Stop Extraterritorial American Taxation, or SEAT, is the name of a new education and advocacy organization that's been formed by a half a dozen individuals who are already well known in the community of Americans living overseas.

As part of its launch, the international not-for-profit group, which is based in France and headed by lawyer and Taxpayer Advocacy Panel member Dr. Laura Snyder, is unveiling a survey it says is "aimed at learning more about how persons living outside the United States experience the extraterritorial application of U.S. taxation and banking policies".

At first, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion might seem a potentially useful tool indeed in the tax-paying toolbox of Americans who are resident overseas. After all, notes Toronto-based citizenship lawyer and American expat rights campaigner John Richardson, in his preface to a just-posted set of online podcasts on the FEIE, it "allows you to exclude – Exclude! Exclude! – US$102,000 a year of income from your tax return!"

In fact, though, the FEIE is not anything like the solution to the long-suffering expat taxpayer's problems this statement suggests it might be, he, and four other participants in the three podcasts, go on to agree...

Much has been written and spoken about the Internal Revenue Service's new "Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens" regime since it was unveiled earlier this month – apparently to enable mostly "accidental Americans" who have relinquished their U.S. citizenship, or are hoping to, the chance to easily and cheaply enter into U.S. tax compliance.