The IRS needs to change its regulations with respect to American taxpayers' obligations to report on their overseas account holdings by "eliminating duplication" of the FBAR and FATCA reporting requirements, as well as by "excluding accounts maintained by U.S. persons in countries where they are bona fide residents," National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins has told Congress, in her annual report.

European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni has again drawn fierce criticism from Americans and accidental Americans in Europe, with his remarks on the the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – this time for saying that the European Commission is technically unable to directly address problems with "the monitoring and enforcement of EU data protection rules" that he acknowledges FATCA is causing. 

Over the last few years, thousands of so-called "accidental Americans" have grudgingly accepted the unexpected news that the U.S. considers them to be U.S. citizens, even though they had lived their entire lives, since birth, as citizens of other countries – and as a result of this news, are considered to have tax-reporting and potentially tax-paying obligations.

In a ruling that has left many "accidental Americans" (as well as ordinary American expats) cheering, a Dutch court ruled yesterday (Dec. 29) that a Dutch citizen born in the U.S., but with no other connection to that country, is entitled to keep his accounts with his local bank, even if he doesn't provide it with a U.S. Tax Identification Number (TIN), as long as his total holdings in these accounts don't exceed US$50,000. 

Frankfurt-based FlatexDEGIRO AG, a publicly-traded, online brokerage platform that has been growing its client base recently with a competitively-priced, state-of-the-art offering, has become the latest German financial institution to inform its American expat clients that they must take their business elsewhere.

Accidental Americans who live in the Netherlands have been told that banks in the country have agreed not to require either their Social Security numbers or Certificate of Loss of Nationality in order to keep their accounts open until Sept. 1, 2022.

Lawyers for a U.S.-born, UK resident woman who has become well-known in certain American expat circles for her ongoing challenge about the way the UK has allowed her personal financial data to be shared with the U.S. authorities, under FATCA –  today filed a claim on her behalf in the UK's High Court, arguing that the breaches of her data protection rights had caused her "personal damage and distress."

Senate Democrats have unveiled a revamped version of their plans to require U.S. banks to report their customers' account information to the Internal Revenue Service on a regular basis, in response to significant opposition from Republican lawmakers, the banking industry and U.S. taxpayers.

The U.S., which "pressed the rest of the world" to crack down on the type of financial secrecy that enables tax evasion and cross-border illegality, is now "a hypocrite on international financial crime," Bloomberg, the major global media organization based in New York, has said, in an Editorial Board opinion piece it published on Friday. 

Proposed regulations that would require U.S. banks to report their customers' account information to the Internal Revenue Service on a regular basis have been widely criticized in the U.S., not just from the bankers who would be required to gather and forward the huge volumes of data that would be involved, but from consumers themselves, according to media reports.