“Even in era of emailed ballots, corralling far-flung voters proves troublesome.”
Global Post, a news feeder organization for PBS and NPR ran a story with this headline a couple days ago that caught my attention.
BANGKOK, Thailand — There is no variety of American voter quite so unreliable as expatriates. They vote far less frequently than even teenagers and high-school dropouts. When it comes to campaign contributions, they donate less than 1 percent of the total haul.
I thought it rated at least a short comment. There are only 3. Maybe some of you will think so too. Maybe you can explain why you are sooo lazy, or not! 🙂
@badger – The 2006 Canadian census looked at citizenship, including people who were dual citizens with Canada or somewhere else, or had dual (or multiple) citizenships with countries other than Canada. All this data can be broken down regionally, probably as far as the tract level. The numbers are from the long-form census (which 20% or so respondents are given) and scaled up, but they should be reliable enough as far as identifying broad patterns goes.
@shadowraider
I found a Mexico US tax blog run by a lawyer in the US, but gets little in the way of outside comments. It really is strange the lack of concerned Mexican-US citizens, considering the large phenomenon of Mexicans in the US sending money to ‘foreign’ accounts in Mexico.
http://us-mexicantax.blogspot.ca/
Canadian article out of Windsor, urging us to vote in the US election – in order to aid Canada’s interests re the Detroit/Windsor bridge and control of this major N/American crossing. Does not of course acknowledge any of the potential complications of asserting the right to vote in the US election – and the existence of draconian US extraterritorial taxation and associated pitfalls.
http://www2.canada.com/windsorstar/news/editorial/story.html?id=64ded1ef-f8d0-46c7-b8aa-178d65135613
Isn’t it time for the Monty Python US census count video?
I find the FATCA silence in Mexico intriguing in that it is potentially quite explosive because of the sheer number of US-Mexicans estimated to be living in the US or Mexico. Mexican workers in the US apparently send $21B a year to their families in Mexico. I imagine the ‘capital flight’ from the US to certain Caribbean nations would be significant also.
Also, in a letter to the IRS and Treasury, the Asociación de Bancos de México (Mexican Bankers Assn) expressed concern about FATCA’s compliance burden on Mexican banks that handle the hundreds of thousands of trusts that qualify as FFI’s, and Mexican laws that prohibit the seizure of funds and closure of accounts held by recalcitrant customers.
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Tax/us_tax_Asociación_de_Bancos_de_México_Intermediarios_Bursáiles_073012.pdf
If US-Mexicans aren’t complaining about FATCA because they’re too laid back, they’ll soon find that a manana attitude is not a good one to have in association with FATCA.
@shadowraider…
I see this Mexican tax blog, as not generated any comments on the subject as of June 26th.
IRS Announces Efforts to Help U.S. Citizens in Mexico, Including Dual Citizens and Those with Foreign Retirement Plans
I am also puzzled by the lack of comments or involvement or concern U.S, Citizens in Mexico. I do believe, without any evidence, that most are retirees that keep their money in the US, or exchange funds at local money exchanges. Probably there is a big cash economy that is not in banks.
Also, illegal immigrants, sending money home to Mexico are not going to turn themselves in to any the IRS OVDI. What will be interesting to see is what happens to those in Mexico who keep money in the States, when U.S. Banks start turning their details over to the IRS.
Then there are all the dual citizens, accidental or otherwise, living in Mexico probably have no idea about this stupid citizenship taxation. If Mexico signs up for an IGA, they are about to find out. One thing for certain. FATCA will create more liars when it comes to U.S. indices.
*This situation in Bermuda may be interesting too. It is said that up to 30% of its population may be “US person”:
“It really is strange the lack of concerned Mexican-US citizens,
considering the large phenomenon of Mexicans in the US sending money to
‘foreign’ accounts in Mexico.”
There is an attitude of entitlement by minorities of color, largely fostered by the social marxists and multiculturalists of the left. They are not afraid because they know that they are the foot soldiers of the left. And they also know that the worst thing that the left would allow to happen to them would be their expulsion from the US.
The real question is: What proportion of dark skinned Mexican “tax cheats” would support a leftist tax-jihad against “rich white tax cheat” expats? I would bet the vast majority. Nothing to see here, slave.
*There was a day when Mexican banks attracted many US depositors because their savings accounts in US dollars paid better interest than was available in the US.. Government spending got way out of control, there was a foreign exchange crisis his government instituted strict exchange controls and converted all of these dollar accounts to pesos, and there were massive devlauations of the peso. The president then was Luis Portillo.
Dollars were no longer freely available and the former dollar account values dropped to fraction of their prior value. This crisis lasted for a short time as the next president, Miguel de la Madrid, took actions to get the economic situation back under control and I am not aware if dollar accounts in Mexican banks have ever been reinstitutued. I just have not followed it.
here we go again…
another dark skinned people rant.
i like this forum, but i’ve gone from reading it once a day and every comment to once or twice a week and very few of the comments. i often find confed’s perspectives helpful, but this fringe talk obsession with race makes the whole site feel sleazy and shuts down serious discussion about USPA’s and the very real threats from the US Congress and government that are visited upon us.
@SwissPinoy
Thanks for the link to that story. I see Anne Hornung-Soukup is getting excellent coverage as a representative of ACA. This is good. I knew she was vacationing there, but didn’t realize she was also contracting the local press. GREAT!
@Just Me
” What will be interesting to see is what happens to those in Mexico who
keep money in the States, when U.S. Banks start turning their details
over to the IRS.”
I would presume the IRS already gets any information the US banks have. It’s the “foreign” bank accounts that they don’t know about and can’t control, that annoys them. The big question might be about what Mexico thinks about the Mexicans who keep their money in (foreign) American banks, if the US ever gets their act together enough to provide that information to Mexico.
*ConfederateH, I think that you’ll enjoy reading this article:
Translation: Detlev Schlichter: We are becoming witnesses of a new financial socialism
@SP: I just finished reading that article but in English on Zero Hedge.
Goethe could have been writing about the majority of readers at IBS who keep getting kicked in the ass by the welfare state but continually blame it only on the FATCA running shoes.
*@shadowraider, the Mexican census probably did not count the Mexicans born in Mexico to a US parent, or the number would be much, much higher. I have an old chart published by the State Department in 1999 which estimated the number of US citizens resident in Mexico as 1,036,300. The world total of US citizens living abroad back then was estimated at 4 million. The number for Canada was estimated at 687,700. At time there were also and additional 550,000 US military personnel stationed abroad. This latter number, provided by the Pentagon, was probably quite accurate.
This chart is a large color map of the world with the estimated number of US citizens printed on the map inside the borders of each country.
About that time the State Deparment discontinued publishing information on its estimates of US citizens living abroad. I recall hearing that it realized that the information was just an educated guess and probably not very accurate.
@CanuckDoc;
This explains the refusal of Timothy Geithner, and the US to extend to Mexico, what they are demanding of the entire rest of the world under FATCA, and what they are demanding of all US citizens living outside the US – but refuse to provide themselves:
‘News Analysis: How the U.S. Is a Tax Haven for Mexico’s Wealthy
by Robert Goulder‘
…”Why does Congress tolerate de facto bank secrecy? The answer is simple:
Our banks need the money. If you think that excuse sounds familiar,
you’re correct. It’s the same response Swiss bank authorities threw back
at U.S. officials during the recent UBS negotiations.”…
“
Mexican officials want not only to run the drug cartels out of town, but also to tax them.
Drug traffickers are also money launderers and tax evaders. It’s
in their job description. You can’t really declare a few million pesos
of unexplained income on your tax return and list “drug lord” as your
occupation. Besides, the moral threshold that’s crossed by falsifying
tax returns is nothing for people who regularly bribe police, kidnap
judges, and slit the throats of informants.
We’re talking lots of money here. The illegal drug trade between
Mexico and the United States is a multibillion-dollar business. If
Mexico could tax a fraction of those earnings, it would represent a huge
revenue haul. Therein lies the connection to the letter on Geithner’s
desk. Carstens has a pretty good idea where the cartels are keeping
their fortune, and it ain’t Tijuana.
Mexican drug bosses aren’t fools. They won’t walk down the street
of some border town carrying a sack of cash and try to open an account
at the local bank. They will search for a welcoming host country where
they can safely park their ill-gotten gains without attracting much
attention. The ideal host jurisdiction is a place where their money: (1)
won’t be taxed, (2) won’t be reported to the host country tax
authorities, and (3) won’t be reported to Mexican tax authorities.
Such a place exists. It’s called San Diego, which the Geneva daily newspaper Le Temps
recently characterized as one of the world’s most successful tax havens
given its proximity to the Mexican border and popularity with Mexican
NRAs. (Le Temps, “Les Etats-Unis Servent de Paradis Fiscal aux
Capitaux Mexicain,” July 23, 2009, p. 15.) San Diego, of course, is only
a symbol of the problem. The same de facto bank secrecy exists in
Miami, Charlotte, New York, or any U.S. town where there’s a bank open
for business.“……
….”Not only does U.S. bank secrecy exist, it’s
thriving. The evidence above reveals U.S. bank secrecy to be a smashing
success. Eliminate it, and America will suffer. Our banks will lose
profits; our workers will lose jobs.
In terms of basic economics, those claims are difficult to rebut.
A troubling dissonance arises only because rational minds are unable to
square this reality with the policies Washington embraced in the recent
UBS agreement.
Bear in mind that U.S. and Swiss banks are rivals that compete to
attract foreign capital from global markets. That capital is highly
mobile and can be transferred across continents and time zones with just
a few clicks of a mouse. The competition is a zero-sum game; the more
capital that can be driven out of Zurich, the more there is for U.S.
banks to sponge up.
To the neutral observer it might seem that America’s opposition
to bank secrecy is highly selective. Perhaps we object only when it’s
our tax base that’s being eroded.
Geithner now must decide whether Treasury spoke with a forked
tongue in the United States’ showdown with the Swiss. Mexico City is
awaiting a response.”………..
The whole article is really worth a read. It underscores the hypocrisy of the US, and particularly that of Geithner. He preaches one thing and does another. And the US banks benefit coming and going – using the might of the US and IRS to deter US citizens from banking outside the US, yet profiting from providing financial secrecy to the citizens of other countries. The anti-moneylaundering piffle spouted by the IRS and Treasury is just a smokescreen for favouring US banks, and rifling through the assets of those who live outside the US.
Intriguingly, this article mentions a meeting with Harper of Canada:
….”Little has changed under the Obama administration, which favors a
continuation of the Mérida Initiative. On August 9 President Obama met
with Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Guadalajara,
Mexico, to discuss a variety of economic and security issues. There’s
no indication that Carstens’s February 9 letter to Geithner was
discussed at that minisummit.”…..
For the text of the letter Mexico sent to Geither in 2009, see:
Carstens (Mexico) Letter Requesting Automatic Exchange of …faculty.law.wayne.edu/tad/Documents/…/mexico–carstens_letter.pdf
*Tax free interest earnings for non-resident foreign nationals is a marketing tool for US banks to attract foreign deposits. Currently they don’t pay much interest, but the funds are safely deposited with these banks thus making the US one of the largest tax havens in the world for non-Americans who are not residents of the US.
Just contemplate how much tax revenue is lost because the IRS does not collect taxes on the US earnings of Mexican Drug Lords. Ilegal income is subject to US taxation in the same way that legal income is taxed, but whether the cash remains in US bank accounts or is taken across a border to a different country; either way it evades US taxes. I would venture to guess, not knowing the amounts involved, that the tax revenue loss is hundreds or thousands of times greater than the tax revenue generated by US persons living and working outside of the US.
Since for the Mexican Drug Lords is is income from sources outside of Mexico they could claim a foreign tax credit against their Mexican tax obligation if they paid US tax on this income. But that most assuredly don’t do that and don’t pay taxes to either nation.
Wouldn’t the problem be fixed or at least diminished if banks of all countries would just withdraw tax on interest bearing accounts, regardless of the country of origin of the account holder?
*@Christopie, unquestionably it would be much simpler. That is the basic principle of territorial taxation in its purest form and what is advocated by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute.
Each country would tax the income earned within its borders. Period. Persons would be taxed where they live on income from sources within their country of residence only. Income from sources outside of that country would be taxed only by the country where is was earned or otherwise received. No foreign income reporting, no foreign tax credits.
Utterly simple It sure makes a lot of sense to me. About the only thing simpler is the Fair Tax where taxation is on consumption rather than on income.
@zuludog:
“this fringe talk obsession with race makes the whole site feel sleazy
and shuts down serious discussion about USPA’s and the very real threats
from the US Congress and government that are visited upon us.”
It is you who have been conditioned to feel “sleazy” whenever someone dares to go out on a limb and present ideas and make statements that contradict your PC programming. If you haven’t figured out, I do it deliberately to try to make people like you think outside of the very narrow box that the elites running your education system have placed you. Your typical liberal has been programmed to turn off their brain whenever they hear certain dog whistles like anything to do with race, gays, feminists, islam, climate denial, or even expat tax cheats like you.
Here is a recent “fringe” and “sleazy” discovery that sheds new light on what has been happening around us:
Obama’s ring: ‘There is no god but Allah’
He’s worn band on wedding-ring finger since before he met Michelle
Even John McCain came out strongly against anyone using Obama’s middle name, Hussein, during the 2008 elections. I think “fringe” and “sleazy” were precisely the kind of adjective he used. So the blatant liar and fraud Obama was allowed to get elected without any vetting because of PC dog whistles from people like you. And now you complain about FATCA and other “threats from US congress and the US government” that precisely these PC tax eaters have implemented. Selberschuld, slave.
@Canuck Doc, badger, Roger Conklin,
Thanks for all the commentary on “forked tongue” of US in providing tax haven for Mexican source “illegal monies” banked in US /
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/10/13/suncor-ceo-pipelines-sovereignty_n_1963302.html
@zuludogm
Have always enjoyed your posts/comments. Hope you stick around. 😉
Further to Mexico Request to US for Bank Account Information:
http://www.globalbusinesslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/PreslanK.pdf
FATCA?
… and another interesting read: http://treasureislands.org/tax-haven-usa-attracts-over-3-trillion-in-foreign-dirty-money/
@zuludogm, I echo @nobledreamer, hope you continue here. Agree wholeheartedly with you – feel I now need to add a caveat at the same time as recommending IBS to potential readers I know.
@zuludogm,
I echo, echo nobledreamer and badger. Please continue if you can.