As this and other news organizations reported back in February, more Americans handed their citizenships back to Uncle Sam in 2020 than during any other single year to date, in spite of the fact that U.S. embassies and consulates around the world – which are needed to process such citizenship renunciations – were closed or offering reduced services for most of the year...

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...

The Paris-based Association of Accidental Americans (AAA) has said that it has decided to go ahead with its latest complaint against the U.S. State Department, in an effort to force it to make it easier for dual citizens around the world who wish to give up their U.S. citizenships to be able to do so.

The AAA announcement came even as "Loss of Nationality services" in many U.S. embassies and consulates around the world continued to remain closed, due, these embassies and consulates say, to the Covid pandemic, and other factors.

On Wednesday (June 16), viewers of a "virtual" three-hour, full Senate Finance Committee hearing on the subject of President Biden's Fiscal Year 2022 budget were witness to a rare, 6 minute, 42-second exchange between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Massachusetts) and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, about Elizabeth Warren's so-called "Ultra-Millionaire Tax."

Americans resident outside of the U.S., particularly those whom the U.S. government considers to be well off, have been wondering how Sen. Elizabeth Warren's recently-unveiled "Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021" is likely to affect them.

The notoriously cash-strapped Internal Revenue Service is expected to look for help in filling its coffers next year and beyond from Foreign Trust tax forms 3520 and 3520-A – two information-reporting tax forms that are already familiar to U.S. tax experts for their complexity – a well-known tax specialist has said. 

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.