Unfortionately I don’t know if there will be any way to see the event afterwards but here are the details:
Event in Geneva:
http://www.aca.ch/SCFAS_Fatca_2012_Invite_GE_Final.pdf
Event in Zurich
Debate: FATCA- The worldwide end of Bank Secrecy?
Anyone in Switzerland planning to attend and report back to IBS?
*Comment on Linkedin this morning:
You are right Patrick! Canada more than any other country should be very concerned by FATCA and cannot take a complaisant stand like the already declared FATCA country partners just for the sake of making Uncle Sam happy. Being the closest G7 country to the United States and having a huge number of citizens of both countries living in the other country, having double citizenships or simply having by-national family relationships it would be a disaster if Jim Flaherty makes a wrong move with respect to FATCA. It could be fatal for the conservatives; they know it and this is why they have to play it very smart.
Actually, the United States have come to understand that they just went too fast with this FATCA. We all know that Congressmen don’t read the laws before they pass them. At this time Tim Geithner is trying the best he can to salvage FATCA just because it is out there instead of simply stopping it when it still time. If you read very carefully the Proposed Regulations, you’ll see that there are not only so many exceptions that are literally emptying FATCA of its substance, but also the Act itself grants the Secretary extensive power to issue derogations whenever he wants by creating exceptions or different requirements. Did you realize that FATCA effective date has been moved to January 1st, 2014 from July 1st, 2013? You can see that from the definition of “preexisting account” in the G5 Model IGA that makes it an account maintained by FIs as of December 31, 2013 rather than January 1st, 2013 like in the Prop. Regs. And the review of preexisting accounts must be completed by December 31, 2015 and not July 2014 any more. Many more changes will come before FATCA is effective. In the article I will shortly send out, I am alluding to FATCA as a monstrous octopus with ever growing tentacles that can reach anyone anywhere.
@badger FYI
I just tried the download button again, using Google Chrome browser, and it immediately downloaded a PDF file of the entire report.
@JustMe, will try another browser, thanks.
@Tim…
You know, reading that note from Jeff on Linkedin, I was reminded of the legislation that passed many years back in NZ to attempt to save the remaining Kauri trees, by making it a crime to cut them down after a date certain in the future? Of course, you know what happened. It sped up the cutting down of the trees prior to the effective date!
Just like these FATCA changes, and all this effort with delays, exemptions, etc, is just assuring that most of the smart money that is indeed hiding has long ago moved or changed asset class by the time they actually get this monstrosity in place and start screening to find it. It is almost comical and so predictable.
The question with FATCA, once it is in place, what is the long term effect? Will it create more trees, or just restrict growth? The NZ action did save some trees in the future, but it may have lost more in the process by how it was implemented, where they award bad behavior (cutting down trees) before the ban. But, government had not read Freakonomics yet.. 🙂
Note to any others looking for fulltext of the Harvey article – Safari worked.
@all,
If that is the best he can do to justify his arguments in favour of FATCA, they ring hollow and weak – funny how this ‘scholar’ has access to spaces in which they can flog their own biases and beliefs as if they are fact – and positions them in a place which lends them credibility.
Harvey’s repetition of his bias, and weak claims without proof – ex. “if tax haven and
bank secrecy jurisdictions want to build their banking system to cater to tax evaders, the United States and other countries should not be prevented from taking counteractions.” Funny though, no mention of what we know about the US doing the very same thing: that the US domestic banking system – and the incorporation and tax system of some US states are built to attract and cater to individual and corporate tax evaders – for both non-resident non-US foreign depositors shielding accounts from their home countries, and US incorporated businesses looking to evade US taxes (in Florida, Texas, Arizona, Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, etc.) for examples see; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html?pagewanted=all http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1737937 http://www.cnbc.com/id/47247578/American_Tax_Havens http://www.financialtaskforce.org/2012/07/03/tax-haven-usa-new-york-times-articles-expose-need-to-abolish-anonymous-u-s-shell-companies/ .
Obvious is his easy willingness to sacrifice the current wellbeing of ordinary duals denied mortgages or accounts in pursuit of FATCA – though he admits that the actual benefits and costs of FATCA may never be identified (in oblique reference to the GAO reports?), and is a good measure of what we’re up against. Some US citizens are more equal than others, and that’s okay with him. He may have a few twinges of conscience, and propose weak and vague suggestions for ways in which the US government could consider tweaking FATCA, but is entirely willing to foist the blame on other countries, and other governments, rather than examine his own role and question the aims, actions and ethics of the US.
It’s not about facts for him, it’s about ideology.
@badger, as usual, well put. Deflect and blame, the mantra of US policy makers.
@bubblebustin, thanks. I think it shows the weak position of the US arguments though, if domestic sources like the NYTimes, and Harvard study can so easily document the US domestic tax haven industry – other sources attesting to the same are very easy to find. Why other countries don’t continuously point this out, and why we don’t see it in articles as a rebuttal to the US claims, is very curious. I also found interesting Harvey’s comment that tax ‘evasion’ should be more closely coupled in arguments for FATCA with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism funding efforts and statements, as a political tactic to make them equivalent. Makes a good soundbite to try and dismiss any critics as supporting those three coupled together. There have been other places where I saw the US efforts to make them one and the same – even though with FBARs and FATCA, there is no actual US tax being evaded, no US tax assessed, and none owed. Conflating and falsely making non-reporting to the US – on legal, post-tax, local bank accounts registered where we live, as if fully equivalent with criminal tax-evasion, money-laundering and terror-funding – in order to rationalize applying the same draconian laws to normal individuals and legal savings that are used against those actually committing those other acts. This is a deliberate and unethical tactic that Harvey is consciously recommending – and the IRS and Treasury is already using.
The fact that the US is willing to accept the persecution of ordinary people along with those they say are their targets, is why leaving unwanted and unsought US citizenship status behind is the only answer. It cannot be argued that the ‘unintended’ consequences are not known by Harvey and those in the IRS and Treasury by now. Any time a government deliberately pursues a policy that includes innocent individuals in with egregious criminal offenders, significant abuse will result. It already has.
@badger….
It is ironic about where the BIG tax evasion and lack of transparency is, and it is right there in the homeland. But America never tends to it’s own problems before heading overseas searching for Dragons to slay while the homeland Tyrannosaurus is safely housed in Miami, Delaware, Wyoming or Alaska. I have posted it before, but do listen to the last 10 minutes of this podcast. It fits well with your links above.
@badger, ah yes, the we are the collateral damage, once again the rest of the planet is forced to accept from the champions of freedom 🙁
@bubblebustin; our lack of freedom vis a vis the US, is what is hurting us and our families.
@JustMe, thank you for the link. The US would rather be seen to apply force and ‘transparency’ elsewhere because the lobbyists for the current status quo are inside the US. Convenient to deflect the ‘enforcement’ abroad. Who would want to look to clean up Delaware when for example, domestic fracking shale gas profiteers and 60% or more of the Fortune 500 incorporate there?
Finally…
The video of this debate has been posted to YouTube…
Here it is…
FATCA – The worldwide end of Bank Secrecy?
There is also a link at ACA here.
*I don’t know if any of you are old enough to be concerned about this, but, on the application form for CPP, there is a part which asks where you were born. If the answer is U.S.A. there is a space for your social security number. After that it requires you to list all of your children, their places of birth and their social insurance numbers. As I see it, our very own Canadian CPP application form could rat out us and our children to you know who. Sorry for going off topic.
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@Banany
Perhaps you could contact them and ask them why this information is asked for?
@Banany
CPP does need the DOB on children. Parents who drop out of the work force to look after their children are credited with time paying into CPP. I forget exactly how it works but the amount of CPP received is increased for a period of time for ‘caregiving of children’. If I remember correctly it was up to the age of 7. So if you had children born in 1968, 1972 and 1975 they would include the years 1968 thru 1982 (1975 + 7) as the caregiving years.
Not sure why they would ask for SSNs.
*Thanks for the video. The question that affects us, Americans Living Abroad are quite especific and applies only to us who are working in a foreign country and making investments from our work in the local banks. Of course also paying the taxes to the foreign countries where we reside. As far as I can tell we have nothing to do with Americans who earn money in the USA and invest in foreign countries in order to avoid paying US taxes. What bothers me is why we have been all lumped together? and why suddenly we are being trapped, not for not paying taxes, but for not sending reports that we never heard about. This is the issue,
*Banany. Check your facts. The CPP application asks for your children’s Canadian social insurance number not their US social security number
The space for a foreign country’s social insurance number -e.g. US, Britain, France etc. is because if you lived and worked in a foreign country and contributed to the other country’s pension plan, there may be some benefits payable by CPP under various agreements. Nothing sinister. It’s on the CPP website under ‘International Benefits.’