Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  How Many Accountants Does the Pope Have?, by Brandon Mitchener (Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad):

For the first time, the pope is a citizen of the United States. Behind the solemn moment lies an absurdly serious—and seriously absurd—tax question: Will the pontiff, as a U.S. citizen, have to pay U.S. income tax?

The U.S. is unique among developed countries in taxing its citizens on their worldwide income. All Americans who live and work overseas have to file U.S. income tax returns on top of whatever taxes they owe where they live. … [E]ven if they don’t end up owing any U.S. taxes, many Americans working overseas have to engage specialist accountants to convince the Internal Revenue Service that that is the case.

There’s no exception for foreign government officials, and the pope wouldn’t be the first foreign leader caught in the IRS’s web. Before becoming Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who became an “accidental” American citizen when he was born in New York, renounced his U.S. citizenship after the IRS demanded he pay tax on the profit from the sale of his home in London. …

The image of an American pope having to surrender his citizenship to preserve the sovereignty of his mission could help put the nail in the coffin of the fundamentally unfair American tax regime. When the tax laws of one nation reach so far as to claim authority over a spiritual leader chosen to serve Catholics across the planet, it may be time to ask when the U.S. will stop hounding its citizens who live overseas.

Washington Post, Even As Pope, Leo XIV Might Have to Deal With U.S. Tax Returns:

Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected pontiff, must answer to at least one more higher power: the IRS.

As a U.S. citizen, the man formerly called Cardinal Robert Prevost is subject to the same IRS and Treasury reporting requirements as other Americans living abroad.

• The Independent, He’s the first American Pope in History, But Leo XIV Might Not Be Able to Escape the IRS
• New York Times, Can Pope Leo Keep U.S. Citizenship?
• US Tax Talk, Does Pope Leo XIV Have to File an FBAR? U.S. Citizenship and God’s Bank
• Wall Street Journal Tax Report, Will the Pope, Like Other American Expats, Have to File U.S. Taxes?

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