I am flabergasted that the only official Swiss government press release that I seem to be able to find on the FATCA IGA contains only and merely the same sort of general summary of the agreement that we saw in the announcement last summer about impending negotiations and the December announcement about pending signature.
[Addendum: As it turns out, while the press release did not give links to the agreement in its text, there was a link in the righthand column to a French translation of the agreement: http://www.news.admin.ch/NSBSubscriber/message/attachments/29631.pdf as well as a link to documents related to the parliamentary consulation on the agreement, which I had clicked on the other day but didn’t see anything related to FATCA–you have to scroll down several pages or CTRL-F and search for FATCA: http://www.admin.ch/ch/f/gg/pc/pendent.html I will be creating another post today on the response I received from the Swiss State Secretariat for International Financial Matters].
Almost a month later, the Swiss people are being kept in the dark. I wrote the Swiss federal government spokesman that issues the press releases today on this matter:
Bonjour Monsieur Tuor,
Je trouve aberrant que votre annonce sur admin.ch (http://www.admin.ch/aktuell/00089/index.html?lang=fr&msg-id=47779) à propos de FATCA ne donne ni référence au texte de l’accord, ni au texte du règlement d’application FATCA, à savoir :
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Documents/FATCA-Agreement-Switzerland-2-14-2013.pdf
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/01/28/2013-01025/regulations-relating-to-information-reporting-by-foreign-financial-institutions-and-withholding-onLes implications de FATCA en termes de son complexité ainsi que les menaces posées par son application méritent une analyse approfondie par le peuple suisse et ses élus au parlement.
Il n’est également pas évident si le parlement va débattre l’accord pendant la session de mars 2013, ou plus tard. Auriez-vous des informations à ce propos ?
Aussi, comment est-ce que le conseil fédéral puisse signer un tel accord sans referendum obligatoire (Art 140a,b, 141a CFS) accompagné des modifications constitutionnelles nécessaires, vu que FATCA est incompatible avec des multiples protections garanties par la Constitution, comme par exemple : liberté d’opportunité économique, anti-discrimination, droit de famille ? Sans mentionner la loi réglant la question de nationalité dominante (RS291 Art 23). Si l’accord FATCA est approuvé, le résultat est l’adhésion à une communauté supranationale parce que le principe juridique américain en matière de taxation « Last in Time Rule » permet les autorités américains de changer les règles de jeu quand ils veulent, malgré des traités, conventions et accords. Et alors, le conseil fédéral n’agit pas en bonne foi et ne veut pas protéger les suisses contre l’arbitraire (Art 9 CFS).
Une acceptation d’une loi extraterritoriale étrangère comme FATCA est une claire violation du mandat constitutionnel « La Confédération suisse protège la liberté et les droits du peuple et elle assure L’indépendance et la sécurité du pays. » (Art 2 Al 1 CFS).
Et tout ça à l’insu du souverain peuple suisse !
Je demande des explications !
Salutations,
Jefferson D. Tomas
All Brockers who can speak and/or write in French, German, or Italian, please SWAT this guy (Special Writers and Theses): +41 31 322 46 16, mario.tuor@sif.admin.ch.
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….What if some dude at the IRS had a bad day and wanted to pass it along to some unrepresented expat? ……… of course I am sure over the next 5 years we will be able to share here many “horror stories“ there are certainly a lot of undefined areas but in the meantime renounce if you can and/or continue to raise your voice and express your outrage . Rememeber for long term ex-pats, citizenship-based taxation provides nothing in return other than never-ending misery. Long term ex-pats have little chance to remedy the situation because they are disenfranchised from the US legislative process. The Americans Abroad Caucus is not representation. Its members are not elected by ex-pats and it casts no votes in Congress in the interests of ex-pats. To live a normal healthy life, ex-pats have no real possibility other than to renounce or relinquish US citizenship. The more ex-pats who go through with renunciation/relinquishment, the louder the message will be heard
@Mike Tarantes, I’m no longer a US citizen and I only post on these topics because I like Americans abroad. 🙂
I’ve been reading the following over and over again in various sources:
So, FATCA has nothing to do with tax cheats, contrary to what the US governments wants to fool people into believing. Rather, it is all about taxing the entire earnings of individuals regardless of which regional infrastructure they finance.
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Foreign au pairs unable to open local Swiss bank accounts:
http://www.bankingtech.com/77122/fatca-woes-for-us-au-pairs-in-switzerland/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fatca-woes-for-us-au-pairs-in-switzerland
@badger, I thought that the clowns in Washington had fixed this so that the innocent would no longer be harmed with their faults. 🙁
@swisspinoy, apparently, it doesn’t matter how many innocent eggs are broken in the making of this FATCAmess – the US doesn’t care. They do it because they can.
.
you know, there is just so many groups who are experiencing weird things from USA, and everything has a rumor of being threatened. Bob Woodward is just one,
I just finished Reading a book about how the bicycle peloton was ruled by Lance Armstrong for a decade, without the media ever letting the Word out, or being sued when they did, In addition, neither the running World nor other endurance sports have signicantly broken out the inner story.
And the Swedish parliament hadn’t even heard of FATCA, as their Finance Minister had been negotiating with USA for 6-12 months.
There truly is some big sh_t being kept under wraps, and it isn’t just us that are showing symptoms..
Switzerland: Sidestepping banking secrecy
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2013/05/201353182417231317.html
As Swiss banks get ready to reveal client information to US authorities, is this crime-fighting or a breach of privacy?
Swiss and US agree on FATCA interpretation
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Swiss_and_US_agree_on_FATCA_interpretation.html?cid=36086564
Technocrats agree…
Switzerland and the United States have signed a memorandum of understanding on technical and administrative interpretations of the agreement on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
The memorandum was signed on Friday in Washington by Manuel Sager, Swiss ambassador to the United States, and Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy.
It summarises the obligations of Swiss financial institutions and confirms the simplified self-declaration process for “exempt Swiss beneficial owners” under the FATCA agreement signed on February 14, 2013.
Swiss Parliament Pushes Back on U.S. Banks Deal
Plan for Swiss Banks to Hand Over Data on American Clients Is Sent Back to Upper House
ZURICH—Swiss lawmakers dealt a serious blow Tuesday to a plan that could enable the country’s banks to avoid the threat of prosecution in the U.S. by collectively coming clean about their dealings with suspected American tax evaders.
The lower house of Parliament voted 126-67 against even considering the plan, which would allow banks to skirt Switzerland’s banking secrecy law and hand information to U.S. authorities about the undeclared holdings of their American clients, as well as the bank employees who assisted those clients.
The vote sends the measure back to the upper house, which had approved it last week, for further debate and another show of hands as early as Wednesday. A reversal there would mean the legislation’s demise—and could lead to severe legal complications for Swiss banks in U.S. courts. Approval would send it back to the lower house.
read more here.. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324021104578552930613288170.html
Adding the other two story references from FATCA questions…
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Parliament_throws_spanner_in_tax_row_settlement.html?cid=36187016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22954374