Attention, American owners of non-U.S. small businesses that are being "badly impacted by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's so-called GILTI tax: The Democrats Abroad want you... Or, well, they might...

American expats who own their own small businesses outside of the U.S. are being strongly urged to take an online Democrats Abroad survey about their experiences under the so-called GILTI regulations that came into force in Janury, 2018 – particularly if they've found them to be burdensome – as the deadline is this Friday (Aug. 20). 

On April 20, 2021, the Democrats Abroad submitted its response to the Senate Finance Committee's proposal to overhaul the U.S. international tax regime.

Below, the Democrats Abroad's response in full, as written by Julia Bryan, Global Chair of the Democrats Abroad.

In a ruling that has surprised many in the expatriate American community, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. has officially declared Tel Aviv-headquartered U.S. tax attorney Monte Silver and his company "lack constitutional standing to pursue their claims" – thus ending, at least for now, Silver's feisty effort to force the U.S. Treasury to take small overseas businesses owned by Americans into account in its enforcement of President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows did in fact receive a letter sent to him last month by the Republicans Overseas that urged him to call on President Trump to use his presidential authority to issue an "executive order" aimed at fixing certain tax issues expat Americans are currently struggling with, and is "very interested in doing something to end double taxation [for expats] legislatively after the election", according to RO chief executive and vice president Solomon Yue.

Monte Silver, the Israel-based American tax attorney best known recently for his efforts aimed at forcing U.S. officials to fix a number of apparently unintentional but significant consequences for small business owners that were contained in President Trump's 2017 tax reform legislation, will host a free, two-part webinar on the so-called "global intangible low-taxed income" (GILTI) provisions of that tax reform package next Thursday, July 30.  

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued what it said was a "final regulation" addressing how income earned by foreign corporations that has already been subject to a high rate of foreign tax may declared, in order to "allow taxpayers to exclude certain high-taxed income of a controlled foreign corporation from their Global Intangible Low Taxed Income (GILTI) computation on an elective basis".

Monte Silver, the American tax attorney resident in Israel who in January 2019 filed a still-ongoing lawsuit that challenges the so-called Transition Tax element of President Trump's 2017 tax reform legislation, has filed another lawsuit, also in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, over another aspect of the same Trump bill.

Proposed rule changes to the way “foreign income” earned by “Controlled Foreign Corporations” would be taxed by the U.S. would be good news for American taxpayers living in high-tax countries, tax experts have said.