IRS Amnesty Programs for Accidental Americans and other late filers

The post was written by Kasia Strzelczyk of the 1040 Abroad Team.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the IRS will be filling the budget hole in 2023 by cracking down on non-compliant U.S. citizens living abroad. Even expats that didn’t know about their debt may face some serious penalties and fines. To address your tax issues and take control of the situation – start learning about Tax Amnesty Programs the IRS offers. These procedures can help you come clean about your U.S. taxes while escaping all undesirable consequences.

What is a tax amnesty program?

The IRS is aware that many American Expats don’t know about their filing obligation to the U.S. The tax amnesty programs can be seen as a way to “clean the slate” and start fresh with regard to tax compliance. It allows delinquent taxpayers to pay their debt in exchange for avoiding severe tax penalties, and interest too.

Most expats who find themselves in the position of not having satisfied their U.S. tax obligations may feel as if fixing the situation is daunting. Contrary to popular belief, the financial consequences of your failure to file before may not be as severe as one might expect.

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Helen Burggraf

Preet Kaur Gill, a British Labour Party member of Parliament from the greater Birmingham area,  has said she plans to continue asking questions of the UK government on behalf of U.S.-born British citizens – like at least one of her constituents, who are facing unprecedented “negative financial implications” as a result of the way such individuals are pursued for tax by the U.S. authorities.

Gill’s vow to continue speaking out on behalf of such dual U.S./British citizens comes as resistance is reported to be growing on the part of European governments to continuing to accommodate the American government’s extra-territorial tax enforcement efforts, which is currently done in part through intergovernmental agreements signed in the wake of the 2010 passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

Under FATCA, non-U.S. financial institutions around the world are required to report to the U.S. on those accounts they hold on behalf of American citizens. They do this by reporting the information to the authorities in the country in which the financial institution in question is located – which in turn, under the terms of the IGA, forwards the information to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

As reported here last month, a growing number of the more than 100 countries that have signed up to participate in a new, global automatic banking information exchange program modelled on FATCA, and organized over the last few years by the Brussels-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, have begun to question the fact that the U.S. has opted not to participate – and is understood to be giving as its excuse the fact that it has FATCA, and therefore has no need to.

Such countries are said to be frustrated in particular because the U.S. has failed to “reciprocate” with respect to the information it receives from them through their FATCA agreements with the same kind of information on accounts held by their taxpayers in U.S. financial institutions.

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Comment:

Just because I was put in the position to have to relinquish my citizenship does not in the least mean I feel this issue is over for me. There are others sorely impacted as well. I don’t think I will ever truly accept this episode in my life as just. Life is unfair and we must accept that however, these days every time I see some heinous criminal back in the U.S. on my television the thought always goes through my mind “Yes, but that person is not going to be put in the position to have to give up their citizenship no matter what they have done.” It seems childish, I admit but, I hope others will forgive somewhat my resentment over it. I do laugh at myself for having such knee jerk reactions but, I’ll allow myself some of that for a long while to come.  Read More