Portugal has leapt six places to top International Living's annual Global Retirement Index, which ranks countries around the world on their suitability for individuals who are looking to retire in a country other than the one in which they currently live.

On Tuesday – the last day before all non-American banks and financial institutions around the world were officially required to supply the U.S. authorities with the so-called Tax Information Numbers of all their American clients, or potentially be in breach of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire issued a statement reassuring France's banks with respect to any American account-holders whose TINs they still don't have.

A reader asks: ‘How do I navigate the shoals of being between U.S. and French citizenship, without having to put all my assets into cash and sticking them under my mattress for a few years?’

The head of the French Banking Federation has formally warned France's finance minister that the country's banks may be forced to close as many as 40,000 bank accounts by the end of the year, owing to problems these banks have in complying with the U.S. tax information reporting law known as FATCA.

So-called "Accidental Americans" in France and elsewhere in Europe expressed disappointment, and in some cases dismay, after France's top administrative court ruled that the current regime under which France provides information to the U.S. under its controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act could stand, and didn't need changing or to be scrapped.

 The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday that it "will not challenge" the claiming of foreign tax credits against certain controversial payments that potentially thousands of American expatriates resident in France have been paying for years, and noted that taxpayers who wish to file a claim for refund of U.S. tax with respect to a foreign tax credit have 10 years after the "due date for filing the return" in question in which to do so.

In a development that is being seen by American expat groups in France as a major win, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has admitted in a U.S. Tax Court that it had wrongly collected millions of dollars of tax from France-resident American citizens, ending a years-long legal saga that could see millions of dollars paid to U.S. expats who have lived in and been filing tax returns from France, in the form of refunds.

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. 

The Association of Americans Residents Overseas this Thursday will be sponsoring a seminar in Paris that will seek to help Americans living in France to better understand the issues involved in estate planning while abroad.