Each year, almost 2 million corporations and limited liability companies are created in the United States, under various regulatory structures. Yet, as has often been pointed out – especially recently, as the world moves slowly in the direction of ever greater transparency and disclosure – only a handful of U.S. states currently require information about the beneficial owners of these entities.

Dutch finance secretary Menno Snel has become the latest European official to raise with Washington the matter of the harsh effects U.S. tax legislation is having on European citizens – in Snel's case, Dutch citizens resident in the Netherlands – as part of efforts aimed at convincing U.S. lawmakers to make changes to these laws.

A French Assembly report is calling on the French government to engage in further negotiations over FATCA, and if necessary abandon it altogether, if it is unable to resolve the "extra-territorial tax" problems currently being faced by thousands of French citizens who also happen to be Americans. 

Greenback Expat Tax Services, a tax advice business with offices in the U.S. and abroad, is inviting American expatriates around the world to share their views on the U.S. tax system, tax reform, citizenship-based taxation, Foreign Bank Account Reports, citizenship renunciation and related topics.

 American expats who have been calling on governments across Europe – and on the EU itself – to rally on their behalf against what they say is the unfair burden of being expected to comply with the U.S.’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act have been reacting with disappointment today to a letter from a key EU politician that they say shows their struggles still aren’t being acknowledged.

Accidental Americans in Europe and elsewhere may not want to hear it, but a top personal tax expert – with the high-end, London-based Withers law firm – has said European politician Pierre Moscovici's recent response to the struggles such "accidentals" have been having with the difficulties they face as a result of the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is actually "in line" with the direction of international tax policy efforts.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report released today reveals a range of issues with the 2010 law known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which it noted also contributed to a "nearly 178%" increase in the rate of citizenship renunciations between 2011 and 2016.

UK officials have twice turned down a Freedom of Information request filed by a U.S. born British citizen who was interested in knowing the “extent of…the annual disclosure of British taxpayer information to the US Internal Revenue Service, as per FATCA’s requirements" – even though similar requests to the Canadian and Australian governments were recently granted, The American Expat Financial News Journal has learned.

Adrian Paul Baron, a United Kingdom national who was the first person anywhere to be convicted of violating the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the U.S., has been flown back to the UK, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has announced.

Last month's trial over the constitutionality of the Canadian government's enforcement of America’s FATCA legislation was, of course, hugely important for American expats around the world, all of whom are waiting, or perhaps should be, to hear how the court ultimately rules. For some, though, it was also a chance to study the gavel habits of a country other than the United States, and then sit back and wait for the gavel imagery that almost inevitably follows such events.