Like folks everywhere, Americans are often surprised to discover how different things can be when they live abroad. Sometimes the differences are small; sometimes they're massive. Often they can be hilarious...
In November of 1993, Peggy Creveling arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, to meet up with her husband, Chad, whom she'd met at the well-known U.S. military academy of West Point some years before.
As she explained to me recently, he was busy that day, working on the Stanford, University internship that had brought him there. Left to her own devices, Peggy decided to explore the city, by herself, on foot.
Many U.S. expats are still enjoying the sense that the annual nightmare of getting their American taxes done has come and gone, and they have a few months of peace before they need to begin worrying again. Others still have a few loose ends to tie up, and are keeping an eye on the final deadline for these left-to-complete bits that is moving ever closer by the day. (Monday, Oct. 17, in case you're wondering...)
Recently, a reader of the American Expat Financial News Journal got in touch to say that they were in the process of beginning to plan for Tax Year 2022 – and as part of this, wanted to know what help, if any, they might be able to get from a component of the IRS known as the "Taxpayer Advocate Service".
News that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act has now been signed into law by President Biden has seen a burst of articles and website comments about what the additional US$80 billion in funding that it provides for the Internal Revenue Service could mean for Americans living abroad.
As this and other media organizations have been reporting for years, such expats are already struggling to deal with the myriad tax complications and expenses that go with living abroad as an American citizen, as a result of the combination of the U.S.'s citizenship-based tax regime, and such mostly-recent laws as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. So the prospect of yet more IRS scrutiny has prompted many to worry...
The UK’s HM Revenue & Customs has significantly expanded the scope of its register for trusts as part of what's known as the Fifth Money Laundering Directive, an element of the European Union's ongoing efforts to crack down on the laundering of money, especially across international borders. With delays in implementation, the pushed-back deadline for registration under the new rules of Sept. 1, 2022 initially seemed a long way off.
