The Internal Revenue Service has issued a formal reminder to U.S. taxpayers around the world that their 2021 federal income tax returns are due "by Wednesday, June 15"...

A meeting to discuss possible ways of resolving the problem that thousands of so-called "accidental Americans" living in Europe have been having in keeping their EU bank accounts from being closed is scheduled to take place today between officials from the office of the EU Council president and representatives of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

In 2015, just as non-U.S. banks and financial services entities around the world began complying with the U.S. tax evasion prevention law known as FATCA – and in so doing, kicked off a tax-reporting nightmare for U.S. expats that continues – the U.S. Internal Revenue Service closed the last four of its overseas offices, citing an unavoidable need to cut costs... 

The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) this month has published two reports that consider differing aspects of the Internal Revenue Service's recent performance – and has arrived at many of the same conclusions that the National Taxpayer Advocate, Erin M. Collins, did, in her annual report to Congress back in January, on what the IRS needs to do to improve its efficacy. 

The IRS has formally reminded U.S. taxpayers not to ignore a virtual currency question at the top of the tax returns they're currently preparing to file, for the 2021 tax year.

Alexandru Bittner, who has been one of the most visible challengers of the United States' notoriously persecutory FBAR penalty regime in recent years, has now become the latest FBAR litigant to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to rule, once and for all, on the way non-willful FBAR penalties should be determined. 

As part of what it calls "a longer-term effort to improve" the services it provides to U.S. taxpayers, the IRS has unveiled "the first-ever Taxpayer Experience Office," and says it "will soon begin taking additional steps to expand" the offering.

The U.S. and Malta have signed an agreement that will end the alleged mis-use of certain provisions in the existing U.S./Maltese income tax treaty by Americans seeking to avoid paying tax on income generated by pension schemes domiciled there, the Internal Revenue Service said this week.

As regular readers of the American Expat Financial News Journal possibly know better than most, U.S. taxpayers who live abroad (as well as their tax advisers) are increasingly having to consider the potential interactions between U.S. and foreign laws when determining the U.S. tax consequences of a particular financial transaction.

U.S. tax expert Virginia La Torre Jeker explains it this way: "In today's world, it is no longer possible for practitioners to ignore the possible implications of another country’s laws."

Last week, we reported the news that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service had announced that U.S. taxpayers could now begin to claim a "reasonable cause" defense, in the event they were ever to find themselves hit with a penalty in connection with a tax matter for which they had "reasonably and in good faith" relied upon any IRS-published FAQs (frequently-asked-questions) that has to do with new tax legislation.

For Virginia La Torre Jeker, the well-known American tax expert and blogger who is (famously) based in Dubai, the IRS's statement was, well, about as clear as mud...