Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has announced his support for lowering taxes on US citizens living overseas in a new effort to appeal to an often-overlooked group of voters. The proposal, reported by The Wall Street Journal, marks Trump's latest attempt to expand his tax policy beyond extending the 2017 tax cuts.

"I support ending the double taxation of overseas Americans," Trump said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

BREAKING: Trump just said that as President, he will finally END the double taxation of U.S. citizens who live abroad

Around 9 million U.S. citizens live abroad and VOTE. This is yet another game-changing policy from Trump

This man isn't going to run out of amazing policy ideas… pic.twitter.com/IPVUP6oWLP

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 9, 2024

The US has an unusual system of taxing its citizens on their total income regardless of where they live or earn it, making it unique among major countries. This policy dates back to the Civil War era income tax of the 1860s. Approximately 4.4 million US citizens lived abroad in 2022, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program. Of these, about 2.8 million were eligible to vote in their former states.

Under the current system, an American residing in Paris would have tax obligations to both France and the US, although there are existing provisions in the US tax code to mitigate double taxation. In contrast, a French citizen living in New York typically wouldn't owe France any taxes on US income.

Trump's campaign has not provided specific details on how he would address this issue, but the proposal could potentially eliminate a frustrating burden for Americans abroad, especially those with higher incomes and investments who owe US taxes on their worldwide income in addition to local taxes.

Solomon Yue, chief executive of Republicans Overseas, an advocacy group, has been pushing for easing US tax burdens on Americans abroad for a decade. Yue said he urged Trump campaign aides to bring the subject to the former president's attention. "America first also means Americans first, regardless of where they are residing," Yue said, praising Trump's support for cutting taxes for Americans living abroad. "It's a giant first step," he added.

The Trump campaign hopes this proposal will appeal to many of those voters, particularly those living in Israel, according to a person familiar with the matter. "Fellow Americans living abroad, your vote is more important than ever," Trump said in his statement.

Current polls show a close race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been offering her own financial incentives, including Medicare coverage for long-term home care and tax credits for new parents and first-time home buyers. Harris has not announced any proposals to change taxes for Americans abroad.

Under existing rules, Americans living overseas don't have to pay US taxes on their first $126,500 in earned income, and there are some exclusions for housing costs. They can also get tax credits for some payments to foreign governments, but higher earners and those with investment or retirement income sometimes have to pay US taxes on top of their foreign taxes.

Marylouise Serrato, executive director of American Citizens Abroad, a nonpartisan group advocating for a move toward residence-based taxation, said the compliance costs for filing tax returns often far exceed the actual taxes owed by Americans abroad. "It makes it very difficult and complex to file, and it also limits the ability of a lot of Americans to invest and live when they're overseas," she said.

However, not everyone agrees that Americans overseas face an undue tax burden. Michael Kirsch, a Notre Dame law professor who has written on citizenship-based taxation, argues that Americans abroad are voluntarily retaining their connection to the United States. "If we were to move to a residence-based taxation system, then I think we have to think long and hard about what the consequences would be for social cohesion and what our country would look like," Kirsch said.

Advocates for Americans abroad have been working on ideas to shift the US from citizenship-based taxation to residence-based taxation. One option would be to tax Americans abroad the same way that the US taxes nonresident foreigners, who pay taxes on certain US-sourced income and dividends but don't face full, worldwide US taxation on all their income.

The challenge, Kirsch said, would be trying to prevent wealthy Americans with significant assets from establishing residences in low-tax countries. "I've got to assume that a lot of people would be on the move," he said of a pure residence-based system. For example, take Monaco, where there is no personal income tax. "For the amounts involved, I've never been to Monaco, but I've heard it's a nice place," he said.

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Former President Donald Trump made an unscheduled campaign stop at Tony and Nick's Steaks in South Philadelphia on Saturday, prior to a rally at Temple University in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. The visit, which came as a surprise to the restaurant's owner, left a lasting impression on both staff and patrons.

Trump left a $500 tip and wrote "no taxes on tips" on the receipt, aligning with his recent campaign stance to end taxation on tips for service industry workers. This gesture highlighted a key issue facing many small business owners and their employees across the country.

Donald Trump writes 'Vote Trump for No Tax on Tips' on his receipt while getting cheesesteaks in Philly pic.twitter.com/XoNMFYEr5V

— SNOW TV® RC 3662284 (@OfficialSnowtv) June 23, 2024

Nicky Lucidonio, owner of Tony and Nick's Steaks, expressed his excitement about the unexpected visit to Fox News Digital. "It was just unbelievable," Lucidonio said. "He was talking to people, you know, they're asking questions. He's answering them. He's signing hats. He signed and everything."

The visit was not pre-announced, with Lucidonio only aware of a large, mysterious order placed the day before by an unidentified woman for "some special people." The order comprised approximately 200 sandwiches.

The former president's stop at the cheesesteak shop brought attention to the challenges faced by small business owners, particularly regarding the taxation of tips. Lucidonio voiced his frustration with the current system, stating, "People put tips in our jar, you know, and then to tax those tips that these poor people live day-by-day is a joke. I mean, what else do you want to tax? It's crazy."

He further emphasized the impact on workers, noting, "People have to wonder. They're working in 100-degree weather in there." Lucidonio added, "The middle class is getting killed. We got to do something about it."

NEW: Young Trump supporter who is seen wearing a wig and a suit to look like Trump starts crying while meeting the former president.

Trump then pulled out a $20 bill and signed it to give to the kid before taking a photo.

The meeting happened in Philadelphia where Trump is… pic.twitter.com/fXDcM7Jniy

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 22, 2024

 During his visit, Trump engaged with the crowd, even polling them on their preferences for a potential vice presidential candidate. When one bystander suggested J.D. Vance, Trump responded, "You like JD?"

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Property tax rates in Tel Aviv are poised for a dramatic 8.8% spike starting January 1, 2025, surpassing the nationwide average increase. This anticipated surge stems from the state's contribution to the city's Metro rail project. It is noteworthy that the 2025 property tax order (Arnona) has yet to receive approval but will be presented for ratification on Monday.

The release of the Consumer Price Index for April revealed the impending increase encompasses a nationwide "automatic pilot" rate adjustment of 5.29% determined by the Ministry of Interior, coupled with an additional 3.5% levy specific to Tel Aviv residences to partially finance the city's share of the Metro project costs – a tax effectively imposed on the municipality by the state.

Consequently, this increase is projected to inflate overall property tax payments by 1.9 billion shekels in 2025, with households shouldering an additional 0.9 billion shekels and the business sector bearing the remaining one billion shekels.

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The Israeli government is raising taxes in order to give Ra'am leader MK Mansour Abbas 50 billion shekels, Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday afternoon after the cabinet approved the 2021-2022 state budget.

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Speaking at the Besheva Conference, Netanyahu said, "In the past few weeks I've managed to sleep well at night without being woken up by the red phone, but I'm worried today because the current government is heading down a path that is dangerous for Israel. It is projecting weakness and confusion. In six weeks, they have racked up failures on every main issue – the fight against COVID, the fight against Iran, in economics and in diplomacy. We are once again learning how easy it is to ruin what we built through years of hard work."

Netanyahu warned that Iran was making progress to nuclearization and said the new government "wasn't doing anything about it."

"Iran is an existential threat and faced with an existential threat, you fight back by any means possible. This government agreed to a policy of 'no surprises' [for the Biden administration], and thus have tied our hands. What, have we become a satellite state? If we don't have total independence to act against Iran, we have no independence at all. If it weren't for our actions, both operationally and in diplomacy and outreach, Iran would long since have amassed an arsenal of nuclear weapons [to use] against us," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also said that the Bennett-Lapid government was "failing" when it came to the economy.

"We handed them an economy that was in almost the best shape in the world, and what is the government doing, after promising not to raise taxes? It levies taxes on the citizens of Israel – raising the price of electricity at bread, taxing online purchases from outside Israel, raising the price of doctor's visits, raising the price of public transportation, and more," he said.

"They're doing this to fund the 50 billion shekels [$15.5 billion] they promised to Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas. Instead of raising taxes, the government should lower taxes and leave more money in the people's pockets," Netanyahu concluded.

Meanwhile, the Joint Arab List also had harsh criticism of Abbas and his fellow party members' positions on the budget.

After Abbas commented that the newly-passed budget accounted for "all the needs" of the Arab sector, chairman of the Joint Arab List MK Ahmad Tibi told Army Radio that "we are not happy with the budget. It's not the change we wanted for Arab society."

"When you're part of the coalition and forced time and time again to vote against your conscience, you get a few billion more from the coalition to keep swallowing those toads," Tibi said, referring to Abbas. "In practice, what happens is that a third of the budget for the 922 plan [for economic development in the Arab sector] passed, and unfortunately, all the obstacles to it that existed previously remain in place under this government," he added.

As of Monday, despite the Joint Arab List's criticism of the coalition and Ra'am, the list did not intend to vote against or abstain from the vote to pass the budget.

A senior official in the Joint Arab List told Israel Hayom that "As an opposition party, our job is to topple this bad government, but the alternative is to allow a government under Netanyahu to be formed in its place – and from our perspective, that is a worse option. We have understandings and agreements in principle with the coalition leaders and it looks like we'll support the budget they want to pass."

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Blue dot, formerly known as VATBox, makers of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, cloud-based tax compliance platform, has closed a $32 million funding round led by Ibex Investors in partnership with Lutetia Technology Partners, the company announced Wednesday.

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The massive increase in employee-generated corporate receipts, coupled with the increasing volume of tax audits, is requiring companies to deploy advanced technology to ensure compliance and streamline processes across multiple jurisdictions. Blue dot's technology digitizes an expensive, complex and risky process, removing the burden from finance teams.

"Since our founding, we've enjoyed tremendous recognition and a high rate of adoption for our platform as part of a larger global tax compliance digitalization trend," said Blue dot CEO Isaac Saft.

"SAP Concur chose Blue dot as its exclusive integrated Tax Assurance solution to be deployed for their client portfolio, after conducting an extremely thorough diligence process on our Platform and AI. We've secured funding from top US investors to drive the next phase of our growth strategy. It's an exciting time at Blue dot, and we're incredibly grateful to our customers, partners and investors," Saft added.

Previous investors Lamaison Partners, Viola and Target Global also participated in this round.

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Starting in March 2020, the unfolding coronavirus crisis began making itself felt in the Israeli economy and budget activity. It has had major effects both on government expenditures and government revenue from taxes.

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The deficit for the first nine months of 2020 has reached 102.4 billion shekels ($30.2 billion), compared to 31.1 billion shekels ($9.1 billion) for the same period of 2019. In the past 12 months, the national deficit has grown to 9.1% of the GDP. In September, the government brought in 23.9 billion shekels ($7 billion) from the local market, as well as raising half a billion shekels more abroad.

In September 2020, government expenditures totaled 43.2 billion shekels ($12.7 billion). Since the start of 2020, the government has spent some 300 billion shekels ($88.4 billion), 42.9 billion shekels ($12.6 billion) of which went to fighting the COVID crisis.

Government revenue for September 2020 totaled 28.3 billion shekels ($8.3 billion). Revenue for the first nine months of 2020 stood at 233.7 billion shekels ($69 billion), nearly 10% less than in the first nine months of 2019.

In related news, mandatory quarantines cost the economy 2.6 billion shekels ($767 million) in September, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was informed on Monday.

In a meeting of the committee, a group of senior officials from the manufacturing sector led by president of the Israel Manufacturers Association Dr. Ron Tomer, threw their support behind an initiative from committee chairman MK Zvi Hauser to shorten quarantine for essential workers to 10 days, and quarantine for non-essential workers to 12 days.

The IMA presented the committee with figures showing that 7% of workers in essential sectors were in quarantine. The representatives told the committee that more than half of Israel's industrial companies had reduced output and that 48% were struggling to keep up with orders because of an employee shortage due to quarantine.

"Israel's system of quarantine is killing the economy," Tomer told the committee.

Economist Eyal Toledo of the Finance Ministry's Budgets Department told the committee that the ministry had updated data which indicated that shorter quarantine times would save the economy some 750 million shekels ($221 million) per month.

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Now, an Israeli NGO is gearing up to file a petition against benefits for these organizations with the Jerusalem Administrative Court.

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Lavi, a nonprofit that works for civil rights and good governance, originally reached out to the Defense and Finance ministreis, whose heads have the authority to decide what organizations will receive tax emptions, but the ministries referred Lavi to the ITA.

Lavi asked the ITA for the following information: the names of the organizations that enjoy the tax exemption; the total amount of the exemption; and the criteria according to which decisions are made whether or not to grant the benefit to the organizations.

The ITA declined to supply the information, saying "We are denying your request in accordance with the Freedom of Information Law, which states that a public entity will not provide information whose disclosure could harm national security; foreign relations; public safety; or the safety and security of individuals."

Benefits to international organizations include a hefty discount on the purchase of fuel at a 0% VAT rate and an exemption from per-unit taxes. These exemptions were originally granted to ease the work of international aid organizations that operate in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

In June, the Knesset Finance Committee held a meeting on the issue of these exemptions, during which a representative of the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories argued that the beneficiaries included not only UN-affiliated groups, but also some international groups who operate against Israel.

For example, UNRWA employs many staff members who are affiliated with Hamas. Two years ago, the Trump administration announced that it was withdrawing support for UNRWA, calling it "fundamentally flawed" and stating that the organization perpetuated the Palestinian refugee quagmire.

Two other groups for whom MKs have sought the financial benefits – Diakonia and the Mennonite Central Committee – are reportedly involved in anti-Israel activity.

"These are two church organizations who arrive with radical ideological-theological baggage toward Israel," the NGO Monitor watchdog wrote.

According to NGO Monitor, Diakonia, a church organization that receives funding from the Swedish government, defines itself as a partner of groups such as Badil, Sabil, and Al-Hak, which is leading an international campaign to try Israeli leaders in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Diakonia works with the group Al-Mezan, which reportedly has links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Diakonia funds the group Who Benefits?, the local arm of the international BDS movement, as well as far-left organizations B'Tselem and Adalah.

Diakonia also backs the EAPPI plan to use foreigners to harass IDF forces in Judea and Samaria. After they return to their home countries, these activists often join BDS efforts.

The Mennonite Council also cooperates with groups tied to the PFLP on a campaign that accuses Israel to abusing Palestinian children. The council funds the Israeli group Zochrot, whose goal is to implement the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Lavi issued a statement laying out the purpose of its planned petition: "We are convinced that the refusal of the authorities to hand over information about tax benefits to international organizations will not withstand legal scrutiny of the petition we are filing."

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The New York Times exposé on Trump's income taxes in recent years will no doubt cause the issue to be the subject of discussion in the debate, and Trump will again have to respond to claims that he is hiding the numbers about his true financial situation. However, US tax experts are saying that the parts of Trump's tax returns that have been made public do not indicate any criminal activity, and that the returns show that Trump has managed to use tax laws to receive the tax cuts and write-offs that are customary in the business world.

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Either way, the debate momentum is the most important thing a candidate, incumbent or not, can take away. In 1960, the young senator John F. Kennedy got what he wanted from the debate, becoming the political equal of then-Vice President Richard Nixon (in part because Nixon ignored the need to shave and put on TV makeup before the historic televised debate). At the moment of truth, Nixon lost by a few electoral votes and a tiny gap in the popular vote.

Ultimately, when a sitting president is seeking reelection, the race is always a referendum, and the presidential debates are a preview of that referendum and his chance to prove that he deserves to be given another term.

Bill Clinton also took advantage of the debates with George H.W. Bush to prove how well he could talk directly to voters. Bush Sr., despite the halo of the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War, didn't come across well on camera.

Either way, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden know that the debates won't decide the election, but on the other hand, they know that every remark, now matter how minor, every slip – however momentary – and every unsuccessful soundbite and facial expression can make headlines and hijack the agenda for several hours or days. When Bush Sr. snuck a look at his watch in the 1992 debate, he became a punching bag for days.

How important are this year's debates? It seems as if they aren't, because most of the election events thus far haven't caused any movement in the polls. The voters have already made up their minds and are deeply involved in the campaign, and there is an unusually small number of undecideds. What will decide the election is not what promises Trump or Biden make, or even some pathetic comment by either of them – expectations of both are so low that nothing will faze voters.

What will determine the election is whether or not one of the candidates will manage to set America's imagination on fire and ride a wave of optimism, hope and energy, as Trump did in the last two weeks of the 2016 election. This year, Trump is facing a tough challenge – among other things, he is no longer an outsider. But beyond that, there is the electoral math: his voters are very passionate, but they comprise a smaller sector of the population than they did in 2016 and his coalition is gradually losing the votes that will decide the election: non-college educated white voters.

But Biden isn't facing an easy task, either. His voters are not over enthused, and even the ones who are disappointed in Trump could stay home or vote for Trump again for economic reasons, as Trump is consistently seen – even during the COVID pandemic – as the best qualified person to run the economy, which until recently was breaking records. Both candidates are hoping that the debates will put the wind back into the sails of their campaigns. But like every campaign, this race has its own dynamic. And the deciding event of the 2020 election could come out of nowhere, a moment before Judgment Day.

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"If the government continues implementing all of the programs and undertakings that it has taken upon itself, and does not raise taxes, the budget deficit is likely to stabilize at the dangerous level of over 4.5% of GDP, and the ratio of debt to GDP will reach 75% by 2025," Yaron warned the audience at the Israel Democracy Institute's Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society in Jerusalem, according to financial daily Globes.

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"This is a significant scale, and it does not include the defense budget supplement that the government may implement," he said. "In a downturn scenario, which is unfortunately not unlikely, the increase in the deficit and debt will be even more substantial."

According to the report, Yaron said that even maintaining the 3% deficit target set by the government "would not prevent a continued increase in the ratio of debt to GDP. The government will therefore have to make a greater effort to stabilize the ratio of debt to GDP."

Dealing with the deficit entails budget cuts for all government ministries, he added, noting that "the increase that we saw in civilian spending in recent years is a result of the fact that the government had to respond to the public's budget demands. There is therefore little likelihood that spending can be significantly cut without painful damage to the services supplied by the government."

According to the report, the BOI chief said that to meet the budgetary challenge, the government would eventually "have to take action to increase its revenue," but did not elaborate on how the government should go about it or what taxes should be raised.

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The PA, in dire financial straits ever since Israel froze tax transfers in February, said on Thursday that an "agreement was reached a few days ago with the Israeli side for transferring duties on oil and fuel which the Palestinian Authority bought in Israel to the amount of around two billion shekels ($570 million)."

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Israel, which collects taxes on behalf of the PA, has withheld the funds for months because they are partly used to pay monthly stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.

As a result, public officials, teachers and other public employees in the West Bank have received only partial salaries, with the PA blaming the Netanyahu government for stoking what it described as a "tax crisis."

PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced on Thursday that the PA had "already paid its employees in full for the month of August plus a portion of their salaries in retroactive pay."

Israel has also reportedly agreed to temporarily exempt Arabs in the West Bank from paying taxes on fuel, in an effort to stimulate the local economy, according to Israeli public broadcaster Channel 11 News.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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