I appreciate the article, it was very helpful to me.

I was having coffee with a few American women yesterday, and not many of them knew about FBAR, and some of them have lived here for a while. Clearly not a random sample of any signifigance, but the truth is, if you've lived abroad for a while you may not be attentive to these requirements. Not an excuse, but it's what happens. In particular, if you are a US citizen married to a non-US citizen and you share a joint account with your spouse, you may need to report such accounts if you meet a certain threshold.

It does seem that people certainly require reminders. Given the financial situation in the US, I can imagine that the IRS would want to step up enforcement. I also perceive an increase in the ability to share information between the USCIS and IRS and other government organizations, which suggests that it would be easier to enforce.

I could not attend the meeting - I was in the US, but I've sent the links around to several of the US citizens that I know here.

The IRS regulations are murky. I once read a study about tax filing - several accountants or tax advisors did the same return - no one arrived at the same exact result. How precise is that? If US citizens are to file regularly, I would think that accessible information helps compliance to some degree. To present this information to the public, language should be simplified by necessity, and this requires rather more skill and intelligence than less.

So anyway, I appreciate the article and the effort by people who put this together.