2009, with profits computed in the same way as trading profits.

Two UK features shape the figures a US preparer receives. First, the finance cost restriction that limits individual landlords to a basic-rate tax reduction for residential mortgage interest does not apply to companies, which is a large part of why SPVs became popular. Interest is deducted in computing the company's profits, subject only to the corporate interest restriction, which applies to companies or groups with net interest and financing costs over £2 million in a 12-month period, according to https://www.gov.uk/guidance/restriction-on-corporation-tax-relief-for-interest-deductions. Few family SPVs come near that. Second, the company's rate depends on its profit level and on how many associated companies it has, so a US owner with several SPVs, or SPVs alongside a trading company, may find the lower rate and marginal relief thresholds shared out between them.

The close investment-holding company rules in section 18N of the Corporation Tax Act 2010, at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/4/section/18N, add a cross-border twist. A close company that invests in land let commercially is not a close investment-holding company, but a letting to a connected person, which includes relatives and spouses, is not treated as commercial. Under section 18A of the same Act, a close investment-holding company cannot use the 19% small profits rate. Related-party lettings therefore cause trouble on both sides of the Atlantic: they can alter the UK rate position and, in the US, they fall outside the active rents exception. Company-held dwellings can also bring the annual tax on enveloped dwellings into play, which is a separate UK return not covered here.

How do UK property accounts need adjusting for Form 5471?

Earnings and profits, or E&P, is the US measure of a foreign company's profit. Treasury Regulation 1.964-1, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.964-1, computes it from the company's profit and loss account, adjusted first to US generally accepted accounting principles and then to US tax accounting standards, substantially as if the company were a domestic corporation. The Form 5471 instructions require Schedule C to be reported in the company's functional currency in accordance with US GAAP, and Schedule H then reconciles net income per books to current E&P through adjustment lines that include capital gains or losses, depreciation and amortisation, taxes and other items. For a property company, three adjustments recur every year:

Revaluation gains. Under FRS 102, UK property companies generally carry investment property at fair value, with gains and losses through the profit and loss account and no depreciation. An unrealised revaluation gain is not income under US tax principles, so it comes out of E&P, Subpart F income and tested income, and the property's US basis stays at cost.
Depreciation. US principles require buildings to be depreciated even though the UK accounts show none. Section 168(g), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/168, requires the alternative depreciation system for tangible property used predominantly outside the United States, with a 30-year recovery period for residential rental property and 40 years for nonresidential real property. Land is never depreciated, so the purchase price has to be split between land and buildings, a split the UK accounts do not make.
Tax. Deferred tax booked on revaluations in the UK accounts is an accounting entry. The foreign tax figure that matters for Schedule E and for the high-tax test is UK corporation tax actually paid or accrued for the year.

A fourth adjustment catches companies with UK year-ends other than 31 December. Section 898, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/898, generally requires a CFC that is more than 50% owned by a US shareholder to use that shareholder's tax year, and Public Law 119-21 repealed the one-month deferral election for CFC tax years beginning after 30 November 2025. An SPV with a 31 March accounting date owned by a calendar-year American may therefore need its figures re-cut to a calendar-year basis for US purposes, which the UK accountant has to support with monthly or quarterly data.

How do sterling mortgages and exchange rates affect the US figures?

A UK property company's functional currency is almost always sterling. Section 986(b), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/986, requires E&P to be determined in that functional currency and translated into dollars, and the Form 5471 instructions require Subpart F inclusions and Schedule M amounts to be translated at the average exchange rate for the company's tax year. Exchange rates are entered using the divide-by convention, meaning units of foreign currency per US dollar, rounded to at least four decimal places.

Because the mortgage is in the company's own functional currency, a sterling loan does not create US foreign currency gains or losses inside the company in the way a dollar or euro loan would. Currency matters at two other points. When earnings already taxed to you under Subpart F are later distributed, section 986(c) recognises foreign currency gain or loss on the distribution as ordinary income or loss, reflecting exchange-rate movement between inclusion and distribution. And shareholder loans, which are common where the owner funded deposits personally, must be reported on Schedule M with the related interest, and the balances appear on Schedule F.

Worked example: how is the US inclusion worked out for an SPV with five let flats?

The following is an illustration only, using simplified figures. Emma is a US citizen living in London who owns 100% of Harbour Lets Ltd, a UK-resident SPV holding five buy-to-let flats managed by a letting agent. For simplicity, assume the company's accounting year is calendar 2026, and assume an average exchange rate of $1.30 to £1, which is 0.7692 pounds per dollar under the divide-by convention. The UK corporation tax figure is also an assumption; the real figure depends on marginal relief and associated companies.

Step 1, status. Emma owns more than 50%, so Harbour Lets is a CFC and she meets the tests for both Category 4 and Category 5a, and the instructions have her check only the Category 4 box.
Step 2, character. A letting agent manages everything and the company has no staff, which matches the apartment example in Treasury Regulation 1.954-2(c). The rents are foreign personal holding company income.
Step 3, UK accounts. Rents of £180,000, less agent fees, repairs, insurance and service charges of £40,000 and mortgage interest of £60,000, plus a £100,000 revaluation gain and less assumed UK corporation tax of £17,000, give profit after tax of £163,000. The UK tax is computed on taxable profit of £80,000, because the revaluation is not taxed and no depreciation is deducted.
Step 4, US adjustments on Schedule H. Remove the £100,000 revaluation gain and deduct ADS depreciation on the buildings element of cost. Assume the buildings, excluding land, cost £1,500,000; straight-line over 30 years is roughly £50,000 a year, ignoring the mid-month convention. Current E&P is £163,000 less £100,000 less £50,000, which is £13,000.
Step 5, the high-tax test. Net rental income under US principles before UK tax is £180,000 less £40,000, £60,000 and £50,000, which is £30,000. UK tax of £17,000 divided by £30,000 gives an effective rate of about 56.7%, well above 18.9%.
Step 6, result with the election. With the election statement attached to Emma's return, the £13,000 of net foreign personal holding company income is excluded on the Subpart F worksheet line for the section 954(b)(4) high-tax exception, and it is also excluded from tested income. Emma's US inclusion is nil, and the earnings stay in the company until distributed.
Step 7, the cost of missing the election. Without it, Emma includes £13,000, about $16,900 at the assumed rate, as ordinary income, with no credit for the £17,000 of UK tax the company paid unless she makes a section 962 election.

Note the pattern. US depreciation and the removal of the revaluation make the US-measured income much smaller than the UK taxable profit, which pushes the effective rate up. That is typical for a steadily let residential portfolio. The years to test carefully are those with brought-forward UK losses or a property sale, and the election still has to be made: nothing in the regulation applies it automatically.

What changes if a non-US spouse or business partner owns shares?

Mixed-nationality ownership is where property SPVs most often change category, and the answer turns on attribution. The constructive ownership rules would normally treat a person as owning shares held by their spouse, but section 958(b)(1), at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/958, switches that off for CFC purposes: stock owned by a nonresident alien individual is not treated as owned by a US citizen or resident. The Form 5471 instructions reflect this, excusing Category 4 and 5 filers who have no direct or indirect interest and would only file because of constructive ownership from a nonresident alien.

Take Emma again, but with the shares split 50/50 with her British husband, who is not a US person. US shareholders own exactly 50%, not more than 50%, so the company is not a CFC. Emma filed Form 5471 as a Category 3 filer in the year the shares were issued, but there is no annual Subpart F or NCTI inclusion, and the exposure moves to the passive foreign investment company rules instead. The main variations we see:

At 51% or more for Emma, the company becomes a CFC and she meets both the Category 4 and Category 5a tests and checks only Category 4.
At exactly 50%, the company is not a CFC; Emma is a 10% shareholder of a non-CFC and the PFIC tests apply to her shares.
If the couple choose to treat the husband as a US resident under the nonresident spouse election described at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-spouse, both spouses are taxed on worldwide income and the husband becomes a US person. The Form 5471 instructions expressly treat a nonresident alien with a section 6013(g) election in effect as a US person for Category 4, and because the election treats that spouse as a US resident for income tax purposes generally, the usual result is that the couple are tested as owning 100% through US persons and the SPV is treated as a CFC. That consequence should be modelled before the election is made, not discovered afterwards. The IRS also notes that neither spouse can generally claim treaty benefits as a resident of another country while the choice is in effect.
With business partners, count only US persons who hold 10% or more. Three American investors with 20% each alongside UK investors holding 40% make a CFC; an American holding 5% is not a US shareholder, is not taxed under Subpart F, and faces the PFIC rules on their own holding.

When is a UK property company a PFIC instead of a CFC?

A passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, is a foreign corporation where 75% or more of gross income is passive, or where at least 50% of its assets, on average, produce or are held to produce passive income. Section 1297, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1297, defines passive income by reference to foreign personal holding company income in section 954(c), so rents from a portfolio run through a letting agent are passive and the flats themselves are passive assets. Most buy-to-let SPVs therefore meet both tests.

Section 1297(d) resolves the overlap. While the company is a CFC and you are a US shareholder of it, the company is not treated as a PFIC with respect to you. The PFIC rules therefore bite the owners the CFC rules miss: a US spouse at 50% or less where the rest is owned by non-US persons, and small US investors below 10%. A PFIC shareholder generally files Form 8621, as described at https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8621. Without an election, gains and certain distributions fall under the default excess distribution regime with an interest charge, which can be expensive on a property sale. A qualified electing fund election needs an annual information statement from the company, which a family SPV can usually produce if it is planned for; the mark-to-market alternative is generally unavailable for private company shares.

What happens when the company sells a property or you sell the shares?

When a UK-resident company sells a property, the gain is a chargeable gain within its UK corporation tax computation. On the US side, section 954(c)(1)(B) treats gains from selling property that gives rise to rents as foreign personal holding company income, after applying the active rents exception. A sale by an SPV run through a letting agent therefore produces Subpart F gain, while a sale by a company whose rents genuinely qualified as active falls outside that category.

The US gain is measured in sterling on a basis reduced by the US depreciation claimed over the years, which the UK computation does not reflect. The US gain can therefore be noticeably larger than the UK chargeable gain, and the effective UK rate on the US-measured gain can fall below 18.9%. In the returns we prepare we run the high-tax test on any planned sale before exchange, not after, because a failed test in the sale year can produce a sizeable Subpart F inclusion with no credit for the UK tax.

If you sell the shares instead, section 1248, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1248, treats the gain as a dividend to the extent of the company's E&P accumulated while it was a CFC and you held 10% or more, excluding E&P already taxed to you under section 951. That recharacterisation interacts with UK capital gains tax on the share sale, which is computed without reference to US rules, so the two computations need to be modelled together before heads of terms are agreed.

What documents does a US preparer need from the UK accountant each year?

A property company's Form 5471 is only as good as the UK file behind it. This is the pack we ask for:

Full statutory accounts, the trial balance and the nominal ledger, not just the filleted accounts filed at Companies House.
The company tax return and tax computation, with evidence of corporation tax paid and the payment dates.
A property schedule showing each address, completion date, purchase price, acquisition costs, capital improvements and a land and buildings split or valuation.
Valuation reports or directors' notes behind any revaluation in the accounts.
Mortgage statements for each loan showing interest charged and capital repaid.
Letting agent annual statements, and details of any tenant who is connected to the owners.
The director's loan account ledger, and dates and amounts of any dividends declared.
The register of members and any share issues or transfers in the year, which feed Schedule O and the category analysis.
Payroll records if the company employs anyone, which is the evidence base for any active rents position.
Year-end and maximum balances on every company bank account, for the FBAR.

What are the most common Form 5471 errors on property companies?

Reporting the rents on the owner's own Schedule E as if the company were disregarded, when no Form 8832 election was ever filed.
Using the UK profit, revaluation gain included, as the E&P figure.
Omitting depreciation entirely, or depreciating the land along with the buildings.
Assuming the active rents exception applies because the owner is busy with the portfolio, when a letting agent does the operational work.
Treating the high-tax exception as automatic and never attaching the election statement.
Leaving shareholder loans and interest off Schedule M.
Ignoring the section 898 year-end rule for SPVs with March or April accounting dates.
Missing the ownership analysis when a spouse or partner is not a US person, or when a joint return election changes it.
Forgetting the FBAR on company accounts.

On that last point, an owner with more than 50% of the company's value or voting power has a financial interest in its bank accounts for FBAR purposes, according to the IRS FBAR reference guide at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5569.pdf, and must report them when aggregate foreign balances exceed $10,000 at any time in the year. FBARs are filed through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing System, as explained at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar.

How do you catch up on missed Form 5471 filings for a property company?

For a non-willful US citizen living in the UK, the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-taxpayers-residing-outside-the-united-states are usually the route. They require the three most recent years of delinquent or amended returns, including all required information returns such as Form 5471, the six most recent years of FBARs, and a non-willful certification on Form 14653. Eligible filers are not subject to failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties, accuracy-related penalties, information return penalties or FBAR penalties.

Where the only problem is missed information returns, IRS guidance at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/delinquent-international-information-return-submission-procedures directs taxpayers who are not under examination or investigation, and have not been contacted by the IRS about the returns, to file them through normal procedures, and allows a reasonable cause statement to be attached. For property companies the catch-up has one helpful feature: the high-tax election statement can be attached to an original or amended return, so a late filer whose UK tax supports it can often bring the historic Subpart F figure back to nil rather than paying US tax on rents already taxed in the UK.

Our US tax services team prepares Form 5471 for UK property companies alongside the UK corporation tax position, so the E&P, the high-tax test and the UK computation are built from one set of figures. If your SPV has never been reported, or your returns show rents on a personal schedule without the company, that is the place to start.