Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in our Work/Business section.
To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
- Claire Doole - Claire Doole Communications
Claire is a former BBC correspondent and international spokeswoman who is passionate about helping people communicate with confidence. Since 2006, she has successfully trained hundreds of professionals in the art of presenting and public speaking, talking to the media, managing communications in a crisis, and writing for the web. In addition, she has coached C-level executives and public figures to give powerful TEDx and TED style talks in Europe and the Middle East. A Swiss and UK national, Claire trains and coaches in French and English.
- Elizabeth Ballin - Life Coach
As a long time member of the international community in Geneva, Elizabeth Ballin has been coaching adults and students from all parts of the world. She has coached business professionals, musicians/artists, couples, families and adolescents. She is a fully accredited Life Coach by the International Coaching Federation. Elizabeth Ballin, Life Coach
- Patrick Hoza - US Tax & Financial Services
Since 1990, Patrick has many years of experience with US individual expatriate taxation under his belt, including High Net Worth Individuals, streamline/voluntary disclosure filings and tax consulting, as well as working with large multinationals like Novartis, BP, Hewlett Packard and General Electric. He has extensive knowledge in serving both US expatriates and resident and non-resident aliens with their US tax-related issues. Patrick Hoza is a Tax Director at US Tax & Financial Services, with extensive experience in all aspects of Individual US tax and Expatriation, including Hight Net Worth Individuals and large multinationals.
Patrick started his career in 1990 in California, with Westpro Ltd., as a Senior Tax Consultant, then spent the middle part of his career working at KPMG and Ernst & Young. During his time with Ernst & Young, he worked and lived in Russia, France and finally Switzerland. He has gained a valuable working knowledge of the respective income tax regulations in all of these countries.
Patrick holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Colorado, is a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents and is a Certified Acceptance Agent.
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Melitta Campbell - Business Coach
Business Coach and Mentor with nearly 3 decades of business experience and a passion for helping women confidently build a business they love. She is also the founder of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Club and president of the Swiss Riviera Toastmasters Club in Montreux. Originally from Wales, she now lives in Montreux in a chalet she has renovated with her husband overlooking the Swiss Alps. - Sunita Sehmi - Walk The Talk
Founder of Walk The Talk, Sunita has been training, developing and now coaching Business Communication skills in both companies and educational establishments for over twenty years. She has a passion for helping people to maximise their potential and created Walk The Talk with the sole aim to drive each and every client to perform their best.
- Robert Harris- Forth Capital
With over 25 years experience working for some of the major financial institutions in the City of London, Robert is a founding partner of Forth Capital, the leading expat financial advisory company in Switzerland. Regulary quoted in newspaper articles and magazines, he is well placed to advise expats on a variety of financial issues that may arise during their time living in Switzerland.
- Debbie Croft - Croft Coaching
As the founder of Croft Coaching, Debbie has a passion for helping people overcome challenges, embrace change and live life to the full; with an ethos of “work hard, play hard”.
- Sarah Santacroce - Simplicity
A certified social media, internet marketing, and virtual event specialist, Sarah enjoys every aspect of small business marketing. Through her own business, Simplicity, it is her mission to help other small businesses and solopreneurs increase their visibility and use social media tools as part of their marketing strategy.
- Diana Ritchie - SSC Sàrl
A Director at Swiss Career Connections, Diana will provide you with some useful tips for job hunting.
by Patrick Hoza, US Tax & Financial Services
Lefty Gomez, an all-star pitcher for the New York Yankees in the 1930's, is credited with saying "I'd rather be lucky than good." He is also credited with earning the nicknames "Goofy Gomez," and "El Goofo." Still, I often think Lefty had it right and today could very well be your lucky day.
If you are a US citizen and want to give up your citizenship but have fretted over unfiled returns or the fact you do not have a US social security number, then the IRS has a procedure for you! It’s called ‘Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens’.
This procedure allows an individual that meets the following eligibility requirements to have a “get out of jail free” card.
- Your past compliance failures were due to non-wilful conduct.
- You have relinquished your U.S. citizenship after March 18, 2010.
- You have no filing history as a U.S. citizen or resident.
- You did not exceed the threshold in Internal Revenue Code Section 877(a)(2)(A), relating to average annual net income tax for the period of 5 tax years ending before your date of expatriation. This amount is $171,000 for 2020 and is indexed for inflation each year.
by Patrick Hoza, US Tax & Financial Services
While the Streamline Program has been around for quite a few years, it’s worth mentioning again for those US persons that have still not filed their returns or corrected past mistakes but were not aware of the program. The IRS accepts that taxpayers should not be exposed to extremely harsh penalties for a non-wilful failure to comply with all the various tax reporting requirements. The IRS Streamlined Voluntary Disclosure program is specifically for taxpayers who can certify that their failure to file all information, report all income and pay tax was due to ‘non-wilful conduct’ – that is, due to negligence, inadvertence and mistake, or good faith misunderstanding of these legal obligations.
The program is applied differently for US Persons that can qualify under the offshore version of the program, and those that must use the US resident program. We speak to the offshore version below.
Are you eligible?
To be eligible for the Offshore Procedure the taxpayer must meet a non-residency requirement. This requirement is met if:
- in any one or more of the most recent three years for which the US tax return due date, or properly applied for extended due date, has passed (the ‘covered tax period’)
- the individual did not have a US abode and was physically outside the United States for at least 330 full days
File the returns, pay the tax
For each of the most recent three years for which the US tax return due date (or properly applied for extended due date) has passed, the procedure requires that the taxpayer:
- file delinquent or amended tax returns, together with all required information returns
- file any delinquent FBARs (for each of the most recent 6 years for which the FBAR* due date has passed)
- pay the full amount of tax and interest due with the delinquent or amended returns
By Claire Doole, www.doolecommunications.com
Are you suffering from Zoom fatigue as you rush from one online meeting to another? I am using Zoom as shorthand for all the different platforms that are jostling to sign you up as a customer. In my opinion, Zoom is by far the most interactive and participatory platform, although MS Teams and Webex are catching up.
But the platform is not the biggest challenge to facilitating an online meeting. According to participants in my eWorkshops it is the passive audience, made even worse when people turn off their cameras! Number two, by the way, is lack of non-verbal cues and number three technical glitches.
As a meeting facilitator you have to work hard to get and keep people’s attention. And even harder if you want to break through the virtual divide and get people to engage and participate. In the real world, our brain switches off every 10 minutes if it is not stimulated, so imagine how quickly it tunes out in the virtual world.
The solution is to view facilitating a meeting like running a training session. You have to borrow tools and techniques from training to build engagement and participation.
Here are some of my most effective tools to boost your meeting.
By Claire Doole, www.doolecommunications.com
Until COVID-19 struck, my virtual training consisted of coaching over Skype for clients I couldn't meet face to face.
Today all my training is conducted virtually over numerous other platforms; clients highly rate the experience and learning and development departments are happy to be able to provide this opportunity for their staff's personal development while working remotely.
In the past 6 weeks, I have been running eWorkshops in writing, moderating, storytelling, presenting, media and job interviews and speechwriting.
This is what I have learnt about what makes a successful virtual learning experience.
EWorkshops not webinars
Clients are telling me they much prefer an eWorkshop, which is interactive and participatory rather than watching a YouTube video or attending a webinar, which is usually a PowerPoint Presentation with Q&A.
I know from my attempts to do yoga online that what I really miss is the individual feedback on what I am doing wrong!
With eWorkshops, participants can get that individual feedback just like in the face-to-face training room experience, as long as the group is no more than 8 people.
By Claire Doole, www.doolecommunications.com
Are you, like me, experiencing your own pandemic of webinars and meetings over various videoconference applications such as Zoom (my favourite), WebEx and Microsoft Team Meetings?
Are you that person who now turns off their camera citing connectivity issues so that you can focus on something else rather than actively take part in the videoconference? Or, as a friend related, that person who strategically places themselves with their back to the window or light so that all people see on the call is their silhouette?
It may be because the moderator is just failing to engage you and manage your limited attention span. That is not a criticism. We all have more limited attention spans when we are on these remote calls.
Here are some of my tips and techniques for moderating remotely so you captivate your audience. They are based on my experience as a former TV and radio journalist, panel moderator, public speaker and remote and in person trainer.
