01/25/2021
After six months of wrangling, a second stimulus check for Americans affected by the Coronavirus pandemic was announced at the very end of December 2020. The second check was smaller than the first though, being worth just $600 per person, compared to the original $1,200. This was despite President Trump as well as the Democrats supporting […]
01/21/2021
The IRS has announced that the date it will start accepting tax returns this year will be February 12. Tax season normally starts the second half of January, and February 12 will be the latest date that a tax season has started yet. The IRS said in a statement on January 15 that the late start […]
01/14/2021
The IRS Standard Deduction allows Americans to deduct a fixed amount of their income from US tax when they file their federal return. The Standard Deduction lets Americans avoid the hassle of itemizing their actual deductions when they file. The amount of the Standard Deduction was very low before the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs […]
01/11/2021
Bright!Tax Partner and Managing CPA Katelynn Minott will be speaking at the 2021 Expats Virtual Financial Summit. The 2021 Expats Virtual Financial Summit, which takes place over several days at the end of January, brings together some of the world’s leading experts on different aspects of finances for Americans living abroad. Katelynn is among the […]
01/07/2021
On 31st December 2020, the IRS quietly dropped a Bitcoin bombshell as it released a statement saying that it intended to add virtual currency accounts as a reportable account under FBAR rules. The statement read: “FinCEN intends to propose to amend the regulations implementing the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) regarding reports of foreign financial accounts […]
12/31/2020
In this article, we’ll look at what is meant by a US Person for US tax purposes. Many US tax rules are applied to all ‘US Persons’, so it’s an important concept to grasp, however the definition is wider than many people assume. US persons can be divided into several categories, covering different types of […]
12/28/2020
On Sunday 27th December 2020, President Trump signed the COVID-Related Tax Relief Act of 2020 (COVIDTRA) into law. The Act passed through both houses early last week, however the president didn’t sign it sooner as he was unhappy with the amount of the second stimulus check that it contained, alongside other economic relief measures. After […]
12/21/2020
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, often referred to as FATCA, is a US law that was introduced in 2010 to allow better enforcement of Americans’ overseas financial accounts and assets. The rationale for the law was to prevent offshore tax evasion, however it also unintentionally affected many of the nine million ordinary American expats […]
12/17/2020
The Bright!Tax Awards Committee is pleased to announce that Olivia Cunningham is the latest recipient of the prestigious Global Scholar Award for Americans studying abroad. Olivia originally hails from Boston, however since undertaking a study abroad opportunity in her senior year of high school, she has been embracing life abroad. She completed her undergraduate degree […]
12/15/2020
With all Americans, including expats, having to report their worldwide income by filing a US federal tax return every year, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion provides Americans living abroad a way to reduce their US tax bill (in many cases to zero). In 2021, for many Americans expats around the world filing their 2020 US […]