Transcript of the above video: 

This is rather hot news; this is actually pretty new coming out today here, Bangkok time, this will be published 3.45 pm here this afternoon in Thailand but I came upon this - I'll get into the article real quick - but this is a fairly recent announcement. Trump is now talking about - president-elect Trump I should say - is now talking about this notion of an External Revenue Service, and basically as noted in the title of this video, we are asking the question, 'is this going to have an impact on American expats overseas?' I expect it will but wait for the end of this because I'm not entirely sure it will have any impact on expats here in Thailand. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from, actually it's from Reuters, reuters.com, the article is titled: Trump says he will create new agency to collect revenue from foreign sources. Quoting directly: "US President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will create a new Government agency called the External Revenue Service "to collect tariffs, duties, and," and this I thought was interesting, "..all revenue." Again, quoting again: "and all revenue." Okay. Quoting further: ".. from foreign sources as he readies new import tariffs ahead of his inauguration next week. Trump said in a social media post he would create the Department on January 20, the day he takes office as President for the second term." So I like how he is coming in and there has been a lot of talk, and we did a video, he sort of said that, "hey I'm looking to give expats, throw them a bone," but then on Jan 20th, one of the first things he is going to do is add more bureaucracy presumably to the Revenue Services of the United States, add more tax bureaucracy? That's the plan? That said, quoting further: "The day he takes office as President for a second term, adding that Americans have been taxed for too long by the Internal Revenue Service." Well, why don't you just abolish the IRS? Why create another tax agency, so "oh hey, Americans are taxed too much by the Internal Revenue Service." Honestly, I have to honestly also note, the level of doublespeak that Trump has started, you almost have to like watch him like a lawyer to interpret what he's saying, because again, he said, “Americans have been taxed for too long by the Internal Revenue Service”. He's not saying we are getting rid of that, or they are not going to be taxed at all. No, we are creating another thing for External, which by the way, tariffs end up getting paid by the people that buy the products, that cost gets passed along. The thing that's creeping me out and I want to continue this quote, but real quick, is that "all other Revenue". I'll get into that here in a moment though. Quoting further: quote: "Through soft and pathetically weak trade agreements, the American economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the world, while taxing ourselves. It's time for that to change," the Republican said in a post on Truth Social. 

This is just like Immigration was in the first term. He talked and talked, "we need to reform it, we need to change it" but then he didn't do anything. We didn't get Comprehensive Immigration reform despite the fact in his first term he had a Republican Congress, and people were pretty willing to talk about comprehensive Immigration reform. Again he was new, he had never been in Federal Office at all so he didn't really know how things got done; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for not getting CIR passed, Comprehensive Immigration Reform passed, but he has this same M.O. and that is, again from this quote: “through soft and pathetically weak Trade Agreements, the American economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change." By what? Taxing ourselves more? Adding another Revenue Service on top of that? Meanwhile, if we are being victimized by pathetically weak Trade Agreements, why don't you go out and just renegotiate the Trade agreements? Again, they did the same thing with US Immigration the first term. Talked a lot about US Immigration; attacked all the legal immigrants; Stephen Miller went in there and did all kinds of firebombing, effectively throwing administrative Molotov cocktails at the administrative functions of the Immigration service and it resulted in effectively, well a massive, how do I put it, a massive destruction of the efficiency of the USCIS and the Immigration System. I noticed that in in the final days of Trump and all throughout the Biden Administration which by the way they don't deserve any real credit because they didn't turn any of this around or fix any of it, but again this is the kind of M.O. that we saw with Trump before which is, "oh there's a problem, hey let's go over and do this thing!" It's like well if the problem is Trade Agreements, let's work on the Trade Agreements. Why are we creating an “External Revenue Service”?

Quoting further: "We will begin charging those that make money off of us with trade and they will start paying finally "their fair share". For all those folks, myself included, that hated hearing from the left primarily for years "their fair share", here we are out here American expats, I'm starting to wonder what's going on with this when we have this “all revenue” abroad talk and then “their fair share”. Again, I have said it in the past, expats and criminals are the only two people that have no constituency. What are we talking about there? Well politicians don't have to care about convicts in the United States- they can't vote primarily. It depends on circumstances but like at the federal level they don't care about Federal criminals particularly because they can't vote in Federal Elections especially felons, so they have no constituency. Expats are similar. We leave the United States, nobody cares about us. Meanwhile we are not taking anything, we are not drawing off of the resources of the mother country and meanwhile they all come out here and now they want an “External Revenue Service” which I have to imagine is going to place some kind of scrutiny on expats abroad at the very least their businesses that are possibly importing back into the United States and again, it just reminds me of the M.O. from the first term which is, oh, we have a problem, here's a “solution”, that has nothing to do with the underlying problem but just creates more problems for you or for people who are trying to abide by the law. I'm hoping, I'm truly giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. It is my opinion that the first 10 days we are going to see where the rubber hits the road. That said, we're getting close to those first 10 days and he's talking a lot of stuff and at a certain point when somebody tells you who they are, believe them, he's talking about an external Revenue Service, I can't figure out for the life of me, why? And meanwhile, it has me questioning hey is this all about trade or are they looking at expats. That said, quoting further: "A spokesperson for Trump's transition team could not be immediately reached for comment to clarify Trump's statement or explain how the new agency would work." Well neat. Quoting further: "Trump did not specify whether the new agency would replace collections, of tariffs, duties, fees and fines US Customs and Border Protection or collection of taxes on foreign corporate and individual income by the IRS." - I quote that again: "or collection of taxes on foreign corporate and individual income by the IRS."

So on an individual level, this is creeping me out no end. Secondly, I'm really getting tired of these quite frankly tax - what I've called stamp-pimps - running around the world which it looks to me like Janet Yellen created a bunch of these people and they are running around the world like parasites, and now this new Administration seems to be coming in hot on their heels to, it seems continue their work I guess. Now that said, individuals you are always going to be, as Americans we are stuck with sort of worldwide tax liability at least as the system stands. Remember when Trump was talking about getting rid of the IRS entirely, yeah, or the income tax entirely, yeah, what happened to that? But now that he's actually going into power, the tone is changing.

Meanwhile, the point I'm trying to make here is okay tax on Americans abroad, we are already stuck with that. That said, American Amity companies as I have discussed in other videos, and I have briefed out in the past are in my opinion domestic non-resident corporations of the United States, so they are not treated as foreign per se for purposes of Tax matters. I have gotten into that in other videos, but that may be one comfort, cold comfort as it may be, maybe one comfort to American expats here in Thailand especially those that have an Amity company, because again they may not get sucked under whatever net it is that Trump is trying to throw out there. That said, quoting further: "It also was unclear whether the move would create additional government bureaucracy which would appear to go against the plan of Trump's Informal Department of Government efficiency," - yeah, I find it very interesting when it comes down to, oh can we get some tax revenue, government efficiency seems to just get thrown out the window. I myself am cautiously optimistic that DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, will be able to get something done. That said, having observed politics for decades now, it's my opinion that trying to get rid of Government programs is not like herding cats, it's more like trying to get rid of herpes. They just don't go away at the end of the day.

But that being said, look this is where we are at, and it remains to be seen what exactly he is going to do. Trump is known to throw up smoke screens, Trump is known to speak hyperbolically and then down the road he sort of walks things back or he does that for a purpose in order to gain an advantage somewhere else. It remains to be seen how all this is going to work, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.