Is Obama picking Merkel’s pocket? Germany paid 656 million EUR to help America collect supposed 92 million EUR from dual US/German citizens. German bank customers each paid 12 EUR for the privilege of supporting Barack’s budget.
Do you suppose that we could immediately dispel any myth that Americans in America are sending their money to Germany to avoid taxation? I know it might be hard for a guy like Mythster Stack, but let’s try.
USA’s estimated FATCA take was 8.7 billion USD over 11 years (or 7.9 billion USD over 10 years). (Never mind that all of that supposed revenue disappears by lost taxation of US-owned foreign financial institutions) Knowing that “fair share” is a common theme of the Obama administration, Germany should be assumed to provide its per-capita share of FATCA income. (Well, then again, it could mean more, since, to Obama, “fair share” means that someone other than he or his hangers-on have to foot the bill for his largesse). Germany’s population is 1.16% of the non-US world population. Hence, the theoretical Obama FATCA take from Germany ought to be 91,640,000 USD. At the averaged exchange rates of the IRS itself, Obama’s FATCA Euro take out of Germany is a measly 74, 700,000 EUR.
(alternatively, let’s suppose that Germany’s “fair share” is as 1 country of the 190 countries of the world. This means that Germany might be contributing 41,600,000 USD / 33,800,000 EUR.)
This is a method of analyzing German FACTA implementation costs. German FATCA implementation was estimated to be 386 million EUR upfront, and 30 million EUR per year thereafter: 656 million EUR over a standard 10 years. Knowing that interest rates are near zero, there is no need to consider Present Values.
So, Obama required Germany to pay 656 million EUR so as to help USA get 74,700,000 EUR? Obama could have just done the greatest economic con ever done on another country. Obama enacted this con with LOADS of tax propaganda, calling countries such as Germany “offshore”, that Americans were sending their money to Germany in order to avoid taxation. In reality, all Obama was doing was to get Germany’s banks to identify the 109,000 Americans living in Germany.
Whaddya say we just stop here and let this ludicrousness stand for itself? Well, no, it all just gets worse.
Germany’s EU rep says that it has to “thank America for this (FATCA)” (at 49:00 of this video).
Germany also believes that it is going to get reciprocal information from USA, which ought to be worth a few deutschmarks? Yeah, right, Germany already started delivering up its data last year, and it is still waiting for that reciprocal data, as described in its IGA “The Government of the United States acknowledges the need to achieve equivalent levels of reciprocal automatic information exchange with … Germany. The Government of the United States is committed to further improve transparency and enhance the exchange relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany by pursuing the adoption of regulations and advocating and supporting relevant legislation to achieve such equivalent levels of reciprocal automatic exchange.” Dear Germany, other than the “r”, what part of “total bullshirt” don’t you understand?
As Germany waits each year for its reciprocity, it justs keeps paying 30 million EU each year. That’s 30 million every year til heck freezes over.
So how does this affect those poor schmucks that are resident in Germany? The German population at end of 2014 is available in many sources at 81,198,000 . This yields FATCA cost of 8.07 EUR per capita. Each German could feed 45 meals to a starving African for that amount. Or, that German could feel so happy to know that he has funded the US government budget for 0.0001 seconds. Which one do you think that a socially-conscious German would prefer to support? (well, yeah, I guess we all realize that Europe luvvvvvvs Obama).
How does this affect a German financial institution—what the US Treasury calls an “FFI”? (You know, those guys that lobbied their own German government to make an Intergovernmental Agreement with United States to make their submission go through more smoothly?) Well, as of Jan 2016, there are 4390 FFI’s. This yields their average FATCA estimated implementation cost at 149,000 EUR. That’s actually pretty cheap! It’s normally stated that “medium sized” FFI’s should expect costs of $100,000 to $500,000 .
We can look at the percentage of “adults”, which, with available statistics can only be considered as those above 15 (87%). Germany has no data, but in Italy, 2/3rds of the adult population are bank customers. This yields a per customer cost of (corrected 17 Feb) 17.11 USD or 13.91 EUR–for every German bank customer to subsidize the Obama lust for any money which he has not yet acquired.
And, well, what is an American worth in Germany? There are 108,845 of those pesky little American barstards nesting in the Fatherland. That makes each one of them worth 6027 EUR (note, this was corrected 15 Feb) . Hey, Barack! Germany has higher taxes than America! Most every US person living in Germany pays higher taxes to Germany! With the tax treaty, and with the Foreign Income Exclusions /credits, those little barstards don’t owe you one dime! How do you think that you are going to shake that kind of money out of them?
(new 17 Feb) Given the percentage of adults and percentage of adult bank customers from above, it is calculated that the cost of locating each account of those pesky Americans is 10,390 EUR.
Well, there could be a few German-citizen schmucks living in USA as expats. I suppose that Obama wants to find them, too. There ought to be a few of those pesky buggers with checking accounts back in the fatherland, from their devious history of once having lived someplace other than America. But, the U.S. census does not count them. So, one would have to surmise those numbers.
When you do the numbers, which neither Obama nor his 2010 Congress ever did, it just makes no sense. What we do know, however, is that Germany caved against America’s threat of 30% sanctions upon all of its common financial transactions. It can lead one to the conclusion that:
-Politicians in Germany have no balls
-Politicians in Germany have no brains
It just might be that Germany really is run by a bunch of farcking idiots.
p.s. Recently, it was pointed out as to where to find foreign-born population in the USA. 582,727 +/- 12,951 residents of USA are counted to have been born in Germany as non-US citizens Germans. This quantity is not significant (less than 1%) in the above calculations. Data can be found at
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_B05006&prodType=table
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born/about.html
Note that, indeed, FATCA’s objective is also to locate foreign-born persons residing in USA. Like US persons living in Germany, Germans living in USA are required to file their FBARs & 8938’s and all of their other tax papers. Many of these persons have inheritances and savings and checking accounts from their former lives and for their current life. Perhaps they have summer houses or inherited family homes or checking accounts for supporting children who are studying in Germany. These persons indeed are due to report their situations to the IRS, yet they are far from “those offshore tax evaders” for which FATCA propoganda is claiming.
656,000,000 / (108,845 + 582,727 ) yields 949 EUR per the FATCA-indicia objects (US citizens in Germany + German-born persons in USA) .
if you see some math errors, I will be glad to fix
Not only Germany was fooled by this never intended reciprocity from the US side, but every other country that signed as well. How can they all be such fools, knowing with whom they were dealing this. The US has no intentions whatsoever of reciprocating, ever. Yet, all of the US slave/satellite nations must obey, Germany included. Interestingly, recently the US has been designated as the world largest tax haven and since January 2016, thousands of accounts in Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere have been closed and the funds transferred to US banks, who will protect the identities of the fraudsters who are hiding their money there.
My banker suspects that FATCA was created exactly for that reason, in order to make all other nations extremely unattractive for people to evade taxes and hide their money in. The US now can intentionally recover recently departed clients from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, the UK and elsewhere and give them a place to hide their money and protect their privcy. So, the US is the new Switzerland! That means more income and deposits into the US economy than FATCA ever will ever bring. The US will never sign on to the OECD bank exchange agreement and the US will never honour its FATCA reciprocal agreements either. Yet all of the US slave/satellite nations are obeying, watching the US become the worlds largest and most protected tax haven and knowingly helps them achieve that, at great cost to their own citizens. That has to be the most sinister plan ever hatched in the financial world. The US is now the jury and the policeman. the only thing, they will never prosecute their own financial industry for making tax evasion and being a tax paradise into an art form.
-Politicians in Europe have no balls
-Politicians in world have no brains
-Hope Chines and Russian valutas will supstytute $ as finantion power
At the onset of FATCA countries could have complained about it’s cost. Many of them though loved the idea of getting their hooks into a lot more income. They all jumped up and down to become part of CRS. Germany is one. CRS is much more costly to comply with than FATCA.
@Michael
“So, the US is the new Switzerland!”
Correct, the Washington hillbillies have always been pointing their fingers at Switzerland (et al) whilst America has become the ultimate money laundering tax haven. Relentless American deceptions… typical.
And here in the European Union, Brussels continue to allow Member-States to enforce Fatca as if nothing is wrong. Typical stupid Eurocrats…
The political class hasn’t a clue. The public is so darn mad they are mounting a voter revolution and the politicians are so smugly comfortable they will sit in their comfortable chairs and find they have been replaced by concerned citizens from the Tea Party and independents.
I thought we’d have to mount a shooting revolution to get a new order, but i was wrong. They are so pissed off at the politicians that it won’t be necessary to shoot their way into office. ‘Viva La revolution’ .
Re the big fat glaring lack of ‘reciprocity’, I just read this article today;
“……..
3.3.3. Preliminary remarks
As a result, there are provisions of Model 1A that ratify that the FATCA partners has more extensive obligations to report information to the United States than from the United States back to the FATCA partners, demonstrating a clear lack of reciprocity.[246] Likewise, article 4, paragraph 6 does not contribute to clarify the level of reciprocity under IGA Model 1A
due to its in extreme complicated text. Thus, a reformulation of the text in the “coordination timing” provision is necessary to grant a minimum level of reciprocity in practice, mostly considering that article 6 of Model 1A constitutes a simple declaration of intent with no practical effects.[247]
Additionally, the author considers that the current lack of reciprocity could be an argument for the FATCA partners to refuse the exchange of information in the future, considering that the supply of information could represent a violation of their domestic legislations.[248] Likewise, the current “reciprocity status” represents a step back in the recognition of the principle of reciprocity in other agreements of this nature.[249]
Finally, the conclusion that the IGAs lack of reciprocity should not vary by an interpretation of the most-favoured nation (MFN) clause included in article 7 of IGA Model 1A.[250] Generally, this article grants the FATCA partners the benefits of any most favourable terms included in another IGA, applying automatically, and assuming the United States the obligation to notify the FATCA partner regarding such more favourable terms. In this regard, neither paragraph 1 nor 2 of article 7
recognize the obligation of the United States to provide equivalent levels of information to the FATCA partners.[251] On the contrary, the MFN clause just reduces the obligations of the contracting partners with the United States, which in any case can be interpreted as an intention to assume equivalent levels of information exchange. [252]”…
from;
Parada, Leopoldo, Intergovernmental Agreements and the Implementation of FATCA in Europe (June 24, 2015). World Tax Journal Vol. 7, No. 2, 2015.
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2720182
Exactly how likely is it that other countries like Germany thought that the IGAs would actually result in ‘reciprocity’ from the US? And what exactly did Canada believe they were getting on top of the agreement they already had?
I think they were just pretending to believe in potential reciprocity, and offering up that pretense to their citizens and residents in order to come up with a rationalization to sell the really bad deal they knew they were signing on to. NZ for ex. made its bad deal and the coercion by the US very clear;
..”.What would happen if New Zealand didn’t pass a law to allow FATCA reporting?
If there was no change to New Zealand law, financial institutions in this country would, unless certain exceptions applied, have to pay a 30 percent withholding tax on certain US income. This financial cost would undoubtedly be passed on to a broad range of New Zealand consumers.
Most New Zealand banks receive some US income. For instance, US Treasury bonds play an important role in setting global interest rates, and are often used by banks to reduce their exposure to interest rate risk.
If New Zealand did not pass a law to allow FATCA reporting, banks and other financial institutions in this country may be unable to comply with FATCA without breaching the privacy principles relating to the collection and disclosure of client information..”..
https://www.privacy.org.nz/news-and-publications/guidance-resources/fatca-faqs/#FATCA7
The Cons and the rest of the Canadian parliament were made fully aware of the lack of reciprocity, ex. here https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/4/8/elizabeth-may-4/ which was obvious to the Cons who shoved it through, and to the Liberals who inherited it and who so far appear to be set on betraying themselves by defending against our lawsuit regarding something they spoke out against, on the public record – clearly and unequivocally recorded for posterity in Hansard. When you look at the record, the entire rationale was about avoiding the 30% witholding on Canadian banks, NOT about any gains re ‘reciprocal’ information exchanges.
This is a Liberal MP pointing out what is entirely obvious about the lack of reciprocity;
June 11th, 2014 / 8:35 p.m.
Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg Bourassa, QC;
“Mr. Speaker, first, let us start with the last point. The member mentioned FATCA and the information exchange with the Americans. He did say “information exchange”, but no provision is made for any exchange in the agreement that was signed. The Canada Revenue Agency will give the information of taxpayers who have dual citizenship to the IRS in the United States. That is not an information exchange. We do the work for the Americans. I should also mention to the honourable member that the Canada Revenue Agency already exchanges information with other countries…”
Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1
Government Orders
https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/6/11/emmanuel-dubourg-3/
There is ample evidence to show that the goverment of Canada did not expect information exchange or reciprocity from the US. They already knew full well that they weren’t getting anything they didn’t already have under existing tax treaties with the US.
It was all about avoiding the confiscatory and unwarranted imposition of the 30% withholding – an economic sanction created without just cause.
Roughly ten years ago (if it was that long), an employee of UBS studiously and, one by one, culled the bank account information of each and every German customer. It took him months. He then loaded all the info onto a hard drive, essentially violating bank rules and setting himself to be fired immediately if caught. He didn’t care. By his calculations is would be worth it.
I forget all the details but basically he contacted the German government and said; This is who I am, this is what I did. If you want the info, it will cost you X.
I suppose after some bargaining the German government was only too happy the cough up the not insignificant sum he was asking for. Reportedly, this enterprising young snitch got at least ten million out of the deal.
This whole affair was all over the local newspapers and on TV, off and on for weeks, and shook the Swiss banking industry to the rafters. The info thief was either a hero or a villain depending on who you talked to. Personally I despise the guy for what he did but admire his cleverness. He defines the term “making out like a bandit.”
So there is no confusion; Wealthy Germans do take residence in Switzerland in low tax cantons (states) like Vaud, or Zug, and do this quite quite above board and legally. Michael Schumacher is one example. What Germans living in Germany are not allowed to do is hide un-taxed income abroad. This is the info that made the info thief an instant millionaire.
All this to say that if Fatca had been based on ferreting out tax cheats then they should have set bar much higher, like at 1 million to pull a figure out of my hat. Then the US government could have offered any FFI a bounty of ten, maybe 15% of any taxes recovered.
Better yet, washington politicians can quit fantasizing that American expats are sleazy millionaires living in chateaus in France and driving Ferraris. The truth is most of us are working stiffs who just happen to like living abroad. I personally never made more that 5000 USD a month in the thirty years I’ve been in Switzerland. I’ve never met an American millionaire here either although I’ve met plenty who were just getting by, like me.
I have also learned that when visiting the homeland you never tell anyone you meet that you live in Switzerland. It usually cuts dead the conversation. Either they think you’re a liar out to impress them with bs, or they think you’re from Mars. If I meet a stranger I just say I’m from a State other than the one I’m in if the question’s asked.
Americans don’t generally like the idea of expats. They can’t understand someone actually living abroad, or wanting to. That’s why I think the vast majority, if polled, would agree that we get hammered worse than they do by the IRS.
@Eric in Switzerland,
re;”I’ve never met an American millionaire here either although I’ve met plenty who were just getting by, like me.”
And how many American millionaires do they realistically think exist? Chances are that they’re mostly inside the US. And if they have a lot of money they can afford advisors to help them get around things using loopholes.
There is a reason that Commerce Secretary Pritzker’s family trust is offshore in the Caymans, and Treasury Secretary Lew held offshore Cayman Island investments.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-21/pritzker-s-54-million-family-trust-fee-seen-as-unique
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1021240866485552520
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324906004578292574109861976
Those in the know can use the loopholes, and be appointed to top US government posts in charge of Commerce, and the US Treasury – to which the IRS reports.
@ Eric in Switzerland
So there was an earlier $10million dollar bank snitch who may have inspired the more recent $104million dollar man, Bradley Birkenfield, whose actions unleased the rabid dogs of FATCA. Actually I wondered at the beginning of this nightmare if the IRS might have offered an under the table remuneration to all those governments who so blithely sold out their sovereignty and citizens to the US masters by signing those IGAs and abrogating their own laws to validate what they’d done. I hadn’t thought of a direct finders fee to the FFIs. Obviously what happened instead is the governments turned their revenue collection agencies into IRS agents at their own expense and the FFIs took on the enormous expense of setting up and maintaining the US FATCA regimen. Such is the economic clout of the USA.
‘@badger
Indeed. Most wealthy Americans stay at home and only go to Switzerland and other “exotic” places for holidays. The truth is that Switzerland, the only example I know well, is very expensive and the culture shock for a sociable, fun loving American millionaire can be downright depressing. It takes years to make friends here and the Swiss aren’t really sociable, to be quite honest. After living here a few months most Americans are ready to get back to Miami. Switzerland is many things but it ain’t fun.
Not only that, but even before Fatca it was no easy endeavor to get a residence permit here no matter how much money you had. Being rich may help but not much.
The reason famous actors love to live here is because the Swiss people leave them alone. Your common Swiss could care less of you’re famous and would never be so rude as to bother your for an autograph. When I first moved here in 1985 you could open the phone book and look up famous people because unlisted numbers were only accorded to diplomats. I lived in a small village within shouting distance the late Peter Ustinov. His number was in the village phone book. For fun I looked up David Niven in Chateau d’ Oex. It was there though it was his widow’s number. I didn’t call. I just wanted to find the numbers.
All this to say that Switzerland has never been so much a tax refuge, although it has that attribute, as much as it is a haven for famous people tired of getting hounded by obnoxious fans in public. The Swiss will glimpse, smile, or even stare for a moment at ,say, George Clooney, but that’s about it with few exceptions.
Anyhow I got off on a bit of a tangent there…sorry. I just wanted to say that I truly believe it’s a fantasy on the part of washington politicians to think that Switzerland is harboring countless American millionaires, or was, even before Farce-ca. I doubt if there’s ten living here.
@EmmBee
Offering remuneration like you suggest would have been the easy, logical and effective solution; and that’s exactly why it wasn’t even considered by Washington.
Winston Churchill once famously said (paraphrasing here) that America always does the right thing after she’s exhausted all other options first.
The usual way of handling these extra costs is by setting up another tax for us-citizens: “FATCA-Abgabe” for those “damm bloody americans hanging around in our fatherland”.
Did not know, that beeing born in the wrong place would ever bring me into this kind of situation.
Someone should contact Sophie Int’ Veld’s office about an IBS style lawsuit in the EU, she’d probabl help.
@Don
I talked with Sophie in ‘t Veld a few months ago. I think the idea would be more convincing to her if the other posters on this thread would unite in drafting a common inquiry. And, of course, to any NL politician, it would help to have a few Dutch names on any inquiry. The folks at http://www.americansoverseas.org/ might be a start, but they have their own interests.
@seniorexpat – What would convince Sophie more if an IBS Europe was set up and go to her as a committee. I believe the funding over there should focus on a combination of crowd funding, identifying those EU citizens (with US taint and deeper pockets), and get together expertise to lower the ‘overheads’ of this venture.
We need expertise in the legal, marketing, fundraising, IT, lobbyist, accounting, and Press/PR fields. It would probably need to be based somewhere on the Continent with a London branch (to cover a UK / Ireland).
For success the identification of those ‘US persons’ is paramount. We need to start seeking out high profile ‘US persons’ such as Boris Johnson, Bonnie Greer, Zoë Wanamaker, Barbara Cassini, perhaps Vana on The Apprentice or Loren Gould who won investment on the Dragon’s Den.
I’m afraid people are going to have to call the IRS’ bluff and stick their heads above the parapet.
This problem is not going away. Even if the IGAs are struck down and the banks have to stop ‘data discrimination.’ the ultimate goal should be changing the bank’s KYC (Know Your Customer) process to create a profile of ‘Resident EU Citizen’ that defaults software to FATCA exempt status along with written confirmation that’s been down.
I would also move for banks to have as part of their online banking, a section you can view your ‘tax reporting’ status. That way you’ll always know what the bank is doing with that issue and who has been sent any data. The Government should bring in regulation to force the banks to do this.
With ‘Resident EU Citizen’ (REUC) status, the fact you’re born in the US or not shouldn’t matter from a tax reporting point of view. You become automatically FATCA exempt.
Even if someone renounce their US citizenship, you should not be subjected to the ‘US person’ witch hunt having to provide a FFI with CLNs etc. REUC status stops the ‘US person’ witch hunt there and then along with online confirmation accessible 24/7 showing your status regarding tax reporting by the bank. If your status changes, the bank should send out an email announcing any changes so your can challenge it.
Also let’s partner with the ACA to see if we can push them into taking positive action against FATCA with an EU legal challenge rather than hoping and praying the US Congress will see the error of their ways. Like nobody can see the damage inflicts on ‘US persons’ equally nobody can see the damage FATCA inflicts on the US economy with its drip fed effect damage. That’s why I have no faith in the US Congress.
That’s what I kind of have in mind.
If the war is going to be won, it has to resemble what we’re fighting. Battling against a US diplomatic service, compliance industry compliance money striking fear into banks, Governments deciding to walk away from this issue in favour of letting the courts sort out the mess, is what we need to fight.
@Eric in Switzerland:
“Anyhow I got off on a bit of a tangent there…sorry. I just wanted to say that I truly believe it’s a fantasy on the part of washington politicians to think that Switzerland is harboring countless American millionaires, or was, even before Farce-ca. I doubt if there’s ten living here.”
Yes, it’s a fantasy. I’m thinking there were a maximum of 14 at 2014. Swiss authorities can issue a residence permit under “important public interest” rules to non-EU citizens. These are thought to be issued primarily to wealthy people who want to live in Switzerland, although there can be other reasons. Between 2008 and 2014 a total of 14 Americans received a residence permit under this category:
http://www.parlament.ch/d/suche/seiten/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20141014
I also agree with your comment that many famous people who live in Switzerland appreciate the discretion and anonymity, i.e., most Swiss respect other people’s privacy.
@Don
“With ‘Resident EU Citizen’ (REUC) status, the fact you’re born in the US or not shouldn’t matter from a tax reporting point of view. You become automatically FATCA exempt.”
Sounds very practical, logical, efficient and straightforward. But try getting this concept across the very twisted minds of Eurocrats in Brussels as well as all Finance Ministers across Europe. Fatca must be challenged in the European courts for resolution, as European governments have proven themselves to be too incompetent to sort this out…
Posted originally on wrong thread:
@Eric in Switzerland
We certainly have had different experiences in Switzerland! I enjoyed myself in the 3 weeks I was first here in 76, made about 10 friends in that time, one of whose daughters was named after me. It was such fun that I came back again for 3 months that same year and met my husband. Out of the last 40 years, I’ve lived here for about 34.
I even loved this strange musical language – hearing it from groups at the next table, young and old – interspersed with outbursts of hilarity.
I do agree that what I considered the older generation at the time – now I am one of them – was more reserved, probably accounting for the only positive thing you had to say, that celebrities etc. are left alone.
Perhaps we are not the same age and perhaps you were in a different milieu when you arrived in 86. I know a number of U.S. here and we have all had extremely positive experiences with, of course, the exception of CH bowing down to the bully.
NB. This is not my first comment but I don’t remember my user name from 4 or 5 years ago. I intend to start commenting, first with some questions, I haven’t identified the appropriate thread yet altho maybe I’ll simply use one of the ones with high traffic.
New: As far as “homelanders” attitudes go, once they’ve got it clear that Switzerland is not Sweden (ex. Oh,, how’s the weather in Stockholm?), the reaction is quite positive and they all want to come visit – some of them even do.
@Topa
I did not mean to sound all that negative about CH. It is a wonderful country but for a typical gregarious American it will be a culture shock. I also contend that there’s no better country in the world for a megabucks millionaire than the US. Few US millionaires actually seek to live outside of the US’, whether Switzerland or elsewhere. Sure, many try to park their money here without actually living here, but that’s about over so can’t the US government leave the rest of us poor slobs in peace.
I’ve been here since March, 1985. Actually I’m half Swiss on my Mom’s side. She met my American dad when he went to hotel school here in 1948. They got married and he took his new bride to Ohio in 1950, where I was born in ’53.
There are indeed nice people here but it is true that it takes a while to meet and make friends. You should consider yourself lucky to have made so many friends in just ten weeks.
I pushing 63 so a fast & fun social life is less of a worry now. I’m quite happy in my family circle.
I don’t know why Americans mix up Sweden with Switzerland but it’s not uncommon.
Speaking of Fatca; about 2 years ago my elderly parents, well into their eighties, had their account blocked for nearly a year because my Dad is American. They are hardly rich and live very modestly off my Mother’s retirement account. My Dad is very frail, nearly blind, falls down a lot and is borderline senile. My sweet Mom can barely take care of him and is very weak and tired. So, I sometimes have dark fantasies about meeting, one by one, Chuck Schumer, Carl Levin and a few others in a dark alley one night and explaining to them the iniquities of Fatca with a tire iron…
Eric,
Many thanks for the clarification, I guess my reaction shows my patriotism towards my adopted country – just don’t want anyone to take the stereotypes that we do make, as humans, literally. I must also admit that one stereotype always comes to mind and brings a chuckle when I see the signs for the company Swiss Boring
I’m mainly down in the Ticino now in a Rustico on the mountain and am more isolated. A sister-in-law, nephews, a few long-term friends. Zurich area, more Swiss family and friends but don’t get there often anymore.
What happened (is happening) to your parents is reprehensible. I join you in your fantasy. I’m not ready to divulge anything about my situation at the time although I’d love to, suffice it to say that I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach back in 2011.
I’ve been reading every day for almost a year as I felt I had to keep up with any changes and also inure myself to it as my sporadic reading in the past left me sleepless and obsessed for some days. I will say I’m lucky in that I’ve been irresponsible and therefore have no investments, pension fund, etc.
What”s driving me now, more than keeping up with my options for the future, is the enormity of what this means in general. I think Alex in another thread said that we have to concentrate less on individual harms (that’s what the court cases must use) and more on general principles that anyone can understand. I find myself endlessly composing essays in my head, then discovering I cannot remember certain details – all my accumulated knowledge is so fragmented. Also I have the habit of reading on a tablet in bed with my morning coffee where it’s difficult to type or organize, one reason I haven’t been commenting.
But it’s almost like I have brain fever the last 2 weeks so now I’m at the desktop. I’m outside all day wording when it’s nice, but today it’s raining. I have a friend in NY of the “progressive” persuasion who has volunteered to write letters etc if only I can present her with a coherent simple exposition that she can use. I simply must take advantage of that. Another person comes to mind, also of the “P”P who might assist.
My only other option is Facebook. No reaction to links, altho the US court case loss did get me a “Pay your taxes or give up your passport. Jeez” The rebuttal to that is in composition. My idea now is rather than links, bring one item I write myself from time to time, with the entire point visible. I have trouble with links myself, due to time constraints I find myself opening in a new tab anything interesting so I can choose among them – we only get a teaser in the main post, never the punchline. Then I end up with a zillion open tabs I never get to. I’d like to see an ongoing thread here where we can vet such soundbites before posting there.
I believe the U.S. has made a colossal mistake. Look how angry we are. Think how the governments of our home countries, with their show of willing cooperation, must be smoldering with resentment.
Aargh
… as well as keeping up with options…
wording-working
Then there are the consequences of FATCA (hopefully) unintended. Foreign banks worldwide are terrified of dealing US persons. They’ll reluctantly open an account for a resident, to allow depositing salaries and paying bills, but may not allow any investments other than keeping the money in cash.
So instead of banking, people keep money in cash under the mattress, real estate, other nonreportable assets, not because they are trying to hide anything, but because they can’t deal with banks.
You’d think that with FATCA and secrecy waivers banks would allow (notice I said allow, not welcome) accounts from US persons residing in the US. In two major EU countries I know of one bank each which might (not will) allow (not welcome) such an account, if you have at least $1 million, if you’re willing to fly out to Europe to conduct business (no mail,phone, email to the US allowed.) And only certain investments are allowed (no US stocks or bonds, no PFICs.) Foreign banks are finding that it’s best to have no US accounts: nothing to report, no risks of fines.
Meanwhile, a nonresident foreigner opening an account in the US fills out a form W8 (not the W9 you and I fill out.) The W8 means that interest is NOT reported to the IRS. If the IRS has no info on foreigners, it can’t report what it doesn’t have to foreign governments. Take a look at form W8 and instructions right on the irs.gov website.
“The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has vowed to “fight” David Cameron’s migrant benefit reforms, saying it is illegal discrimination, reports Matthew Holehouse from the Telegraph].”
I wished he did the same for us suffering from extraterritorial taxation and its illegal side effects…