For various reasons, people, including those with U.S. tax obligations,  have long taken advantage of the option to use so-called "nominees" to hold legal title to some of their non-U.S. assets. But while there can be arguably good reasons for doing so, especially in countries where Shariah Law can dictate how assets are distributed when someone dies, it can also result in huge and unexpected problems.

Here, in an excerpt from her most recent blog, Dubai-based tax expert Virginia La Torre Jeker considers some of the issues that can arise.

Zurich Life Insurance Company Ltd., headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and Isle of Man-based Zurich International Life Ltd. have agreed a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will see the entities pay a collective penalty of US$5.1m, in return for the Justice Department's agreeing not to prosecute them in connection with certain "tax-related criminal offenses" having to do with some of their U.S. tax-paying clients.

Almost from the moment President Trump signed his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law on Dec. 22, 2017, the expatriate American-focused tax advisory industry has focused on its implications for those Americans with an ownership interest in an overseas company, and their consequent new tax obligations.

But that wasn’t the only aspect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that has significant implications for Americans who live outside the U.S., Dubai-based tax expert Virginia La Torre Jeker, pictured above, says. Here, she addresses in detail how the TCJA impacts Americans overseas who own their own homes.

Looking for Mr Goodbar was a 1975 book, made into a film two years later, about a New York City schoolteacher who ended up being murdered by a young man she’d just met. 

“Mr FBAR,” on the other hand – and of rather more relevance here – is an Expatland nickname for a document that U.S. expats around the world have been required to file annually with the IRS since 1970, if their total offshore bank and financial account holdings total US$10,000 or more at any time during the tax year.