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The "Nightmare" of American Expat Taxes?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing American expat taxes. Yes, we are coming into a new year and expats need to be thinking about dealing with their taxes at some point in the upcoming year. 

Now in a recent article from Bloomberg; it was quite a good article, and I would urge those viewers who are watching this go ahead and check that out. It's titled:  Stop Treating American Expats like Tax Cheats. This is a really great article. They go on to note that there are only two countries in the world, the United States and Eritrea, which taxes their citizens globally.  But to quote directly from the end of the article, quoting directly: "Some US expats renounce their citizenship but few want to cut ties to their country and for most the cost is prohibitive in any case. They should never be made to feel that it is necessary. At a minimum the US should simplify the rules for its expats and raise the balance thresholds so middle-income filers are exempt. But the best solution will be even simpler. Follow the example set by almost every other economy, did I mention it Eritrea, and base the personal income tax on residency not citizenship." You know I can't make suggestions with respect to what, well I can say whatever I want, but I will say I don't think it is very likely that we are going to see a change like that but I have to say that the current tax situation, especially for middle-income smaller expats abroad,  it is a difficult system to work one's way through and professional assistance is very much advisable because of the way that they have basically changed this overall structure and dealing with the IRS now can be rather onerous, especially in the context of being an expatriate, because the law was written in such a way that it sort of tarred very small individual earners with the same brush if you will as Apple Computer for example that had major offshore holdings and as a result it has led to this, I don't know if inequitable is the right word, but it is definitely a system that seems rather arbitrary in the sense that it enforces rather more complex reporting requirements on people, especially people who are not doing complex things; they are just abroad working and their tax returns are looking ever more complicated as the years roll on.

So the thing to take away from this video is it's a great article: Stop Treating American Expats like Tax Cheats and also the thing to take away from this video is "yes it is more difficult for American expats than it is going to be for onshore Americans in dealing with their taxes at least for the foreseeable future while this current tax regime is enforced. Yes there is a sunset provision on that but that is not for some years away so those who are living and working abroad, it is probably a good idea to go ahead and contact a professional in order to get some assistance in making sure one remains in compliance with relative American tax law