Changes to American tax laws and impact to non-resident citizens

I just came across this excellent video regarding changes to US tax law and how it impacts those of us not living there (and foreign business/investment).

http://www.englishforum.ch/finance-banking-taxation/87541-current-us-tax-environment.html

It's frustrating.  The US seems to becoming more like what our ancestors fought against at the start of this country.  It kind of makes me frustrated being a citizen (and I'm not even dealing with being abroad just yet), but I don't necessarily want the alternative of not having US citizenship either.

I also read (I think on this forum, but I could be mistaken) that due to a portion of the HIRE Act, some foreign banks don't want to have US customers anymore...or they instill high fees on US citizens.  I think that's mainly for those with high bank balances, but it's still disheartening, if that's the case.

It just seems like it's getting more and more complicated to be a part of this country (current resident or not) that it actually gets me down sometimes.   

To me, it feels like they want to punish the "traitors" for leaving...

But maybe I'm just a smidge cynical. 

Not a lot of this is new -- not the requirement to file, not the possibility of penalties, not the the enforcement of penalties, not the penalties for FBAR.

The asset reporting is new but will be in line with the FBAR, as far as an expectation of what it will reflect.  It won't be until 2011 though.

Not a lot of this is new -- not the requirement to file, not the possibility of penalties, not the the enforcement of penalties, not the penalties for FBAR.

The asset reporting is new but will be in line with the FBAR, as far as an expectation of what it will reflect.  It won't be until 2011 though.

True. But the stepped up enforcement is new. The penalties (especially for FBAR) are fairly new, if I recall correctly. We're on the radar now, and that is quite new.

Yes and no. 

Being on the radar is absolutely not new.  For the past few years running the IRS have formally announced that taxpayers abroad would be one of the main focuses for enforcement, since nearly the time when I moved to the UK (6 years ago). 

Penalties aren't new but the recession just gave an excuse for them to start enforcing the exact letter of the law.  For example, filing penalties, when you don't have an extension, have been around for yonks.  But if you filed your return within the extended timeframe, even if you hadn't bothered filing an extension, penalties were often not applied.  It wasn't cost effective for them to bother so taxpayers got a freebie.  Now it is cost effective so they have decided to apply these more.  But this level of enforcement still started a couple of years ago (not just this year) and is really just getting more press now.

And the penalties for FBARs have been there since like 2003.  They did overhaul in 2008 but the penalties talked about in the clip are not new.

So there are some changes in culture but the vast majority of things I mentioned have been around and applied consistently for quite a while.  Some increased enforcement has occurred but not the scaremonger level of the clip.  It has mostly been this way for a while and people are just taking notice.