Democrats Abroad is pleased to announce the publication of our 2017 Non-Resident Taxation Research report, “Can We Please Stop Paying Twice? – Reforming the U.S. Tax Code for Americans Abroad.” The report provides data and testimony from Americans abroad on their experience filing from abroad and underscores the need for urgent reform to the tax code. If you support tax reforms to exempt Americans living abroad from filing returns to declare income earned abroad then it is time to make your voice heard.
We refer you to the “Tax Reform For Americans Abroad Campaign in a Box” and urge you to use it to tax action right away! The time is NOW to call, email or write your members of Congress and the leaders serving on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways & Means Committee, using the language in the Campaign, and ask for their support for Residency Based Taxation.
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Congress Working on 2017 Tax Reform
The tragedy in Las Vegas, the on-going suffering of those in hurricane-affected areas of the US and the president’s various taunts may have distracted you from what’s happening on Capitol Hill these last 2 weeks, but be assured that the GOP leaders of the Congress have been busy selling their tax plan and moving their budget resolution through critical votes. In order to manage dissent in their caucus they have been slow-dripping details of the proposal.
The average American may be distracted from it but you can be certain that the legions of corporate lobbyists have been anything but absent during these critical days of budget and tax code horse-trading.
The tax policy wonks haven’t seen enough to proclaim it decisively, but they are saying that Congress has so far fallen short of the president’s demands that tax cuts focus on the middle class and not the wealthy. (We’re shocked, right?)
Tax Reform for Americans Abroad
We Americans abroad have a special set of concerns we’d like to lay in front of Congress whilst the details of the tax reform package have yet to crystallize. We know from the approximately 4,500 responses to our survey of non-resident American taxpayers completed last month that there is enormous support for a radical change to the way the tax code treats non-resident taxpayers; 84% of respondents told us they support a switch from the current system of Citizenship-Based Taxation to Residency-Based Taxation (RBT) to resolve the many problems they are caused by a tax code that discriminates against them for being non-resident citizens. As is explained in our RBT Frequently Asked Questions, under RBT Americans living outside the U.S. would continue to declare income generated in the U.S. but would be exempted from reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the income they generate in their country of residency.
TAKE ACTION NOW
If you are a supporter of RBT the time to take action is NOW. Please open our Taxation Reform for Americans Abroad Campaign in a Box and use it to reach out to Congress TODAY!
Share the Campaign in a Box and the “Can We Please Stop Paying Twice?” report with your network of Americans abroad and encourage them to do the same.
Please forward your questions and comments to [email protected].
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To find out more about the latest Taxation Task Force work, including the latest reports and Tax Advocacy Webinar recording, head over to the Taxation Task Force Blog.