On April 7, 2022 the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on “The IRS, the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget, and the 2022 Filing Season” with testimony from IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. SEAT has prepared two submissions in response to this hearing, one responding to the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget and a second responding to the issues raised in Commissioner Rettig’s testimony regarding the level of service provided to Americans Abroad.
The US policy of taxing non-resident citizens constitutes an extraterritorial tax system. This extraterritorial system is often ignored by both Congress and the IRS resulting in tax rules that have a disproportionate impact on Americans abroad. For an analysis of the extraterritorial impacts of the FY2023 budget, see this blog post by John Richardson, which forms the basis of SEAT’s submission responding to the Budget. Commissioner Rettig’s testimony highlighted several areas where IRS service needs improvement. As discussed in “Mission Impossible: Extraterritorial Taxation and the IRS,” IRS service is almost non-existent for Americans abroad.
SEAT Submissions
We would encourage all US citizens abroad to make their own submission. In order to facilitate change Congress must hear from Americans abroad regularly about how the current citizenship based taxation system affects them. Our colleagues from US Voters Abroad have prepared a template that you can use to prepare your submission.
Submissions are due by April 21, 2022. Submission instructions from the Senate Finance Committee website:
Any individual or organization wanting to present their views for inclusion in the hearing record should submit in a Word document, a single-spaced statement, not exceeding 10 pages in length. No other file type will be accepted for inclusion. Title and date of the hearing, and the full name and address of the individual or organization must appear on the first page of the statement. Statements must be received no later than two weeks following the conclusion of the hearing.
Statements can be emailed to:
