Can move this discussion further, after the little interesting budget thing in the Senate:
badger says
The FATCA-Mythspinning machine leaps into action:
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/237110-endorsing-tax-evasion
March 27, 2015, 03:00 pm
‘Endorsing tax evasion’
By Rebecca J. Wilkins
“..The U.S. loses an estimated $150 billion in tax revenue each year to tax haven abuse – a revenue shortfall that honest taxpayers have to make up. About $40-70 billion of that revenue loss is from individual tax evasion…”
.”To oppose FATCA is to oppose transparency and cooperation and take the United States out of its leadership role in combating tax evasion. The United States Congress is faced with a choice. It can stand for openness, transparency, and honesty – or for tax evasion, secret bank accounts, and subterfuge.
In the geeky tax world, we often refer to FATCA as FATCATS. It helps us remember the acronym. The FATCATS are the ones with those offshore bank accounts. Will members of Congress protect them? Or will they stand with American people?
Wilkins is the executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition.”
Same old bullshit numbers pulled out of someone’s, er, pocket. And this deliberate lie makes me sick; “The United States Congress is faced with a choice. It can stand for openness, transparency, and honesty – or for tax evasion, secret bank accounts, and subterfuge.”
Right, that’s why the US Treasury signed IGAs that they have no authority to enter into, and why US banks do not and will not be providing EQUIVALENT RECIPROCAL information to other countries on all accounts held in the US. And why the US hasn’t and won’t sign on to the OECD CRS. No mention of the dirty secret of US extraterritorial taxation based on who your parent was or the geographic location where your mother gave birth…..
Let us remember those US resident homelanders who I am sure want a more transparent system – as long as they have the inside track on jiggling the rules for their own benefit:
ex. Take the Pritzker family trusts:
“……President Barack Obama’s nomination today of Chicago businesswoman and Forbes 400 member Penny Pritzker to be the Secretary of Commerce, her family’s legendary use of hundreds of offshore trusts to protect its wealth from taxes and the prying eyes of the Internal Revenue Service…..”……
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/05/02/pritzker-family-baggage-tax-saving-offshore-trusts/
‘Pritzker Trust Dodges Illinois State Income Tax’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2014/01/02/pritzker-trust-dodges-illinois-state-income-tax/
Plenty more material where that came from.
Yet, local legal everyday accounts in Canada – held where we live, to hold post tax wages, pay bills, save for education, disability, retirement, etc. are to be reported to the FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK, because the US treats the education savings of a child in Canada with a US born parent as so much more likely to be ‘offshore’ assets belonging to a tax evader than say, the US resident owners of the family trusts like those of the current Commerce Secretary.
I see that “..This month’s Haydon Perryman and William Byrnes FATCA Update post starts with a tip-of-the-hat to my FATCA and CRS research colleague Haydon Perryman who has just moved to UBS Investment Bank where he will be responsible for global regulatory reporting of FATCA and the CRS. …”
http://www.kluwertaxlawblog.com/blog/tag/williambyrnes/
http://www.kluwertaxlawblog.com/blog/2015/05/11/fatca-giin-update-may-2015/
@Badger
Somebody told me the other day they heard of somebody being put in charge at UBS for “american customers” and it seems these are homelanders!!! UBS has gained many new customers in spite of all the pervious hype. So it looks like Americans IN America are putting their money at UBS Switzerland for safekeeping…..?
@Polly, unless what they mean by “Americans” also includes Swiss born-American duals, or Swiss who work in the US as greencard holders/permanent residents and who have pre-existing Swiss accts left behind at home? Apparently that scenario has meant problems or denials of service even to those who were originally Swiss citizens who then at some later date moved to the US for work/business reasons. but leaving assets/accounts behind in Switzerland (either because the assets/accts could not be transferred or closed, or because they intended to return to Switzerland).
At one point I came across some immigration stats showing the number of Swiss companies with business in the US, and the no. of Swiss individuals who were employed in the US, but I can’t find it now.
Swiss investment and businesses in the US are significant and the investment includes investing in American workers – and apprenticeship training;
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/exporting-apprenticeships_short-on-workers–a-swiss-company-trains-them-stateside/41211568
http://www.commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2015/01/fact-sheet-white-house-swiss-foreign-direct-investment-united-states
It is to US advantage to encourage the Swiss to invest in the US, and to invest in the US labour force, bringing their apprenticeship programs to benefit US workers.
Why then is it okay to make it punitive for those who relocate to the US to hold on to their pre-existing assets and accounts – with reporting that penalizes the smallest error with draconian consequences? Making no distinction between those US homelanders with offshore trusts (Hello Penny Pritzker) and those who left their local legal savings behind in their homeland.
@Badger
I know nothing about that. What I heard was that UBS had GROWN. I`m talking new customers- who are american. As far as I understood it, these are Americans who are placing their money in UBS accounts and they needed somebody to take care of them. Sounds to me like they don`t trust Bank of America? At any rate- more money, new customers, growth sounds like MORE american clients to me who are compliant- although I might have misunderstood.