What this service covers
A preparer at Capital Tax Limited prepares Form 8621 for each passive foreign investment company you are required to report, as part of your US tax compliance engagement. That includes the annual information report itself, the section 1291 computation of tax and interest on excess distributions and gains for funds held under the default regime, and, where a fund provides the necessary statements, the qualified electing fund (QEF) or mark-to-market treatment that can replace section 1291. Form 8621 is prepared alongside the return it attaches to; it is not offered as a standalone filing, because the numbers on it flow directly into your Form 1040 and cannot be finalized apart from it. For how the rules work, see the Form 8621 and PFIC guide.
Who needs it
Most US expats who invest through a local bank or brokerage hold PFICs without knowing the term: a Hong Kong or Singapore unit trust, a UK OEIC or investment trust, a Japanese or Korean domestic ETF, a Canadian mutual fund, or the fund options inside a foreign investment-linked insurance policy. Each fund is generally its own PFIC and, subject to the small-holding exceptions in the regulations, its own Form 8621 every year. If you have received a distribution from such a fund, sold it, or held it in a year you also received an "excess" distribution, section 1291 applies unless an election was in place, and that is where the real work sits.
Why this is rarely a do-it-yourself filing
Form 8621 has no fixed per-form penalty of the kind Form 5471 carries, but a required report that is missing keeps the statute of limitations open for the whole return under IRC §6501(c)(8), and the section 1291 regime taxes gains and excess distributions at the highest ordinary rate for each prior year of the holding period, with an interest charge on top. The computation allocates each distribution across the years you held the fund and applies that year's top rate and the underpayment interest to each slice. Consumer tax software supports the form only in its simplest cases, and none of the mainstream products will tell you whether a QEF or mark-to-market election is available for a given fund or whether making it would help. That judgment, not the form, is what you are paying for.
Pricing
Form 8621 is priced per form and added to the compliance engagement, with a lower fee for a fund with no distributions or dispositions in the year and a higher fee where a section 1291 computation is required. Capital Tax Limited quotes the engagement as a whole once it knows how many funds you hold and which years are involved.
Missed prior years
If you have held foreign funds for years without filing Form 8621, the route back depends on whether the underlying returns were filed and whether the omission was non-willful. Missed reports are commonly brought current inside the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures together with the returns and FBARs they belong to, or, where the returns themselves were complete, through amended returns with the missing forms attached. Because a missing Form 8621 holds the assessment period open, the prior years are screened before anything is filed rather than left alone.
Next step
Start with a short intake listing the funds you hold, roughly how long you have held them, and any years you may have missed. A preparer at Capital Tax Limited reviews which funds are PFICs, which reports and elections apply, and quotes the engagement.