It is difficult to find a small enough violin to play for Mr. Stack and the United States Treasury. https://t.co/Sm3VUcRJaQ
— Allison Christians (@taxpolblog) May 16, 2016
by Julie Martin
The first tweet I saw this morning was the one above. Really liked the “small-enough-violin” image and curious enough to read it (even though I saw “BEPS” in the first paragraph).
At any rate, I laughed so hard the tears were running down my face. The irony, hypocrisy and completely delusional state of mind of the U.S. and it’s representatives such as Stack, is beyond comprehension.
I think we’ve found it!
(NB: MNE= Multi-National Entity)
The best ones/excerpts:
Countries participating in the OECD/G20 base erosion profit shifting (BEPS) project sought to rewrite international tax rules for the digital economy and for intellectual property to increase their tax take at the expense of the United States, said Robert Stack, Treasury deputy assistant secretary (International Tax Affairs), May 13, at a National Tax Association conference in Washington.
The irony "at the expense of the US" Why, one would think Mr. Stack had never heard of #FATCA <snarl> payback time! https://t.co/YWhuWi8XIJ
— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) May 16, 2016
According to Stack, during the BEPS negotiations countries were “more than happy to go after US multinationals who are US taxpayers because, after all, they don’t vote in those countries so [they are] a sitting target.”
“Wow, sounds an awful lot like why Treasury applies rotten US tax law to expats and gets away with it. No real vote = “sitting target.” How well WE understand that, MythsteR. Stack.”
The US is “one of the few countries that seems to have a vibrant digital economy,” consequently, the BEPS work in that area “had more of a flavor of people seeking to increase their revenue regardless of the principles that might be applied,” the US Treasury official said.
“BWWWWWWAAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAA! Seriously, are you kidding me?”
One of the extraordinary ways the United States did itself harm was to let this deferred income sit offshore and for every other country to think ‘by golly that must be mine,’ the US is not taxing it,’” he said.
“Born in the USA? “What’s yours is mine.” WE get first dibs on your tax-deferred accounts, capital gains from selling your house and we’ll tax/penalize the daylights out of you for buying “foreign” mutual funds. “Um, and your kids, we’ll take your kids too.”
Stack also said he found it personally frustrating that the US tax community does not seem to want tax certainty.
“Doh? Why would the tax compliance industry want tax certainty? As it stands now, the current IRC is so convoluted nobody understands it, all at the taxpayers’ expense. Why mess up a good thing?”
Stack also said that one of the “core drivers” of the BEPS project was the belief that if countries undertook collective action to agree to international tax rules, countries would not go their own way and enact laws inconstant with the international agreements.
“Did you say you had finally signed on to CRS MythsteR. Stack? So that means you’ll be dumping FATCA, right?”
2 percent of all profit shifting by US MNEs goes to seven tax haven locations: Caymans, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Ireland, and Singapore. US MNEs pay an effective tax rate less than 5 percent in each of these jurisdictions,
“USA – USA – USA“-
“The raw fact of the matter MythsteR. Stack, is that You Can’t Handle the Truth. You ARE Col. Jesup. You really BELIEVE the barrage of exceptionalist rationale that you spout off so self-righteously.”
“Oh, and BTW MythsterR. Stack, Cry me a River”…..
I think I found the world’s smallest (fully functional) violin for Allison Christians to play for MythsteR. Stack. See Item #3 …
http://www.oddee.com/item_96508.aspx
What is BEPS?
@Polly
BEPS is an initiative of the OECD. It stands for Base Erosion Profit Shifting. It is an attempt to stop multinational corporations from manipulating incongruent laws to their advantage to avoid/evade (?) taxes. At least I believe that is a fair description.
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/beps.htm
BASE EROSION AND PROFIT SHIFTING (BEPS)
http://www.oecd.org/g20/topics/taxation/
Undertaken at the request of the G20, the work to tackle base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) is based on the 2013 G20/OECD BEPS Action Plan, which identified 15 actions to curb international tax avoidance.
The package of measures is structured around three fundamental pillars:
*introducing coherence in the domestic rules that affect cross-border activities;
*reinforcing substance requirements in the existing international standards,
*to ensure alignment of taxation with the location of economic activity and value creation;
*improving transparency, as well as certainty for businesses and governments.
BEPS is a global problem which requires global solutions. For the first time ever in tax matters, OECD and G20 countries worked together on an equal footing. More than a dozen developing countries have participated directly in the work and more than 80 non-OECD, non-G20 jurisdictions have provided input.
http://www.oecd.org/g20/topics/taxation/beps-2015-final-reports.htm
@Polly
BEPS is Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, but sounds like something you’d take for acid indigestion. It’s really a cure for insomnia, though:
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/beps-about.htm
@EmBee
That violin is the perfect size match for his heart.
@EmBee
You just gave me the perfect pic to accompany the tweetfest I am about to engage in. Thanks!
http://bit.ly/1Th7CY3
OECD = Obsessive Economic Compulsive Disorder
(though far better than FATCA)
Should also cover #FATCA compliance cost erosion.
Maybe Stack got his violin lessons from Jack Benny as a child and pick up some of Jack’s sense of humour.
Perhaps that’s why he sees nothing wrong with his statements.
Thank you all for the explanation! SOOOO many abbreviations……
“It is difficult to find a small enough violin to play for Mr. Stack and the United States Treasury.”
Don’t forget…. exceptionalism nullifies any notion there’s hypocrisy in what Stack says.
That makes him immune to shaming.
Wow, deputy assistant secretary. Reminds of the Walmart management system, where everyone is an assistant deputy manager trainee in charge of household cleaning fluids or some such. Very humourous though. Clearly he’s as thick as a plank when it comes to his perception of US CBT.
http://www.bna.com/sticking-sore-thumbthe-b57982072499/
May 17, 2016
STICKING OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB—THE U.S., FATCA AND THE CRS (PART 2)
….” call made on May 11, by the Green/European Freedom Alliance group in the European Parliament, for the EU to “carefully scrutinise the U.S.” in creating its proposed blacklist of tax havens. “As a result of its tax regime(s), the US is getting more and more attractive as a tax haven for the world’s wealthy elite”, said the Greens’ spokesperson on tax, Molly Scott Cato. “The evidence points to the U.S. becoming one of the largest tax havens and the EU should not stand by and accept this.”
The timing of the Greens’ call is significant. This week, a delegation from the European Parliament’s special committee on taxation is visiting Washington on a fact-finding mission. Its conclusions will be eagerly awaited. “
While MYTHster Stack moans and whines about the unfairness of other nations taxing US corporations, while aiding and abetting the US Treasury’s threats and slander against the > 7 million US citizens/US taxable people living legal local lives entirely outside the US in those other countries;
….”……..in the meantime (and in this case, the meantime may well be a very long time indeed given the vested interest that some U.S. states have in upholding the secrecy afforded by their company-formation rules) the lack of reciprocity in FATCA leaves a massive US-shaped hole in the emerging global framework for automatic exchange. The upshot is that the U.S. could be about to become the biggest tax haven of them all.
According to some reports, this process is already well under way. “After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners”, Bloomberg reported in January:
“By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.”
The irony of the situation has not been lost on at least one foreign observer – a Swiss lawyer quoted in the Bloomberg report:
“How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour. That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”
This is one aspect of his legacy that President Obama may not care to dwell on.”
Mar 29, 2016
THE BIGGEST TAX HAVEN OF THEM ALL? THE U.S., FATCA AND THE CRS
http://www.bna.com/biggest-tax-haven-b57982069147/
It becomes even more difficult to listen to the Mythster in his current pronouncements when you read things he wrote BEFORE his current incarnation working for the US Treasury. I could be completely wrong that he and the author of the Tax Notes article I cite below are one and the same, but I think this is also him:
“March 8, 2013 Robert B. Stack Appointed U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary for International Tax Policy”
“Ivins, Phillips & Barker is proud to announce that Bob Stack has been appointed by the President as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs in the Office of Tax Policy at the US Department of the Treasury, effective as of March 11, 2013, where he will succeed Manal Corwin. Mr. Stack has been the head of Ivins’ international tax practice group since he joined the firm in 2007. In his new role, Mr. Stack will be the official representative of the Administration’s tax policy interests in international settings. He will be supervising and working closely with former Ivins partner Danielle Rolfes, who is currently serving as the Treasury Department’s International Tax Counsel…………….”
http://www.ipbtax.com/newsletter-67.html
I think that is also the same Stack that co-authored this 2012 article below;
‘Expedited Opt-Out Needed for OVDI Participants
Who Owe No Tax’, 2012 TAX NOTES
TODAY 21-12 (Jan. 30, 2012)
Robert B. Stack and Douglas M. Andre
http://docplayer.net/7588475-Tax-practice-tax-notes-expedited-opt-out-needed-for-ovdi-participants-who-owe-no-tax-by-robert-b-stack-and-douglas-m-andre.html
A sidebar to the article says;
“……. This article was motivated by a belief that the treatment given taxpayers described here is both bad tax policy and fundamentally unfair……”
Read it even though the title appears to focus only on the 2011 OVDI, because the authors addressed several points that are still very salient in terms of the IRS tactics, treatment and public characterizations of those it claims as UStaxablecitizens/persons in discussions now, and in the context of FATCA up to today. I appreciate the insight and motivation to right what Stack and his co-author correctly and pro-actively raise as fundamental unfairness re the treatment of ‘non-compliant’ US persons outside the US when and if they tried to become compliant in the manner that the US demanded at that time.
When I read the author’s concern about what was; “… bad tax policy and fundamentally unfair …” I find it hard to reconcile the Robert B. Stack who co-authored that article – with the figure I also think of currently as ” the Mythster” who is now Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs in the Office of Tax Policy at the US Department of the Treasury. If it is one and the same person, prior to being appointed to the US Treasury, he writes persuasively about how the IRS should have offered less punitive and clearer routes to declaring local, legal Canadian RRSP and other accounts (using Canadians and a French citizen as case study examples) and that the IRS should have provided better information, simpler, more efficient, less costly and less punitive routes to compliance, and with less punishment re US information reporting obligations and penalty structures imposed on legal local non-US accounts, and in my opinion, Stack particularly recognizes that many of the people the US sought to penalize and demonized in its public propaganda statements about ‘hidden’ ‘offshore’ ‘foreign’ ‘overseas’ accounts were ordinary taxpayers outside the US, compliant locally, many of whom would have effectively had zero to de minimis US tax owing, with no intent to evade or even avoid US taxes, much less the shadowy figures of international terrorists, money launderers, drug lords and criminals that FATCA casts us as.
The Robert B. Stack aka “the Mythster” of today, and the Robert B. Stack who wrote that paper are I think one and the same, with the same knowledge and experience of the inherent complexities, inequities and unwarranted and disproportionate punishment regimes ready to be levied on masses of ordinary people who are compliant taxpayers with legal local ordinary bank accounts in their home countries outside the US. Others in the IRS also knew how complex and incomprehensible and burdensome they were making the rules for those ‘abroad’, ex. re FATCA Form 8938 http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2013/07/01/fatca-interview-with-bill-yates-former-attorney-office-of-associate-chief-counsel-international-irs/ .
The current incarnation of Robert B. Stack as “the Mythster” is someone who spent a considerable time on the other side of the table in the not so distant past;
“….Prior to joining Treasury, Mr. Stack served as head of the international tax practice group at the law firm of Ivins, Phillips & Barker. In the private sector, he has over 26 years of experience in international tax matters, representing both corporations and individuals. His work for corporations has included structuring both inbound and outbound ventures, the establishment of efficient cross border structures, the formation of joint ventures and private equity funds and all aspects of international mergers and acquisitions.” http://www.pli.edu/Content/Faculty/Robert_Stack/_/N-4oZ1z12f7c
Consider how Robert Stack the Tax Notes author and head of a US international tax practice characterized the US tax system in terms of the complexity of reporting from outside the US:
In the context of the OVDI penalty treatment of those living outside the US, with legal local NON-US bank accounts and NO US income or relationship other than US citizenship by parentage or by birthplace, Stack says in 2012;
“…Even though he owes no U.S. taxes in any year, John’s ‘‘toll charge’’ for being an ill-advised U.S. citizen is one-twentieth of his life savings…”…
…….”..OVDI Penalties Inconsistent With Objectives In none of the above three examples is tax avoidance or evasion an issue. The circumstances of all three hypothetical taxpayers are radically dis- similar from intended OVDI participants. All three were ‘‘noncompliant’’ from the standpoint that they failed to file tax returns (showing zero tax owed), election forms, or FBARs. However, in none of the cases was tax avoidance or evasion an issue because no taxes were ultimately owed. In none of these cases did the use of foreign financial accounts have anything to do with tax evasion. These taxpayers opened foreign accounts simply because they worked and resided outside the United States. .”……
“……… favorable reasonable cause factors include that the taxpayer had a legitimate purpose for maintaining a foreign account (he was a resident there) and that there were no indications of efforts to intentionally conceal the reporting of income or assets.”
And yet, despite those types of statements published in Jan. 30, 2012 by a Robert B. Stack in private practice (who I think is the same one now working for the US Treasury) demonstrating that he knows very well from actual cases that there are many people just next door in Canada, or overseas in France and elsewhere, paying high local taxes, and holding legal local accounts for the very same reasons that those actually residing in the US do (receive wages, pay rent, buy food, pay taxes to their home country revenue agency and government where the accounts are registered, save for their children’s education and for retirement etc.) they are followed by these types of statements in 9/20/2013, once appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury:
“Myth No. 1: Some claim it’s [FATCA] overly costly and burdensome due to complex regulations and difficult to meet reporting requirements…….”…….
“Myth No. 3: Some claim that Americans living abroad will give up their U.S. citizenship because of liabilities and burdens created by FATCA……..”…….
from 2013 https://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Myth-vs-FATCA.aspx
Let me know if you find that I am wrong, and am confusing the Robert B. Stack of the Tax Notes article with the Mythster Stack incarnation of a Robert B. Stack.
It is very obvious to me that he knew very well what the effect of FATCA was intended to be, and would end up to be on all those living outside the US, and that the world is paying the bill for US privilege and free lunch. He knew very well the effect on the mass of dual Canadians just next door for example, and the pre-existing problems posed by treating our legal local bank accounts as ‘foreign’ for the purposes of FBAR, 3520/3520A, etc. which come with draconian and confiscatory layers of penalty structures and labyrinthine complexities, even before FATCA was invented and came into force to enforce them. Stack knew the pre-existing problems with the US treatment of RRSPs (and likely understands the punitive treatment of ordinary Australian superannuation and other non-US retirement plans and savings). So the Mythster knows very well that FATCA is a big stick that is beating primarily ordinary individuals (at the cost of our local tax revenues to implement) who are legal local account holders with legal local savings and who are most likely compliant with local tax systems – many of which impose higher taxes than the US, or who have a pre-existing tax treaty that is already extensive (Canada-US tax treaty) but with glaring tax gaps.
The Mythster knows that those deemed US taxable citizens and ‘persons’ are renouncing, relinquishing, and otherwise exiting or receding in response to FATCA as also “… bad tax policy and fundamentally unfair …”…”.
And now the world is to listen to that US Treasury spokesperson complain about source vs. residence taxation of US corporations, and other countries having the nerve to tax US corporations (ex. see video at http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/05/03-how-foreign-tax-changes-affect-us-businesses-and-prospects-for-tax-reform see Stack and at 39:04 he acknowledges ‘mobility’ and residence basis issues for corporations. Note also Manal Corwin formerly Deputy Asst. Secretary for International Tax Affairs United States Department of the Treasury FATCA enforcer now at KPMG, panel speaker on residence vs. source taxation, UNILATERAL action, preserving US interests being “eroded by the actions of other governments”… etc. http://www.pli.edu/Content/_/N-1z135i3Z4o http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/05/03-how-foreign-tax-changes-affect-us-businesses-and-prospects-for-tax-reform ) ?
While Stack apparently doesn’t give a damn about the unwarranted US economic sanction (“FATCA: a financial weapon of mass destruction” http://gaap-ifrs.com/news/140340/ ) represented by the FATCA withholding provision and threat, the US extraterritorial tax and sanction that FATCA represents on the local tax revenue holdings of every country in the rest of the world who waste those revenues to pay for domestic implementation of FATCA IGAs and ongoing enforcement by local enabling legislation and revenue agencies, and by the NON-US taxpayers who pay for FATCA implementation through their personal domestic non-US taxes and accountholder fees, and the millions of individuals with no US economic connection or actual residency that the US extraterritorially claims as US taxpayers?
Hypocrisy, the US is thy name…….
@badger
Most definitely one and the same:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-stack-85142a4
This is Stack (spelling error below where it says ‘Starks’) speaking at the EU Parliament, links courtesy of Just Me, and Tim, as posted on Victoria’s account of her attendance at a FATCA hearing;
See; Thursday, May 30, 2013
‘Public Hearing on FATCA at the European Parliament in Brussels ‘
http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2013/05/public-hearing-on-fatca-at-european.html
and
See ‘A Day at the European Parliament in Brussels’
“A day well spent in a city I like. Yesterday, a few of us showed up at the European Parliament to attend a public meeting on FATCA. It was group that well represented the forgotten stakeholders in this matter – the eggs that are being broken in the making of the FATCA omelet. There were dual EU/US nationals there and spouses of EU citizens and parents of dual European/American citizens.”……
Franco-American Flophouse http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-day-at-european-parliament-in-brussels.html
For links to the EU Parliament hearing, see these comments:
Tim said…
YouTube version should now be available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRoU-JNFhr0
May 29, 2013 at 9:39 PM
Just me said…
I put up a blotched comment (which I can not edit) on IBS with transcripts of Robert Starks opening statement and follow on answers to questions.
It is here…
http://bit.ly/113pc5C
Direct link to Part I of Starks
http://bit.ly/17uC520
Direct link to Part II of Starks
http://bit.ly/15b3jGp
And then Sophie. Love that gal!
Direct link to Part I of Sophie
http://bit.ly/15b3WzU
Direct link to Part II of Sophie
http://bit.ly/18zGj5t
Thanks forever to Victoria for attending that hearing, and for MEP Sophie in’t Veld for helping a fellow EU citizen to attend the ‘public’ hearing that was not so very ‘public’, and to Prof. Allison Christians for posting about it http://taxpol.blogspot.ca/2013/05/eu-public-hearing-on-fatca.html
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/05/31/public-hearing-on-fatca-at-the-european-parliament-in-brussels/
and other posts here;
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/fatca-and-the-eu/
@ badger
It’s either two different Stacks or one Stack with a very split personality. Fine digging, BTW … you always amaze me. One thing’s for sure … the revolving door of government to the private sector and visa-versa is NOT a myth.
@Embee, I’m sure if we look up other prominent FATCApologists and FATCAnatics like say Manal Corwin, we’ll find revolving doors like this one, which also includes the US compliance industrial complex;
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manalcorwin
While we are at it, let’s not forget Tara!
http://www.taxgrotto.com/2015/01/10/facta-specialist-tara-ferris-joins-oecd-to-advise-on-crs-implementation/
Yes Tara from the IRS (not to be confused with the Tara who posted the video in this comment):
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/11/25/the-best-fatca-video-yet-american-empire-and-the-most-important-law-youve-never-heard-of/comment-page-3/#comment-726348
Well worth listening to in comparing FATCA before and after all the delays, tweaks and tinkering.
@Bubblebustin, thanks for bringing up that link to the FATCA Tara-rrist of the IRS.
Actually, everyone should watch that video (scares me how I knew many/most of the acronyms). There is a really great moment (though short) where a few in the audience have a bit of sport with her – instead of asking deferential questions about how the sovereign nation of the UK can best service their extraterritorial Master the US Treasury/IRS, one from the audience asks about the il/legality of the IGAs (referring to the lack of Congressional approval). I think she was surprised by the cheek, but the Tara-rrist knows what they refer to, and gives the approved evasive answer (which we’ve read in some form before) that they have concluded IGAs and are concluding several more in progress…. basically, saying, just watch us, it is enough that it is a fait accompli. Which of course just means that US extortion using withholding as a club to beat the world with is a potent enough threat to get everyone to play along and pretend, and Tara-rrist takes the position that it is beside the point whether it is legitimate, or even legal. Someone in the audience must have been reading Allison Christians. The word was out there about the problem with the dubious legal status of the IGAs, even if we’re mostly the only ones who bring it up – FATCA is like the naked Emperor farting in a crowded room – everyone knows the US has its bare butt hanging out and stinking but no-one is going to point fingers or ask it to leave – they don’t dare. Everyone knows the US isn’t going to sign on to the CRS, so they invented a special footnote to pretend that is okay. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiCo7rS4OfMAhWLXRoKHUbXBEgQFgggMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oecd.org%2Ftax%2Ftransparency%2FAEOI-commitments.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFynJaMMr-gCRs6mC3vrHmMdL5GQA
The IRS Tara-rrist is so very matter of fact as she tells those in the UK just exactly what they’re going to do.
@badger
Your analysis again is outstanding.
Here’s a juicy bit from the link contained in sph’s post,
“Tara’s new role is to provide technical advice on the implementation of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), including the exploitation of synergies between CRS and FATCA, and the standard for automatic exchange of financial information on tax matters.”
IRS insider, FATCA Borg (resistance is futile) now brought in by the OECD (which has openly condemned the US for its lack of cooperation in information exchange under CRS and FATCA). The “synergies between CRS and FATCA”? What practicalities does that have when the US views FATCA as the golden standard – lack of reciprocity and all?
And @Bubblebustin, the OECD is dominated by the US anyway, hence their special footnoted status re the CRS – the only country that gets its own special category despite having no intention to implement the CRS. “Synergy” in this case means ensuring that the OECD serves the US via FATCA demands – which is all the US cares about.
The TARA-rrist demonstrated that the US is giving the orders and expects compliance from the rest of the world.