I am posting this information highlighted in comments by Edelweiss and Innocente.
@Edelweiss: Excellent news. Each delay is another nail in the FATCA coffin. Bloomberg, AP and other news wires need to pick up this story.
Bank groups seek more delay in offshore anti-tax evasion law
The actual request letter: Request for Additional Extension of The FATCA Phased Timeline
Reuters says that four bank lobbying groups (the American Bankers Association, the Clearing House Association, the Institute of International Bankers, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) have asked for a six month delay to the implementation of FATCA. The letter is located here. The primary driver appears to be the fact that the final regulations and forms aren’t available. They are assuming these are available by 31 Dec 2013 which would give the industry just 6 months to finalise implementation when they had stated that 18-24 months were needed. A six month delay would give them 12 months instead of the 18-24.
Here are some key lines from the letter:
“Nevertheless, all Final Guidance has not yet been issued, and there has been limited progress in the signing of IGAs.”
“Under the current timeline, there is less than 8 full months between now and July 1, 2014, the first scheduled FATCA implementation date. The Associations respectfully submit that this is insufficient time to achieve the effective, full implementation of FATCA.”
“For the reasons described herein, the Associations believe that it would be appropriate to extend further certain milestone dates in order to help ensure a smooth transition to the FATCA regime and minimize the prospects of over withholding as well as the potential for significant disruption to financial markets.”
I notice that the Reuters web site says that the article is Closed for Comments. Yet the article is only dated yesterday AND the page says that there have been 0 comments; the page notes that Reuters reserves the right to close articles to comments after a limited time. This one seems to have been closed very quickly indeed.
Feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”.
@bubblebustin,
For sure. I just wish they would shoot us already, and stop prolonging the torture!
@WhiteKat
OMG, be careful what you wish for!
@ WhiteKat
NO, NO, NO!!!!!!
Every delay is a new lease on life. Yet the matter must be brought to a head and the pus removed and Anti-Biotics applied. More time to push the Canadian Government, China and Russia to reject the extra territorial bludgeoning that the US wants to apply to the world. I do hope that the BRICS are pursuing their alternative to the US $ as a Reserve Currency; application of Pro-Biotics to grow healthy stuff in the world’s financial systems.
Yeah, I know, more delay gives us more time to fight back, but I’m just getting bloody tired of it all!!!!
And for me, it has ONLY been one year since my ‘WTF/OMG’ moment. I can’t imagine what its been like for those who have been in the know for a couple years.
FI News, a German-language financial news service, has picked up the ABA’s FATCA deadline delay story (translation below):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.finews.ch%2Fnews%2Fbanken%2F13688-neuer-widerstand-gegen-fatca-in-den-usa
Arkansas Bankers Association portal has a headline story on the requested delay:
http://www.arkbankers.org/bankingheadlines.html
Exhaustion does indeed set in. Yet this is truly evil in its scope and intent. I wonder what James Jattras feels at this time.
@Nervousinvestor,
The evilness of it all, is what drives me. No matter how sick of it I get, it has become an obsession to kill the FATCA beast. I am sure many can relate.
So true WhiteKat. So very true.
I know some people don’t like the FATCA fiasco to be compared to what the Jews went through, but this is persecution no matter how you cut it.
‘US persons’ throughout the world, may not be lead away to the gas chambers, but we are definitely outcasts and second class citizens in the countries we live in and are citizens of due to the USA’s insistence on taxing and penalizing those who do not live in the USA, do not earn USA sourced income, and do not cost the USA a single dime (other than for the processing of tax returns and FBARS which they insist we submit to).
How long is it going to take for the rest of the world, to wake up, take notice, and do something about it, other than to admit defeat?
We like to think we are so much more civilized and evolved, then we once were, but human nature never changes. It would of course be unacceptable (not to mention illegal) to gas us, or to burn us on a stake, but its OK to turn a blind eye against injustice and to submit financial data that will cause financial ruin to a person (death of a sort) to a foreign country.
Well stated, WhiteKat.
@ WhiteKat
I could not state it better. In this world our financial identify and privacy is so priceless.
It’s like Bill Maher’s guest (someone formerly with the NSA) said in response to anyone who says they don’t care about NSA spying because the have nothing to hide. He said, what you think is irrelevant – it’s what the government thinks.
…and as Joni Mitchell said “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”.
@WhiteKat
It’s certainly comparable to the early stages of the Holocaust. The Germans didn’t start with gas chambers–they started with less persecutions, many of which were financial in nature and not that different from FATCA.
@bubblebustin
I watched that interview. And OMG, you think like me in music songs.
I can’t help but feel like I am going back to the times of over 40 years ago.
@Dash1729
I have always been interested in Europe history, especially the events that led up to WWII especially with what happened to the Jewish people.
Silence, apathy and ignorance led to what happened to those persecuted. And murdered. The Jewish people themselves never believed or imagined what was to come and that is why many stayedmto be later rounded up.
I am staying around the corner of where a memorial momument to the Holocaust is. One says over 200,000 mentally challenged and people with disabilities were “euthanized” in Europe. Hitler signed the order in 1939.
Who spoke up for them?
I almost hope the FATCAnatics at Treasury have a deaf ear, like the administration did on ObamaCare, and let the cockup begin! I think at this stage it is almost better to let it melt down, rather than give them more time.
Has anyone got the latest on the Swiss referendum campaign and how close they’re to getting the 50,000 signatures? If they have to hold the referendum that might slow the FATCA train with potential IGA countries quite rightly able to say let’s wait for the Swiss first.
A NO would be a major setback putting the US in the position of being seen as a bully.
@WhiteKat
I’ve never made the comparison to 1930’s Germany out loud, but I’ve certainly thought it in my head. I think a lot of us have.
BTW, does anyone have any information on whether any of our Canadian constitutional experts (i.e. a Peter Hogg type) would consider a class action suit if/when any of this nonsense comes to fruition? I know this is totally getting ahead of ourselves, but I’m in a fighting mood the last couple of days!
@Marie, I’ve been told that Mr. Hogg is not interested in litigating this.
@Don…
You might place your question over on this Thread, as some of the participants in the Stop FATCA referendeum have responded to questions there…
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/10/19/fatca-breaking-through-fear-with-a-swiss-referendum-2/
@Marie,
I believe some Brockers have another constitutional lawyer on stand by to launch a class action lawsuit once an IGA is signed.
The text in this document – a draft for the King’s Speach at the outbreak of World War II – is so relevant today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512662/Its-long-winded-What-George-VIs-adviser-thought-early-draft-Kings-Speech.html
A little history lesson for Nervous Investor
“Here again, the airbrush and the Vaseline are partners. When Neville Chamberlain managed to outpoint the coalition of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Churchillian Tories and to hand to his friend Hitler the majority of the Czechoslovak people, along with all that country’s vast munitions factories, he received an unheard-of political favor. On his return from Munich, he was invited to drive straight to Buckingham Palace. A written message from King George VI urged his attendance, “so that I can express to you personally my most heartfelt congratulations. . . . [T]his letter brings the warmest of welcomes to one who, by his patience and determination, has earned the lasting gratitude of his fellow countrymen throughout the Empire.” Thus the Munich sellout had received the royal assent before the prime minister was obliged to go to Parliament and justify what he had done. The opposition forces were checkmated before the game had begun. Britain does not have a written Constitution, but by ancient custom the royal assent is given to measures after they have passed through both houses of Parliament. So Tory historian Andrew Roberts, in his definitively damning essay “The House of Windsor and the Politics of Appeasement,” is quite correct to cite fellow scholar John Grigg in support of his view that by acting as they did to grant preemptive favor to Chamberlain, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter to you) “committed the most unconstitutional act by a British Sovereign in the present century.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/3545462-452/churchill-king-chamberlain-speech-royal.html