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Washington, DC

August 24, 2022

American Citizens Abroad (ACA) publishes new webinar to explain updated research report in support of residence-based taxation

In April of 2022, ACA Global Foundation announced the findings of its second research study in support of residence-based taxation (RBT).

This updated and expanded research follows on a 2017 research study, which ACA Global Foundation (ACAGF) fielded with District Economics Group (DEG). The webinar “Digging Deeper: Analyzing Revenue Effects of RBT” takes a deep-dive into the updated data and explains the methodology used in developing, among other things, the size of the population of US citizens overseas, their investment and income profile and their tax compliancy.

Michael Udell, Founder and Managing Director of DEG, along with ACA management, Marylouise Serrato, Executive Director ACA, and Charles Bruce, ACA Legal Counsel and Chairman of ACAGF, walk through the updated data sources and provide viewers with information on how RBT legislation can be made revenue neutral, i.e., not lose revenue over a 10-year budget period. Revenue neutrality is widely recognized as a vital element for passage of any RBT-style legislation.

“ACA and ACAGF believe, based on our meetings with the Congress and Administration, that movement is afoot to consider enactment of some type of Residence-based Taxation (RBT) in lieu of Citizenship-based Taxation (CBT). CBT taxes US citizens on their worldwide income no matter what – regardless of where they reside, where they work or where their income originates. Under RBT, individuals who truly reside in a foreign country would not be taxed by the U.S. on their foreign sourced income, only on their U.S. sourced income,” said Marylouise Serrato.

“The key to RBT is the numbers. They are like the buttons on a pinball machine; if you don’t know the scores attached to the buttons, you don’t know what you’re doing. ACA is providing Congressional offices with the data they need to press the right buttons to make RBT a reality,” added Charles Bruce.

“ACA and ACAGF is working to get the word out on the new data and this webinar gives us an opportunity to get the information out to a wide audience. ACA recommends individuals share it with their professional and personal networks so the community can understand how important and vital this research is,” said Jonathan Lachowitz, Chairman, ACA.

Be sure to watch and listen so you can see why ACA and ACAGF believe that their advocacy supporting RBT legislation, that is revenue neutral, is the right strategy. Our DC team and our contractor DEG bring a wealth of tax legislation knowledge and expertise to this issue. Learn why this work is so important to the community and don’t forget to donate to our efforts.

Charles Bruce is an international tax attorney in Washington, DC and London. He was formerly Counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

Michael Udell, before founding DEG, worked at the IRS estimating the tax gap using the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program data and continued at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), providing revenue estimates of federal tax legislation. He is a former senior manager at Ernst & Young LLP. He earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from Caltech.