320 thoughts on “This is Fantastic! Don’t Think We Have Ever Had Support Like this!”

1. My experience crossing the US border has taught me that it always works best when I let the guy in the booth ask the questions while I respond to those questions with the shortest, most direct answer I possibly can. Monosyllables work perfectly; i.e. don’t volunteer stuff he didn’t ask about but also don’t appear to be indecisive.

   The guy is not there to be your friend and no good can ever come from trying to move the conversation off on a tangent. The objective is to be released as soon as possible, not to have a friendly chat about stuff that to him could well be a touchy subject. When the man says go, I drop it in drive and get the hell out of there before he has a chance to change his mind.

2. Never volunteer anything at the border. Never appear voluntarily at the border. You don’t want to end up like this poor guy, who decided to pop down and ask a question during his lunch break.

   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/canada-doctor-sardar-ahmad-us-border-detained

3. Ok, my questions will go unasked.

4. If there had been a Nexus office on the Canadian side that Dr Sardar Ahmad could have visited, he could have asked questions without the risk of being held for hours at the border. We have such an office in YVR airport. The NEXUS officers have less powers than the officers in US pre-clearance at the airport who can stop you, or detain you unless you withdraw your application to enter. Under new Canadian laws expected soon, the pre-clearance officers will be able to detain you even if you change your mind about travelling; more loss of Canadian sovereignty.

   Maz57 and Nononymous offer good advice about how to act at the border. When driving Canada-US with a NEXUS Trusted Traveler card, sometimes there are no questions, and sometimes as many as you would expect in a regular slow lane. Here’s is the Q&A from a last week’s trip I made to send dual-status tax and expatriation paperwork to the IRS by Certified Mail.

   Where are you going? (Typical starter question)
   – Blaine (the border town after the crossing)
   Where in Blaine are you going? (Probing some more)
   – The Post Office
   What for? (Possible commercial goods?)
   – To mail a letter. (True)
   What are you mailing? (Still could be commercial, prohibited or dutiable, but less likely than parcel)
   – My tax filing. (True)
   Why do you have to file? (Stupid probing question – why does anyone have to file?)
   – Because I have US-source income. (True)
   What US income do you have? (Potential illegal work income?)
   – Social Security (True)
   Why do you have Social Security? (Stupid probing question – how does anyone get Social Security?)
   – Because I paid into Social Security when I worked in the US (True)
   What was your status in the US? (potential illegal worker?)
   – I had a green card then but no longer (True)
   Do you own property in the US? (potentially illegally managing or working on rental property)
   – No (true)
   OK goodbye

   Every answer I gave was true, while at the same time I did not offer additional information. If I had given every detail about the tax forms, and how my US status had changed several times over the years, the Post Office might have closed by the time I got through.

   Long ago and likely not relevant now but the first question one time was “is this the first time you have had trouble at the border?”. The intent of the question is to anger you and increase confrontation as in the “when did you stop beating your wife?” question. At that time I had noticed Fridays were typically worse for aggressive questioning and I responded “It seems like Fridays is the regular day you give us a hard time”. At this the officer smiled and dropped his belligerent tone, in effect confirming the practice.

5. @All

   If you haven’t seen it yet, Nigel Green TOTALLY demolished the FATCA compliance vultures in the WSJ yesterday. More here: http://repealfatca.com/2017/04/04/foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-will-cost-money-recovers-warns-ceo-devere-group-co-founder-campaign-repeal-fatca/

   And get ready for some VERY significant news tomorrow . . .

6. This is great Jim!

   Would it also benefit the anti-FATCA movement to mention the other perhaps more effective tools the IRS et al already have in cooperating with other countries in combatting offshore tax evasion, such as the use of John Doe summons’ considering the US has no intention of reciprocating as per the terms of the FATCA IGA?

   https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/court-authorizes-service-john-doe-summons-seeking-information-about-dutch-residents-using

7. @ Jim Jatras
   I’m very grateful for this lobby effort and look forward to tomorrow’s news.

8. @Bubblebustin

   That’s clear in Prof Byrnes’ work though only alluded to in WSJ. Length constraints. Main goal was to show who are the REAL “fat cats” — the compliance industry. Maybe someone could post our release on IBS. (Not the WSJ text — copyright issues)

   @EmBee

   Many thanks!

9. @ Jim Jatras

   Thanks! Looking firward to tomorrows news!

10. John Doe Summons are fishing expeditions and incompatible with the 4th amendment of the US constitution with regards to Americans.

11. @Bob,

    Much of this whole mess is incompatible with the Constitution, yet still exists and with support from many homelanders, once you spend the effort trying to educate them on it.

12. @All

    Here is is:

    http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/04/rand-paul-fatca/

    Meadows-Paul Letter Urging Executive Action To Nullify FATCA Is A Landmark Moment
    By VW Staff on April 5, 2017 11:14 am in Politics

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    Mark Meadows and Rand Paul Letter to White House and Treasury Urging Executive Action to Nullify FATCA Is a “Landmark Moment,” Says deVere CEO

    Nigel Green: The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act “has only rolled on because of legally unauthorized ‘intergovernmental agreements,’” so cancelling them would “doom this terrible, toxic law.”

    WASHINGTON – April 5 – Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group and Co-Leader of the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, today lauded a letter from Rep. Mark Meadows and Sen. Rand Paul to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney urging actions to “mitigate the ongoing damage” caused by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act pending its anticipated repeal.

    REIT Taxes Avoid Taxes
    Image source: Pixabay
    FATCA

    “This is a major landmark moment,” said Green. “FATCA has only rolled on because of legally unauthorized ‘intergovernmental agreements’” – known as IGAs – “but if the White House and Treasury overturn the previous administration’s power-grab, that alone would doom this terrible, toxic law.”

    The full text of the Meadows-Paul letter, dated April 3, can be found below:

    Meadows and Paul introduced FATCA repeal legislation in the previous Congress and plan to file the same bill tomorrow, with expectations that repeal will be included in any tax law sent to President Trump. A House hearing on the damaging impact of FATCA, especially on Americans living abroad, will take place on April 26.

    Rand Paul

    Rand Paul

    OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay
    The Meadows-Paul letter urges four interim steps the Trump Administration can take on its own to reverse what they call “the previous administration’s inclination for abusing its Executive power”:

    “Issue a Statement of Administration Policy to the effect that the Trump administration is committed to the repeal of FATCA as promised in the Republican Platform, welcomes inclusion of repeal provisions in any tax reform bill, and is reviewing administrative steps to limit FATCA’s damaging effects pending its repeal.

    “Instruct the Treasury Department’s Office of International Affairs and other elements of the Department that may be involved to cease all efforts to negotiate, sign, and implement IGAs. Continued signings of new IGAs – most recently with Ukraine in February 2017 – send a false signal that the new administration is committed to this destructive law as matter of policy.

    “Announce that the IGAs are under legal review of their authority and that if they are found to be legally infirm – as we believe they will be – they may be declared invalid ab initio with immediate effect or terminated upon expiry of the one-year’s notice specified.

    “Under the broad authority FATCA grants the Treasury Secretary, deem all impacted foreign institutions compliant on a temporary basis pending outcome of the legal review of the IGAs. The IRS should also be instructed to suspend enforcement of provisions impacting individual taxpayers; and, on an urgent basis to help decrease the spiking increase in U.S. citizenship renunciations, suspend imposition of penalties for FATCA filing errors by individuals.”
    “This goes right to the jugular,” comments Campaign to Repeal FATCA Co-Leader Jim Jatras, a former longtime Senate GOP leadership staffer. “President Trump has moved swiftly to negate the Obama legacy of Executive abuse. If the steps urged in the Meadows-Paul letter are taken, FATCA becomes totally unviable. Repeal will then be mostly cleaning up the sorry mess it left.”

    For more information on FATCA and the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, contact GSCG, below.

    http://www.RepealFatca.com

    Twitter @RepealFatca

    See also: “Dumping Obama’s faux foreign tax legislation should be high on Trump’s to-do list” http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/306446-dumping-obamas-faux-foreign-tax-legislation-should-be-high 11/16/16

    deVere Group is one of the world’s largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients. It has a network of more than 70 offices across the world, over 80,000 clients and $12bn under advisement.

13. And there it is … clear, step by step, directions aimed at putting FATCA into the dustbin of history. Now, will President Trump and Congress see, understand, react and do the right thing? Time will tell. Just wondering if these types of letters require a timely response by law or can they be put on a shelf indefinitely? If the latter, then more damaged lives, more renunciations, more anger … can’t let this drag on and on … dustbin delayed is dustbin denied. It’s already been seven years since FATCA was conjured up and three years since it was put into full force.

14. Dear Mr. Jatras;

    Win. lose or draw……..thank you for listening and caring on this issue. We need all the help we can get on this and it is for that reason that I do not condemn any group that is at least trying which means even though I may disagree with DA and ACA that I do thank them and encourage them to keep on trying from a different angle.

    Cheers, George

15. Mr Jatras;

    One other arrow in your arsenal….

    I believe that under the Bank Secrecy Act that the Secretary of Treasury has wide ranging powers to amend and revise the rules concerning the FBAR form. Meaning the Secretary can;

    1. Index the filing amount from 10,000 to a much higher level. He can index it with inflation even.
    2. He can exclude groups of people not required to file as in exclude non-resident folks.
    3. He can exclude accounts in certain countries as in exclude accounts held in Canada because…there is a DTA and Canada has robust AML and KYC rules.

    Politically I think this is an easy sell because the amount was never indexed and 10,000 is so tiny today. Also why does the USA need reports on accounts from the UK or Canada which have superior AML rules?

    Thanks again, George

16. Excellent comments from George about things the Secretary of Treasury could do to reduce FBAR filing. Excluding those resident outside the US from FBAR and from FATCA could free-up US persons overseas and FFIs from burdensome restrictions and some of the costly reporting requirements.

    Repeal of FATCA is a desirable goal but even total repeal of FATCA doesn’t solve the bigger problem of citizen-based taxation of worldwide income. If FATCA repeal happens, is this because it would be easier to do than move to residence based taxation (territorial taxation), a move that would mostly benefit hard-working or retired overseas middle income USC and LPRs who are not seeking to evade tax? Or is the push partly or mainly due to lobbying from wealthy US-resident individuals in the US (e.g deVere customers?), who are not suffering from significant restrictions on their financial and employment situations, but want the freedom to have financial interests overseas without having them reported? I am afraid that FATCA repeal may benefit wealthy US-resident tax evaders in the US more than honest overseas Americans. But the benefit to the latter likely makes it worthwhile to ignore how FATCA might help identify the former. As has been stated already there may be other more effective ways to go after wealthy US residents with secret overseas accounts .

    I do believe that most of those like me who renounced USA citizenship did so because of citizen-based taxation not because of FATCA itself. In the absence of citizenship-based taxation, most of FATCA would be irrelevant and un-necessary except for homelanders, and even then it’s debatable.

17. i believe the rich homelanders will always find a way to get around filings and reduce taxations. If you remember Romney vs Obama during 2012 campaigns, Romney’s foreign IBC Bain’s capital was all over the news reducing his taxes legally. Rich will always find a way and I am sure they did that already. FATCA is causing more problems to small fishes and overseas US citizens than to the super rich. Rich will just open up a foreign convuluted structures like Romney and have a nominee appointed by the rich as bank signatory. Then what would FATCA accomplish? Zilch? Zero. Laws are proposed by lawyer teams to congress so they can sell their expensive convoluted structures to the rich. They already have loopholes in the laws to get their clients safe from any legal action. Bain capital case was quite common. It was in the news during the campaign. It’s perfectly legal as per IRS as I was told by a tax attorney friend.

18. More support from the U.S. National Taxpayers Union in a new paper of theirs last week:

    Damien Brady. “Tax Complexity 2017: As The Burden Grows, Taxpayers’ Patience Shrinks”. NTUF Policy Paper #178, 13 April 2017.
    http://www.ntu.org/foundation/detail/tax-complexity-2017

    Whole section “The Long Arm of the IRS Extends Abroad” devoted to to FATCA, passport revocation, and citizenship-based taxation, citing Allison Christians, William Byrnes, Nigel Green, and Ragheed Moghrabi (the guy who wrote to the WSJ after his 10-year-old son couldn’t open a bank account)

19. @Eric

    Thanks. will duly tweet this around FB etc

20. @fn0:

    “Or is the push partly or mainly due to lobbying from wealthy US-resident individuals in the US (e.g deVere customers?), who are not suffering from significant restrictions on their financial and employment situations, but want the freedom to have financial interests overseas without having them reported? ”

    Indeed.

    Mr Green has recently bought a bank in St Lucia – one of the Caricom countries that has suffered severely from the “derisking” pressures.