FATCA News For US Expats

FATCA is an acronym for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a law passed by Congress in 2010 to help address offshore tax evasion. The law came into effect on July 1st, 2014. FATCA has two aspects that affect expats. First, it requires individuals with financial assets abroad to report them when they file their […]

Wells Fargo’s US expat clients have until the end of September 2021 to move their brokerage accounts to another provider or face closure. Wells Fargo isn’t the first bank to turn away expats though. In this article we look at why banks and brokerage firms are denying services to Americans living abroad, and what options […]

All Americans have to file US taxes, reporting their global income, including Americans living abroad. Many Americans who live abroad (as well as many living in the US) own foreign real estate, and they often wonder whether it needs reporting on their American tax return, and if so how. All Americans who have certain foreign […]

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 […]

FATCA is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 US law that aimed to help prevent offshore tax evasion. The law has had many unintended consequences though, particularly for American expats all around the world. US tax rules for expats The American tax system is unusual in that it requires American expats to file […]

FATCA is an acronym for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 law that had (and continues to have) a profound effect on US expats around the world. FATCA had an even wider impact beyond just on US expats though, as it inspired a global endeavor known as the Common Reporting Standard whereby around […]

Americans living abroad are subject to US taxation on their worldwide income, as well as a raft of other US reporting requirements, such as having to report their foreign financial accounts each year by filing an FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report). FBAR reporting is triggered if any American has a total of over $10,000 in foreign accounts […]

Americans who live abroad are required to continue filing a federal tax return each year, reporting their worldwide income, even if they’re also filing a tax return in the country where they’re living. When expats file their federal return they can claim one or more exemptions that the IRS has made available by filing the […]

American expats have been required to file a federal tax return from abroad since the Civil War, when the concept was introduced to raise revenue for the war effort from landowners who were fleeing to Canada. While the concept was never revoked, it was largely ignored in the twentieth century, as expats started to spread […]