Two recent announcements from Washington, one from IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, and one from Pamela Mitchell, Acting Director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, appear to signal a new awareness of the realities of the overseas American population.
On June 26, Commissioner Shulman announced new procedures to take effect on September 1, 2012, to make compliance easier for delinquent overseas...
On June 26, the IRS issued IR-2012-65, a plan “to help U.S. citizens residing overseas, including dual citizens, catch up with tax filing obligations and provide assistance for people with foreign retirement plan issues.”
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said, "Today we are announcing a series of common-sense steps to help U.S. citizens abroad get current with their tax obligations and...
Representative Carolyn Maloney and two of her colleagues on the Americans Abroad Caucus, which she chairs, have introduced HR 5828, “A Bill to amend the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to permit an absentee ballot application submitted by an absent uniformed services voter or overseas voter with respect to an election for Federal office to serve as an...
On Tuesday, March 20, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, put a direct question to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner concerning the difficulties overseas Americans are increasingly encountering in maintaining or opening bank accounts abroad, where they live and work and need access to financial services.
In response, Secretary...
On February 8, the Treasury Department issued new regulations related to the reporting required of “foreign financial institutions” under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Click here for a New York Times article on the changes.
As pointed out in that article, however, the new regulations do not address the concerns of individual filers abroad, alarmed at the extensive...
On January 9, the IRS announced that it was yet again reviving its program inviting those with undeclared accounts abroad to declare them, facing heavy penalties for not having filed previously but, in some cases, avoiding even higher penalties. Click here for the Bloomberg News article on this from the New York Times. Note that, as reported by the Associated...