We had a number of queries in response to the Lifelines special on U.S. taxation a few weeks back ("Making your U.S. filing that little bit less taxing," Jan. 29), so we'll try and cover them here, again with help from taxation specialist Calvin Tong.
First up, thank you to this reader for pointing out an error in the column:
In the "How do I report interest from my Japanese bank and post office accounts?" section of the "Frequently asked questions" section, the instruction for calculating gross interest is to divide the net interest amount by 0.20315 (the Japanese withholding tax rate). Following this instruction would lead to a major overstatement of gross interest earned. The proper way to calculate gross interest earned would be to divide the net interest amount by 0.79685, i.e., one minus the withholding tax rate of 0.20315.