This is another side of the story which is less discussed. I don’t have any time to translate right now, so here is the google translation:
Much effort for corporations
Each group now has to analyze hundreds of worldwide Group companies in order to clarify exactly how it is affected by the FATCA. Companies such as ABB, Holcim, Nestlé and Novartis Check this moment. According to Novartis tax expert Roxana Leske to be seen not least affected by the U.S. rules Due to the necessary clarifications and additional information to be specified obligations to document many companies.
For groups of companies from the industry’s activities are affected by the FATCA, according to expert estimates, less than 1%. The affected companies have until mid-2014, time to register these units in the U.S. tax authorities. A failure can be costly: A withholding tax of 30% is due, and it threatens even buses when was violate local laws.However, the Group’s internal review is still necessary for any other reason. Because the corporations want to invest in U.S. securities, they must specify their FATCA status at the bank, which in turn is under the FATCA.
Even smaller companies
About their banking relationship even small companies can be acquired without financial activities, if they are owned by Americans. For U.S. citizens must also be reported by the bank, if the company is a majority-passive activities. This is to prevent U.S. citizens hide their money from the treasury by companies are interposed. For the U.S. tax authorities of the marginal benefit in getting wider fight against tax evasion takes Although source, however, doubt the network is rather too far ejected and thus includes companies that are the authorities perhaps never report in practice a U.S. taxpayer. The U.S. system is to suppress all just kind of possible workarounds, so that as no tax evaders more falls through the cracks.
@I sent on Blaze’s open letter to the same people with the message.
and I also sent them this politicians the BBC article and my message on email
“lease read. Please do not give Canadians privacy away by signing FATCA. Tell the USA to be like the rest of the world and do resident base taxation.
Do their banks in the USA report all who is on them who live in the USA and their assets? Do their Delaware and Nevada money hiding post office box banks report to the IRS? No, they do not, so why should canada’s banks report to the USA?
It would make more sense for all banks, all over the world to report all their account holders and assets to the United Nations. It would be fairer and equal.
It is time to stand up for Canada’s rights and privacy.
Just say no to the IRS.”
I commend all those IBS who contributed to the IBS and also Blaze for her letter. We must take a stand and get louder. I shall be on a week holiday but will try to check in on IBS and sandbox. I will be spreading the word on FATCA , “down south”..GTA area ..(I still get a kick out of that, when I first heard that phrase I thought they were talking about Florida, LOL)
I figured the United Nations comparison would get a few notices as there are some people that hate the UN.
@Northernstar,
You impress me with your determination! I agree we must ALL take a stand and get louder, if we have any hope of getting Canada to stop acceding to USA over FATCA. You are a great example of how to do that.
And yeah, if our bank accounts are reportable, why not everyone elses’s? Send everything to the UN, like you suggest, to be ‘fair’..
Enjoy your holiday, ‘down south’.
I also read this article from the well respected, NZZ (Neue Zuricher Zeitung). It outlines very well the massive scope of FATCA, extending way beyond that of just bank accounts. Being an American I learned once to be an eternal optimist. However, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, US persons are only becoming more toxic.
I think this is a very important article that should be reproduced internationally.
When will the governments of the world understand that their monies are being siphoned off to America and create a united front to stop it? This is not about tax evasion. This is about making anybody they can – even foreign entities- taxable to America. America is like a huge black hole which is sucking up revenue from the whole world which they have no moral right to confiscate except for an antiquated law from the mid 1800s which they want to enforce upon the whole world. I am shocked to read this. I never knew of this scope.
And when will America itself come to understand that they are cutting off all of their connections to international markets? Maybe they dont care as long as they can keep a connection to foreign markets this way? But most people I have spoken to have already taken their investments out of America. Only the stock market is still of interest as long as dollars are being printed. I am no economic major, but this isnt making sense for the rest of the world anymore, is it?
We as expats have little say. Nobody cares about us at all. We are like David against Goliath and Goliath isnt listening. All the clamoring here is to no avail. Only when other countries see what is being done to their own economies could change happen. If America is putting pressure on the rest of the world, then a united front is the only thing which could press back with enough influence to change something because expats dont have that influence. But these laws ( Fatca, RBT) affect all now, it seems to me – not just american citizens but the whole world. As long as the dollar is the world currency, wont everybody have some connection to those markets? Wont everyone in the end somehow be taxable with the broad net that America is throwing around the world?
Just as the NSA is not just to keep american citizens safe but is being used for indûstry espionage (just ask the Brazilian president), so is FATCA not about catching tax cheats. Its about gaining access to people`s wealth who are not even american. America is saying “This is mine- you owe me” and widening its breadth as each day goes by. Nestlé? Holcim? These are age old swiss companies whose hard work and ideas are the fruits of their own labor. What would Germany say if America said we want a part of the profits from your Mercedes business via taxes? If everybody is now paying for the questionable “priviledge” of doing business with America – then pretty soon that business wont be profitable anymore. Just imagine one missed link and then a 50% penalty for not “coming forward”. That could ruin any business as much as it is ruining the lives of regular expats.
The only way I could see any possibility for change whatsoever is when the rest of the world puts a stop to this, or America itself realizes that this law is harming their own economy for a few tax dollars they dont actually even deserve.
Has anybody been in contact with Sophie Vanderveldt? People in the world still think that America is their friend. Doesnt this article show the cracks enough? When will the world wake up to what is being done to them? NSA is an abomination to the rest of the world and other sovereign nations. FATCA now is too.
The Great Wall of FATCA. The US is going to pay the price not allowing free unhindered flow of capital. Collecting taxes is one thing, but handicapping your own economy is another.
FATCA will perhaps give companies an incentive to for example build their factory in Canada, keep control of the money FATCA-Free.
Disrupting a market that works can have unintended consequences.
History has shown there are always ways around ‘capital controls’ it’s just a matter which ones the market place figures out.
America’s going to learn that when they say “my way or the highway”, some will choose the highway.
Even US banks are rejecting the unwanted US client:
http://www.risk.net/risk-magazine/feature/2296921/sefs-ready-or-not-here-they-come
@SwissPinoy…
There was an similar article in English about 10 months ago along these lines concerning the wider impact of FATCA on U.S. Corporations. I sent it to my previous employer with the message, “pay attention”, as this law you know nothing about WILL impact you. They have foreign vendors and foreign operations even though they just think of themselves as a domestic corporation.FATCA has nothing to do with them, right? WRONG?
I had a hard time getting their attention, but they finally decided to have their regulatory compliance officer begin to look into it and educate themselves. However, I doubt most U.S Corporations have yet considered the impacts of FATCA on their operations. The time will come however and how they will finally respond will be interesting to see.
The articles was from a publication called the Corporate Secretary which writes about governance, risk and compliance.
The article was called Complying with FATCA and I have probably posted it somewhere in the past on IBS, but probably this is a good thread to draw attention to it again.
New tax compliance law may cause companies to renegotiate agreements with vendors and service providers…
Another aspect of FATCA that has not received much attention is the enormous cost to governments around the world in negotiating IGAs and dealing with Treasury.
For example, I’m sure the Canadian government is spending big bucks not only in the use of highly paid public servants for the FATCA file, but in contracting expensive legal expertise. As has frequently been discussed here, there are enormous Constitutional challenges that have to be overcome for a Canada FATCA IGA to become a reality.
I’d rather see my Canadian tax dollars put to better use than having to deal with a problem the U.S. has created. Every government should send Treasury a bill for FATCA related expenses (although good luck in collecting on the bill).
Hazy,
Thanks for bringing to light that probable huge cost — our real Canadian taxpaying dollars being used so a Canada FATCA IGA can be put in force. Costs for our governments; costs for our financial institutions; costs for individuals and families. What a waste of time, energy and scarce dollars.
But, obviously, it doesn’t do the US any harm *at all* if ‘Foreign’ [i.e., our own, non-US] governments, economies, financial institutions, fellow citizens spend untold quantities of money, time and energy tied up in knots over FATCA and its consequences. All of those international resources would otherwise be utterly ‘wasted’ … on improving the quality of lives of people outside the US, and … on boosting the coffers and international competitiveness of… Oh my…