The American Citizens Abroad used a recent meeting of its UK chapter to reiterate its call for American expats around the world to join its campaign to convince Congress to hold hearings into the need for changes in the way the U.S. taxes its overseas citizens.

"Material omissions" from a major U.S. Government Accountability Office report on FATCA earlier this year, along with warnings about an apparently growing trend by tax authorities to target tax advisers as well as their clients when prosecuting alleged tax evasion cases, are among the topics addressed in the American Citizens Abroad's second monthly podcast, which went live earlier this week.

First, U.S. investors living in Europe had to face FATCA. Now it’s the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). 

The American Citizens Abroad has pulled the wraps off a new series of online podcasts on "issues concerning Americans residing abroad" that it says it plans to post on its website monthly on the second Tuesday of each month, beginning this week.

Under pressure from European banks in particular, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has issued clarification with respect to a FATCA requirement that "foreign financial institutions" be obliged to provide the so-called Taxpayer Identification Numbers of their American clients from January, 2020 onward, which tax experts say means that banks now won't have to close the accounts of their TIN-lacking "accidental American" clients at the end of this year.

The American Citizens Abroad has announced its annual call for nominations for its "Thomas Jefferson Award", which recognizes those State Department employees "who have given exemplary service to American citizens residing abroad".

The Universal Postal Union has agreed to reform its fee structure in line with a tarriff structure proposed by the U.S., averting what the American Citizens Abroad and others had warned could have been a major problem for American expats.

The American Citizens Abroad has officially welcomed the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's announcement last Friday of a set of "new procedures" that it said would enable "certain" expatriates to avoid key taxes normally associated with renouncing, but renewed its call for a "Same Country Exemption" to the FATCA regulations – which are the reasons "certain" expatriates are in need of the IRS's help in the first place – to be be introduced.

The American Citizens Abroad has unveiled a major online campaign it says is aimed at ensuring U.S. lawmakers hold hearings this fall on the “wide range of tax compliance issues” currently affecting Americans resident overseas – including the Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad Act.

The American Citizens Abroad has issued a warning that U.S. citizens resident overseas could be adversely impacted by U.S. plans to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union by October "unless substantial changes are made to the [existing] tariff structure".