Just Me copied the following to me:
FBAR_Compliant Just Me
JAMES FALLOWS continues on FATCA Menace with balance attempt from dissenting opinions. Fair enough. The Fatca Menace!
This is a followup to his New Years post, Fatca, the Menace you will hear about in 2012
So, the conversation and education of the “normal” Americans, on the Progressive side of the equation, has started! Let the merits of the opinions and comments be given full voice. We need the debate. I think it wins on the merits, but of course, James is going to provide opposing views if they are emailed to him. Let’s do all we can to keep the conversation going, and pass this around. The media are now slowly recognizing that this issue has relevance in spite of the strange acronyms of FATCA, FBAR, OVDP, etc. I think this is especially so, when you read and consider how IRS Citizenship taxation model and reporting regime has negative impacts and implications for US citizen employment. It is relevant!
Even with $200,000 filing thresholds, many with a pension fund and modest inheritance could exceed this amount. I’m guessing that I will have to budget for up to $3000 to stay compliant. I consider that onerous .
This is getting good now… This article was a little more comprehensive. I think that the “staffer” is a bit young to think that people don’t have 50k or more in their accounts. And I disagree with the staffers comments. Since overeas Americans are denied bank accounts and investment accounts, technically it affects MANY (if not most) overseas Americans.
People with businesses are put under many more oppressive rules. It’s amazing how you move overseas and try to become successful, but you have the ball-and-chain keeping you back. Who cares if you pay way more in local taxes!! Oh, so we’re whiners… The US government os oppressive and I can’t wait to renounce.
He starts to address the issue here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-fatca-chronicles-tales-from-china-canada-and-estonia/250771/
This article mollifies me somewhat but I am disappointed in much of the previous article on the FATCA “Menace!” . The author virtually sets us up to be labeled “whiners”, although he does include himself in that category. We’ve certainly gotten enough of that sort of thing from some Canadians who think we are rich fat cats who want the best of both worlds. The congressional staffer he quoted is utterly ignorant of the details of the law, particularly the sheer invasiveness of the requirements on expats who must, report not only on seemingly any entity we own, large or small that has any monetary value such as life insurance policies and even, if you can believe it, prepaid telephone cards (obviously the guidelines for this law are astonishingly unclear), but the impact on the banks has entirely escaped him.
The banks of the world that want to do business with the US economy (and who doesn’t) will have to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with FATCA and will suffer severe losses in punitive withholdings if they get it wrong, and in most cases will face the prospect of violating their local laws to do it. Not to mention said congressional staffer’s almost sneering conviction that only a very few very wealthy people have $50K worth of resources and most expats merely have a few more tiresome forms to fill out. Fallows also saw fit to comment on the name of the Isaac Brock society, saying it could be off-putting to Americans because Brock fought against the US. He perhaps overestimates our eagerness to please the average American reader, when in reality our objective is to convince our own government to recognize the challenge of FATCA to Canadian sovereignty.
However, I am gratified that Mr Fallows is shining some light on this and I have hopes for more from him in 2012.
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