U.S. taxpayers may now claim a "reasonable cause" defense in the event they've been hit with a penalty in connection with a tax matter for which they had "reasonably and in good faith" relied on any IRS-published FAQs (frequently-asked-questions) that has to do with new tax legislation, the IRS has announced. 

Uncle Sam – in the rather more official (and less colorful) form of the Internal Revenue Service – is reminding U.S. expats that as it is now October, this means they only have two weeks left to get their U.S. tax returns in, if they opted to take advantage of the extension that lets such taxpayers have until Oct. 15 to file their 2020 returns.

In what one U.S. official was quoted as saying was evidence of the government's "commitment" to go after American taxpayers who used "offshore service providers to avoid U.S. taxes," the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced that it had authorized the IRS to issue summonses that would require "multiple couriers and financial institutions" to produce information about U.S. taxpayers" who were believed to have used a firm known as Panama Offshore Legal Services, "and its associates," to evade U.S. income taxes.

An undisclosed number of "U.S. citizens and residents" are relying on an interpretation of the U.S.-Malta Income Tax Treaty that could land them in trouble with the American tax authorities, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has warned.

While news websites and newspapers continue to review, analyze and publish opinions based on ProPublica's recent and comprehensive research report on the relatively insignificant income taxes certain of Americas wealthiest Americans have been found to be paying, Republican politicians in Washington are, in their own words, "demanding answers," even as IRS commissioner Charles Rettig has assured them and others that the matter is being thoroughly investigated. 

A major analysis of IRS documents by ProPublica – a New York-based, non-profit investigative journalism organization – has shown how some of America's wealthiest and best-known citizens managed to avoid paying almost any federal income taxes between 2014 and 2018.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision having to do with a Civil War-era law known as "the Anti-Injunction Act" is being hailed by Israel-based U.S. tax attorney Monte Silver as a victory for U.S. taxpayers, as well as "very good news" for his recent and ongoing efforts to challenge the Transition Tax element of Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Days after the IRS published details of how it was expanding an existing benefit for American parents known as the Child Tax Credit, the Democrats Abroad hosted a webinar on the subject that it said was aimed at "helping American families abroad" to access it.

American expatriates with children under the age of 17 "generally won't" be eligible to receive the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payment amounts about to begin being provided under the Biden Administration's so-called American Rescue Plan, although they should be able to continue to receive the amount that has been available to them until now under the program, a spokesperson for the Internal Revenue Service has said.  

The Internal Revenue Service has extended the deadline for those interested in applying for the soon-to-be-vacated international seat on its Taxpayer Advocacy Panel.

The deadline had originally been May 14 (today), but it has now been moved to June 1, the IRS said yesterday.