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

1. @mjh

   My thoughts exactly. You can not do what you and I think they are doing in one giant step. Everyone would just say “no”. Incrementally is how these goals are met. It will be a series of much smaller steps, though FATCA is a huge step, that bring us to that end.

   Reactive in this game is deadly. Ensures their goal will be met. Can only be stopped proactively.

2. Yup. That basically sums it up.

   Yet there are many that will bury their heads in the sand, and play the odds game. Sure, some might say that they’re just picking off the tasty prey, and don’t even care about the little fish, so don’t worry about it. Are they going to cover my ass if I were to play the odds game and lose? Hell no!!

   Nah! I’ll leave that activity to the ostriches.

3. @fn0

   “I felt a little better about the $2350 fee for the certificate of loss of citizenship when I calculated it was the same as two-years worth of my Social Security retirement benefits.”

   For me also, the US Dept of Social Security hath given what the US Dept of State taketh away. 🙂

   And the irony is, I wasn’t aware I could claim US social security for the couple of years I worked there back in the 60s, until FATCA obliged me to start looking into US laws affecting expats.

4. “You don’t think that they are working on that very thing, making CBT systematically applicable? ”

   That’s just paranoia. Enforcing US tax law systematically worldwide is not possible and wouldn’t be possible even if the US Congress somehow miraculously became functional again.

5. “Although many differences exist, it seems to me that our situations started off the same, we were required to provide information that we could not obtain from our employers abroad.”

   No. When I worked in the US for 6 weeks and a US company issued a falsified W-2, I crossed out the 1040’s jurat and wrote an accurate declaration (the W-2 is false but these other reports are correct), and the IRS accepted it without complaint. When a Canadian partnership refused to supply enough information for my Canadian tax return (as a non-resident Canadian), I wrote “unknown” on parts of 1116, crossed out part of the 1040’s jurat, wrote an accurate declaration, and the IRS accepted it without complaint.

   The exact set of tax years that the IRS complained about are the same exact years that I had 1099s. So even though the IRS and courts gave me an expensive lesson that it’s illegal to write the truth on US tax returns, it did not start out that way. It started out because the IRS’s embezzlers had to use tricks to keep from getting caught. The ringleaders still haven’t been caught.

   But sure now we know, and courts have ruled, do not write honest declarations on US tax returns. Make the returns processable not truthful. If you have to guess some numbers, you have to guess, but do not say that you guessed, say that they’re true and correct.

   “I was correct to not continue filing.”

   Well yes that’s better than telling the truth, but I don’t know if you might get caught.

6. “Nope. Japan allows stateless people to remain if they’re legitmately here and legitimately stateless.”

   ‘Which has nothing to do with having your passport revoked by a foreign government. That is the difference between de facto, and de jure statelessness.’

   It sure does. If the US had revoked Bobby Fischer’s citizenship instead of passport, Japan would have issued him a stateless person’s document instead of jailing and deporting him.

7. @ND

   ““I was correct to not continue filing.”

   Well yes that’s better than telling the truth, but I don’t know if you might get caught.”

   Oh, I am sure I will but if I contined filling, I am sure I would have been by now.

8. “We could think of FATCA as a test run in this case, a trial balloon if you will, to see if they can get the foreign banks to rat out US persons with $10,000 or more in the bank.”

   It isn’t though. FATCA grew out of US Congressional outrage against Swiss banks luring US-resident into putting their money away in Switzerland instead of in the US. It’s that tax haven money they’re after – not the difficult-to-get, FEIE-limited, treaty-limited dribs and drabs obtainable from the average USC living beyond US borders – though of course they’re happy to get that too when getting it is cost-effective.

9. @Norman Diamond

   “It sure does. If the US had revoked Bobby Fischer’s citizenship instead of passport, Japan would have issued him a stateless person’s document instead of jailing and deporting him.”

   Actually, that only proves my point, as written earlier.

   De facto statelessness doesn’t mean you don’t have a country. It just means you’re stateless in fact, despite having a country. That is why Japan was able to deport him, because he was still a US citizen by US law.

   @iota

   So now you’re telling me that the US is a victim, and we’re just being paranoid over FATCA, and what the future may hold? I may as well just bury my head in the sand, and hope for tax reform, which I already know WILL NOT HAPPEN!

   Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not coming after you. We’re talking about the USA, after all. Again, I would’ve never believed that FATCA was possible, until I took the red pill, and saw it already going down. And again. I’m in Canada. What do we have to do with what went down in Switzerland? Yeah. Let’s call it for what it really is: Fucking imperialism!

   They’re not a victim. If anything, they’re a threat.

10. “So now you’re telling me that the US is a victim, and we’re just being paranoid over FATCA, and what the future may hold?”

    FATCA is a damned nuisance for USCs living beyond US borders, if they get picked up by the due diligence sweeps. It’s worse than a nuisance for USCs who can’t or don’t want to lose the citizenship. The idea that FATCA represents the onset of a US plan to somehow enforce systematic US tax collection on USCs worldwise is fantasy.

    “I may as well just bury my head in the sand, and hope for tax reform, which I already know WILL NOT HAPPEN!”

    I thought you said you’re planning to renounce?

11. @iota

    I bet you said the same thing before you learned of FATCA. I know I did.

    Not hard at all to systematically enforce CBT with all the digitizing and sharing of data.

    Cost effective? Surely, you can not be speaking of the US with its $20 Trillion debt. FATCA itself has already been shown to not be cost effective. The cost benefir analysis was just another or the legally required steps that was bypassed.

12. “I bet you said the same thing before you learned of FATCA. I know I did.”

    ?? Same thing as what?

13. Black helicopters!

14. “Not hard at all to systematically enforce CBT with all the digitizing and sharing of data.”

    Systematically, no.

    FATCA undoubtedly causes some formerly non-compliant USCs to comply. Others renounce, and are gone for good. But most just keep on not complying.

15. @Black Helicopters

    “Black helicopters!”

    Innit.

16. “I bet you said the same thing before you learned of FATCA. I know I did.”

    ?? Same thing as what?

    Ah, sorry. That it was paranoid to suggest that the US would coerce every nation in the world to change their laws to report on anyone that the US and the US alone determined to be a US person.

17. “That it was paranoid to suggest that the US would coerce every nation in the world to change their laws to report on anyone that the US and the US alone determined to be a US person.”

    Oh I see. No, I never had occasion to voice an opinion on that particular fantasy, having never heard of CBT in fifty years of living outside the US.

    To put the record straight: the US has not “coerced every nation in the world to change their laws to report on USCs.”. The IGAs (which permit banks to comply with US law requiring reporting of USC accounts) were proposed by the G5, and negotiated with the US DoS.

    Cross-border account reporting is the way tye world is going, whether we like it or not. It’s not just the US. In fact it was Europe that started the ball rolling with the European Savings Directive, if I’m not mistaken.

18. @Iota

    Ok then, so how is it that you think that the US will not be able to systematically enforce CBT if the whole world is onboard with reporting?

19. Read the document cited by WhatAmI. The IRS explains at great length how difficult it is to enforce CBT.

20. This GAO report should be read in addition to WhatAmI’s:

    https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-106/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GGD-98-106.pdf

    “Conclusions:

    The extent and impact of nonfiling abroad remain largely unknown, due to uncertainties in the data we identified on the U.S. population abroad and returns filed from abroad. However, some evidence suggests that nonfiling may be relatively prevalent in some segments of the U.S. population abroad. And the revenue impact, while unknown, could be significant even though it would be reduced by available exclusions and credits.

    IRS’ ability to identify and collect taxes from nonfilers residing abroad is restricted by the limited reach of U.S. law in foreign countries, particularly U.S. laws on tax withholding, information reporting, and IRS’ authority to collect taxes through liens, levies, and seizures. However, IRS has not fully explored the usefulness of passport application data as a means of identifying potential nonfilers abroad and gauging the extent of the problem. Also, some of IRS’ filing instructions may confuse some taxpayers and cause them to erroneously believe they are not required to file.
    The usefulness of passport data in identifying nonfilers abroad has been limited because IRS has not (1) enforced the requirement for applicants to provide their SSNs and other information and (2) obtained data on the applicant’s occupation or, in some cases, country of residence. While passport applications contain no income information, the occupation and age data could help identify individuals residing abroad who are more likely to have income above the filing thresholds, provided IRS could reliably distinguish applicants residing in foreign countries from those who are merely tourists. The cost of obtaining additional data elements on occupation and country of residence would be offset to some degree by savings from the reduced volume of data processed if IRS carries out its plan to restrict the data to applicants residing abroad and exclude tourists who now account for the bulk of the data IRS receives.
    IRS had difficulty enforcing the requirement for applicants to provide SSNs and could find it difficult to enforce requirements for additional information on the applicant’s occupation and country of residence. However, IRS said some of the difficulty in enforcing the SSN requirement, before abandoning such efforts, stemmed from its self-imposed constraint of not sending inquiries to applicants unless their SSN could be determined from other sources.
    Another factor that could contribute to nonfiling abroad is the ambiguity in IRS’ filing instructions for Forms 1040 and related guidance, such as Publication 17. The current language could be misinterpreted to mean that income qualifying for the foreign earned income or housing expense exclusions does not need to be considered in determining the filing requirement.
    IRS has undertaken an initiative—the Mideast Project—to improve filing compliance among U.S. citizens residing in one region abroad and is now attempting to identify other geographical areas where such efforts may be beneficial. As of December 1997, IRS had obtained foreign data from 10 countries, but these did not include the 7 countries where the State Department estimated that the largest U.S. populations reside. IRS officials expect to obtain data on about 80 percent of the U.S. population abroad and release a draft report on their results in the summer of 1998. IRS has not analyzed passport application data to help identify countries where nonfiling among U.S. citizens may be particularly severe, and missing SSNs currently limit the usefulness of the data for this purpose. While our review was under way, IRS began efforts to make greater use of passport data from individuals residing abroad and is exploring ways of reinstating a program to penalize applicants who do not provide their SSNs.
    In its May 4, 1998, report, Treasury suggested that the revenue impact of nonfiling abroad may be limited by the foreign earned income and housing expense exclusions and foreign tax credits. We note that, while the revenue impact is unknown, it is not necessarily rendered insignificant by available exclusions and credits. The report did not recommend any IRS actions for improving tax compliance abroad, but it noted that IRS’ ongoing demographic project may identify countries where additional compliance efforts are warranted. The report also discussed several factors limiting the usefulness of passport application data.”

    Read their recommendations.

21. I said:

    “Read the document cited by WhatAmI. The IRS explains at great length how difficult it is to enforce CBT.”

    For the benefit of anyone who may be reading this and may want to check out the IRS document, this is the link that was posted earlier in this thread:

    https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/tax598.pdf

    Well worth a read, IMO.

22. Recommendations
    To obtain better data on the filing compliance of the U.S. population residing abroad and to promote their understanding of their filing requirements, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should ensure that IRS

    • assesses the usefulness of country of residence and occupation data, in addition to data IRS currently receives from passport applicants, as a means of identifying potential nonfilers abroad and supplementing IRS’ other sources of demographic data on U.S. citizens abroad. The assessment might include reviewing a limited random sample of currently available information.

    • estimates the cost of obtaining the additional data routinely for passport applicants residing abroad, including those who apply in the United States. If the estimated costs appear to be justified, IRS should (1) prescribe that passport applicants provide the additional items and (2) routinely obtain and analyze the additional data elements.

    • undertakes additional efforts to enforce the information requirements of IRC section 6039E, including the requirement for applicants to provide their SSNs. One potential effort would be to contact a random sample of adult applicants who did not provide an SSN, using the mailing address provided on their passport application.

    • revises the instructions for Form 1040 and related guidance, such as
    Publication 17, to clarify that income that qualifies for foreign earned income exclusions must be considered in determining whether one’s gross income exceeds the filing threshold.

    And?

23. The IRS is totally overwhelmed trying to enforce the US tax code within the confines of the US. There is zero chance that there will be a revenue agent knocking on your non-US front door anytime soon. Even with FATCA up and running the worst that might happen (from an IRS perspective) is a letter from them asking you for more information. So what?

    The real threats and damages that are being perpetrated upon us are by our own governments and financial institutions who are far more concerned about covering their asses than vigorously exercising their moral and legal responsibility to us, their citizens and customers.

24. Oh lord this is getting conspiratorial. We’re turning into breitbart.ca once again.

    It’s obvious that George Soros, the Clintons and Illuminati are all behind FATCA. I’m absolutely certain of it. Obama would love to help but he’s too busy secretly running ISIS and Al Qaeda.

25. It’s comforting to read in the document I cited and the GAO report how difficult it is for the IRS to track down non-filers abroad.

    However, I keep reminding myself that these documents are from 1998.

    19 years is a long time and who knows what progress they’ve made and how much FATCA data will help.