News that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act has now been signed into law by President Biden has seen a burst of articles and website comments about what the additional US$80 billion in funding that it provides for the Internal Revenue Service could mean for Americans living abroad.

As this and other media organizations have been reporting for years, such expats are already struggling to deal with the myriad tax complications and expenses that go with living abroad as an American citizen, as a result of the combination of the U.S.'s citizenship-based tax regime, and such mostly-recent laws as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. So the prospect of yet more IRS scrutiny has prompted many to worry...

In a rare live webinar interview with a financial media representative, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig is set to discuss "the current state of the IRS" this afternoon at 2pm EDT (7pm British time, 8pm CEST) with Tax Analysts president and chief executive Cara Griffith.

A brief statement by IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig yesterday, in support of the idea of the U.S. "reciprocating" with respect to the information it currently receives from foreign governments about the overseas bank and financial accounts of U.S. taxpayers – as a result of a 2010 law known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – has sparked widespread discussion and debate, particularly outside of the U.S.

U.S. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig may have focused on Homeland tax issues during a House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee hearing on "the 2022 Filing Season" last month, as reported. But interested stakeholders were invited to submit written comments for inclusion in the hearing record, and among those to do so – and in so doing, introducing the tax-filing issues currently facing millions of U.S. taxpayers who live overseas – was the American Citizens Abroad, the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization.