US Citizens in
New Zealand

The US is almost unique in that its citizens or permanent residents (green card holders) remain US taxpayers irrespective of whether they reside in the US or not. So even if you are living in NZ, you remain a US taxpayer if you retain your US citizenship/residency status.

Prior to the rollout of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), US taxpayers faced very little risk of Inland Revenue Service (IRS) sanctions if they failed to fully comply with their US tax obligations.

Now, with the global rollout of FATCA, there is nowhere to hide, and US taxpayers must assume the IRS has complete visibility of their global assets and income. The penalties for non-compliance are substantial.

The US tax code is also the most complex in the world and this complexity is amplified when both the US and NZ tax codes must be adhered to at the same time. One basic issue is the December US tax year and the March NZ tax year, which requires financial records to be maintained and reported for both fiscal periods.

Another is the US-NZ Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) and its interaction with the tax codes of both countries which often leads to quite unexpected outcomes.

In this cross-jurisdictional world, the conventional US or NZ approaches and advice in relation to all aspects of a US citizen’s financial life do not translate well, often prove futile or have unintended consequences.

These complexities become a permanent feature that must be understood and factored into a wide range of financial and investment decisions that arise over the course of a family’s life.