No. of Recommendations: 13
Question : when you say "non us " to you mean non resident, or non citizen ?
Very close to the same thing. "US Person" has a specific meaning in US tax law. All US citizens all have to file US tax returns, so I believe (?) all US citizens are "US Persons", even though there are some slightly different deductions. Non-citizens resident in the US are also "US persons", including those "resident" by accident of visiting too many days in a year. (3 year average over 4 months/year, something like that).
Now, as for who might get targeted as "foreign rubes we can take money from", the category I was imagining, your guess is as good as mine who might count. US policy in recent years has not given any thought at all to the situation of American expats, so I suspect they won't be considered one way or another, which in this case might mean they are fine as they are citizens. (To be fair, taking advantage of foreigners is a tax policy which isn't entirely crazy as these things go, I just don't want to be the payer in question).
As an aside, there is an EXTREMELY little known law that states that a non-US-person owning shares in a US company at death has to pay inheritance tax in the US on those shares. Almost nobody ever pays this, as non-US brokers don't enforce the filing, and there are easy dodges such as having a holding company. The total amount collected annually is about the size of one big estate. I mention this because moving my assets out of the US removes this particular item as a concern.
Jim
