IRS Data Shows That Overseas Americans Are Not Rich

Assumptions are wrong – they are poorer than stateside Americans

By Paul Atkinson and Doris Speer
February 22, 2026

A major challenge for anyone advocating in Washington on behalf of overseas Americans is a widespread perception that Americans living abroad are unusually wealthy. This has recently been disputed by IRS itself in its Taxpayer Advocate Service’s (TAS) 2025 Annual Report to Congress.

The TAS report identified taxpayers living abroad as one of the 10 “Most Serious Problems” related to tax that require attention from Congress and summarized a broad range of issues that confront expats. While describing the scope of the problem the TAS stated flatly:

“Despite the common perception that Americans living abroad are all wealthy, the overwhelming majority are not.” (Page 107 of the TAS report)

Income of Overseas Taxpayers

As evidence TAS cites IRS data indicating that for 2023 more than half, around 56%, of individual international filers reported Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of less than $25,000. In contrast, only 19% of such filers report AGI of more than $100,000.

As can be seen by the above chart, 81% of international filers had AGI below $100,000. According to the TAS report, less than 4.2% reported AGI greater than $400,000.

Income Comparison

Comparable IRS data for all taxpayers are not yet available for 2023, but 2021 and 2022 data are likely to be indicative. The share of low-income taxpayers among all individual filers (AGI below $25,000) in 2021 and 2022 is 29% and 27%, respectively, less than half that of international filers.

On the other hand, the share of all filers with AGI above $100,000 in 2021 and 2022 is 25% and 26%, respectively, higher than that of the international subgroup.  Using 2021 and 2022 data to compare with 2023 data, although different tax years, is still quite useful because, as seen below, those numbers do not move much year to year.  Further, although the 2021 and 2022 data include international tax returns, the effect on the total is negligible:  International tax returns represented 0.45% and 0.53% of total tax returns in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Tax Payment Comparison

As regards tax, the picture is similar. At least 55% of all individual international tax returns have reported no tax liability for each year since 2020. For the domestic population of individual filers, the share reporting no tax liability has consistently been less than half this figure.  See the below chart.

Conclusion

Despite the widespread belief that Americans living abroad are affluent, the U.S. government clearly tells us that, in reality, the vast majority are not.