Status: After well-nigh two years of contesting an erroneous IRS audit, an American expatriate couple continues in spite of challenging circumstances and mounting assessments to convince the Service to cancel their examination.
I. A Tax Compliant Expatriate Couple.A married couple – let’s call them James and Isabel Platt - have resided in Spain since 1997. Together [...]
The United States tax authority – Internal Revenue Service – is the only institution that requires U.S. citizens and deemed U.S. residents to file an annual tax return on which is reported income from all sources worldwide. Other countries apply this requirement to residents rather than citizenry.
Occasionally Americans living abroad are surprised by [...]
Anyone whose estate is valued at more than $1m might wishfully contemplate dying this year. That is if they intend to leave property to their heirs. Because on 1 January 2011, the federal estate tax is scheduled to re-emerge with a vengeance and impose a 55% levy.
From 2001 - 2009, an increasingly valuable exclusion amount [...]
The eligibility of American expatriates and their families to receive US Social Security benefits depends on understanding the qualifications. Citizens of most European countries may receive benefits but not US citizens residing in Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea or certain areas of the former Soviet Union. Survivors or dependents who are citizens of Central and [...]
Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service had in place a tax amnesty. In former times, a tax amnesty might have signified forgiveness of taxes. Tax debtors found their obligations to the governing authority wiped clean. The populace then felt good about their governors and, if anything, more readily paid up on imposed taxes.
The IRS [...]
RJ has been employed as a consular agent since 2003. As a foreign resident, he should qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) even though he does not report or pay taxes to the foreign country wherein he resides. To be sure, he consulted with IRS agents in Paris who told him that he [...]
The history of capital gains treatment stateside is interesting. As well, it is reflective of how the American tax authority periodically tampers with the tax law. From 1913 to 1921, capital gains were taxed at 7%. In 1921, a rate of 12.5% was applied to assets held for two years or more. From 1942, investors [...]