TIGTA reports: an interim report on the 2022 filing season; and 'strategy needed' to grow electronic filing of biz returns

The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) this month has published two reports that consider differing aspects of the Internal Revenue Service's recent performance – and has arrived at many of the same conclusions that the National Taxpayer Advocate, Erin M. Collins, did, in her annual report to Congress back in January, on what the IRS needs to do to improve its efficacy. 

  • Tax

HELP! What am I to do when foreign law impacts the U.S. treatment of my tax case?

As regular readers of the American Expat Financial News Journal possibly know better than most, U.S. taxpayers who live abroad (as well as their tax advisers) are increasingly having to consider the potential interactions between U.S. and foreign laws when determining the U.S. tax consequences of a particular financial transaction.

U.S. tax expert Virginia La Torre Jeker explains it this way: "In today's world, it is no longer possible for practitioners to ignore the possible implications of another country’s laws."

Virginia La Torre Jeker, on whether you can (now) trust IRS FAQs: 'It still depends...'

Last week, we reported the news that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service had announced that U.S. taxpayers could now begin to claim a "reasonable cause" defense, in the event they were ever to find themselves hit with a penalty in connection with a tax matter for which they had "reasonably and in good faith" relied upon any IRS-published FAQs (frequently-asked-questions) that has to do with new tax legislation.

For Virginia La Torre Jeker, the well-known American tax expert and blogger who is (famously) based in Dubai, the IRS's statement was, well, about as clear as mud...

Uncle Sam Reminds YOU: Tax Day for expats who got extensions is Oct. 15

Uncle Sam – in the rather more official (and less colorful) form of the Internal Revenue Service – is reminding U.S. expats that as it is now October, this means they only have two weeks left to get their U.S. tax returns in, if they opted to take advantage of the extension that lets such taxpayers have until Oct. 15 to file their 2020 returns.

  • Tax

IRS secures a court order to obtain U.S. taxpayer info from Panama-based firms

In what one U.S. official was quoted as saying was evidence of the government's "commitment" to go after American taxpayers who used "offshore service providers to avoid U.S. taxes," the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced that it had authorized the IRS to issue summonses that would require "multiple couriers and financial institutions" to produce information about U.S. taxpayers" who were believed to have used a firm known as Panama Offshore Legal Services, "and its associates," to evade U.S. income taxes.

  • News
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Opinion

Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad

Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad

The American Expat Financial News Journal’s “Essential Financial Acronyms for Americans Living Abroad” is designed to help our fellow Yanks in Expatland to navigate the international seas of the financial...

May-05-2022