Picking up US Mail for Overseas Client

[Anonymous]

I have a client located in Paris. She currently has her US mail sent to her nephew’s house in Houston. And then he arranges to send her a package once a month or so. That arrangement is no longer working out well since it sometimes takes months to receive her mail and she has missed out on addressing IRS notices in a timely manner. She asked me if I could arrange to get her mail. Do any of you have any experience providing this service? Best practices? How to arrange a PO box or US address for someone living in Paris and allow access to a third party? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Madeleine Cody]

Hello Helen!

I have a client for whom I pick up her mail at a PO Box once a week. There is a USPS form that she can fill out that authorizes others to pick up the mail from the box. Any important mail (that I don’t handle), I scan and email to her. This client has a residence in Houston but travels a great deal.

I have another client that uses a service called Earthclass Mail which sets up a mailbox. Mail that’s sent to the box is scanned and sent to a contact for review. Then you can say trash, open & scan, or forward to a recipient. I don’t know if they will forward mail (for example: magazines) to a foreign address. The price varies depending on the level of services.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sabina! I’ll check out Earthclass.

My first thought was for her to set up a US PO box but can that be done when you live in Paris? If so, then she can also fill out the USPS form to allow me to have access to the PO box and the we can forward her mail from the nephew’s address to the new PO box.

I also found this information which looks similar to Earthclass:
https://www.taxesforexpats.com/articles/financial-planning/virtual-mailbox-services-for-americans-living-abroad-and-why-you-should-have-one.html

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

You can use those services or you can have her billing address changed to yours and all the mail come to you directly. You can then scan in the mail and share it with her. I have a client who lives in Paris as well and I do most of my client work remotely (not just for him, but all clients) and this is how I handle it.

[Author]

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