Independent Retirement Account In Usa

[iloveglee]

This is a question for any americans reading the site. My aunt died five years ago and she had apparently made me the beneficiary of her retirement account. all the paperwork and management of her estate was in the hands of a tax accountant in the uk. she was a british citizen but married to an american from whom she inherited this pension. from what i understand she was taking sums from the account, as per the pension rules, each year. after she died all her mail went to the accountant to deal with. this pension was due to finish in 2014 when she was 90, had she lived. i am also a british citizen but i work abroad. it now turns out that the cheques for these mandatory payments have never been cashed, and worse than that, the bank have never been informed that she is dead. it appears that this account should have been made for my benefit and i could have turned it into a pension for myself, or cashed it out. i had no idea of this. i have left all the management of this in the hands of the accountant and now find that i may have to pay a penalty to the usa tax authorities because of not taking the mandatory payments. the tax had apparently been taken at source so they had had what they were due to, but because the cheques were not cashed it looks like the account has not been taking its payments. the account has had no transactions so is going dormant. i have been in touch with the bank who can, with the appropriate documentation, have it made over to me but as a dormant bank account i will have to get it back from the state and have to take it all at once. i am really worried about what will happen when i take this money out because, apparently, there should be no money left and there is several thousand dollars. My tax accountant in the uk has done a vanishing act, i only have an e-mail which she does not respond to. she was working for a company of tax accountants when she took this work on, do they have any responsibility here.

[boxtops]

How complicated for you. I think my first step would be to contact that firm of accountants and see how the land lies - people do move on and your lady may no longer be working there. That would be a good place to start, as they should still have your original file. IMO.

[iloveglee]

it gets worse. the company that employed her have sacked her, she contacts me via a generic gmail address, no phone or address but doesnt come up with any useful information. i have been in touch with the bank and thankfully they are not making the account dormant and paperwork is on its way to have the account made over to me. the issue of the uncashed payments is still there. the company of accountants are now trying to locate the file but apparently i am not in their system under my name, the lady who was supposed to be doing the work said she was doing it for me as a 'bit of a favour' i.e. she has been freelancing whilst employed and i am now wondering if she has been doing other things wrong as well - hence being sacked. now i am wondering if the company that employed her have any liability to me as she was doing it without me being in their system, even though i believed she was doing it through her employment with this company. are employees of accounting firms allowed to do this kind of thing. i have not lived in the UK for many years so don't really know what is allowed and not.

[Buenchico]

It might be worth re-posting on an American Q&A site, such as one of these:
http://www.answerbag.com/

http://answers.yahoo.com/

[Peter Pedant]

In terms of contract - the general system (common law) is the same as the US (for historical reasons) . The company of tax accountants WOULD have responsibiity for her work (vicarious etc) if she were an employee- and not if she and they had contracted her services as self employed.

The position is governed by law cases and the authorities would look at whether the company paid employees benefits and taxes on her behalf such as NICs, paid PAYE on her behalf (shows she was employed) or whether she paid her own taxes (shows self employment)

I think somewhere you say you contacted her after she was fired -whcih kinda doesnt look as tho she was an employee....

Oh and the contract with the fired employee that you had with her is definitely made in the UK and subject to UK law....

[ but I think yo are onto a loser there]

[woofgang]

" the lady who was supposed to be doing the work said she was doing it for me as a 'bit of a favour' i.e. she has been freelancing whilst employed"

It may be that this totally exonerates the firm from any responsibility. If I work for a painting and decorating firm and do favours for friends in my time off, I don't think the company would be responsible if things went wrong, even if I was doing it in the firm's time with the firms equipment, as the friends would have no contract with the company and would be aware of this.

[iloveglee]

unfortunately i was not aware that she must have been doing this work freelance. it was never discussed. the situation is that she did the tax accounts for my aunt when she was alive and receiving payments for an american pension (this was after her husband had died). she did this as an employee of a company of tax accountants for which the company were paid. when my aunt died this lady who worked for the firm of accountants managed all the probate of her will in the UK and was also supposed to be managing all the paperwork for the stuff in the USA. When I found out about all of this I asked her what the bill was and she said she had been doing it as a favour. I suppose I should have wondered why the company were allowing her to do work without them getting paid but supposed it was because my aunt and her husband had put lots of work their way over the years. I only ever had contact with this one individual and I had no idea that the company were probably unaware of this. I never had any contract with her for freelance worki have only just found out that i am not in their system at all . my understanding was that she was dealing with this, as an employee of the company, but was not charging. Why, in any case, would anyone want to do work freelance and not charge for it. surely she would have been more likely to charge if this was the case. I am actually now becoming suspicious. why was she not charging, was it to keep me out of their system? why was i not in their system, as far as i was concerned this company were responsible for the work. maybe because she wanted to keep the file to herself without anyone else having access to it? i have just had an email from the company and they are as confused about all this as i am. they have said they will see if they can locate the file.

[iloveglee]

btw. this company of accountants is in the uk so uk law would apply. i am a british citizen - i just dont live there. my aunt was british also. the pension was from her husband who was american. the only american law that applies here is tax law in terms of the payments from a pension being mandatory.