Michael

According to the following document, "foreign real estate held directly" does not need to be reported for FATCA.

Comparison of Form 8938 and FBAR Requirements

However income from that asset needs to be reported and you are liable for any taxes due but taxes owed can be offset by any foreign income taxes paid. If your income from the asset is zero, you will likely have no US tax liability and may possibly even have a reduction in US taxes owed (possible loss and a certain portion of losses can be written off against normal income) since you can depreciate the property, write of mortgage interest, and expenses. Therefore the income after expenses from rent can be different in the US as compared to a foreign country since what is considered as write offs may be different between the countries

Just because you paid foreign income taxes on foreign income does not necessarily mean that you don't owe US taxes on that income since taxes are based on worldwide income (the UK and most other developed countries have a similar law for residents). If that was allowed then everyone would have investments in multiple countries (tax avoidance loophole) with each being taxed at a lower marginal rate than the marginal rate then if the investment was invested in the US. For example, if someone had investment income of $20,000 from 100 different countries, the effective foreign tax rate may possibly be less than 10% but $2 million of investment income from investments in the US would likely have a higher effective tax rate.

However even though UK residents also pay taxes on worldwide income, it doesn't have something similar to FATCA reporting from financial institutions from other countries and currently has the largest amount of money in Swiss banks accounts and suspect that most of it is for tax evasion purposes (India used to be the highest but suspect they moved their money to other tax havens due to leaks in the Swiss banking system).

hungryhorace

I've never been asked any of those questions when opening a UK bank account. Has anyone?

re that thread; who knows why they were turned down. To suggest its FATCA is a little ott imo.

theOAP

Did you open those accounts after 01 July 2014?

Re that thread, it's possible it's not FATCA related. If you read the 1st post you do find they were asked the 3 questions on an application for a credit card.

Cook_County

Boris has not renounced US citizenship and continues to write frequently that he is proud to be American.

theOAP

There are other notable Brits with a US tie from a parent; writer and journalist Will Self and documentary maker Louis Theroux for example. Prominent Americans permanently resident in the UK include Bonnie Greer (who became a British Citizen), Ruby Wax, Bill Bryson, Lisa Marie Presley, and Lloyd Grossman. Then there's Peaches Golding, the Sheriff of Bristol.

I'm sure you're aware of others.

Giantaxe

Boris was born in NYC. If he's still a citizen, I hope he's filing his tax and returns and FBAR forms!

theOAP

Yes, but his filing of tax returns and FBAR isn't the worrying aspect of his birth in New York. This column (BBC) caused comment several months ago on another site.

BBC News - Who, What, Why: Could Boris Johnson be UK PM and then US president?

What will the 'birthers' make of this?