In what might be seen as a timely move on the part of the Democrats Abroad, given the extent to which FBARs have been in the news this past week, the organization submitted a seven-page document to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ahead of hearings scheduled for this past Wednesday (March 8), in which it urged House lawmakers to make "needed" and "substantial adjustments to FinCEN Form 114, the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts or 'FBAR'." 

Little noticed last month – around two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling on Feb. 28 on how penalties for "non-willful" Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) violations should be determined – a U.S. District Court in California issued another major ruling involving FBARs.

Back in the 1960s, before Richard Nixon became U.S. president (in 1969), few "ordinary" Americans who lived abroad gave much, if any, thought to filing U.S. tax returns, let alone Foreign Bank Account Reports. Nor did the U.S. government seem much interested in finding out whether such expats might have overseas bank accounts, unless these expats were known to be wealthy.

Few recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have hit American expat taxpayers, and the experts who advise them on tax matters, as powerfully as last Tuesday's decision in a long-running FBAR case involving a "non-willful" dual citizen named Alexandru Bittner.

Experts say refusal to hear case raises questions as to
whether civil penalties might ever be deemed
to violate Eighth Amendment...

Tomorrow – Nov. 2nd – the U.S. Supreme Court will begin to hear arguments in a closely-watched case that's expected to result in clarification, at last, as to how the penalties in so-called "non-willful Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR)" cases should be determined.

The announcement in June that the U.S. Supreme Court had at last agreed to consider a case involving Foreign Bank Account Reports has been welcomed around the world by American expats, tax lawyers and others, many of whom had argued that the court's involvement was long overdue. 

Around 26% of some 3,200 American expats living in 121 countries around the world say they are either definitely "planning to renounce" their U.S. citizenships or are "seriously considering" doing so – with most citing the tax issues they, as U.S. expats, are obliged to deal with as the reason, according to  summary of the findings of Greenback Expat Tax Services' latest annual survey.

The deadline by when the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) needs to receive public comments as to how it might best "streamline, modernize, and update" the United States' existing anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime is fast approaching, advocates of a change in these regulations have told the American Expat Financial News Journal.