Message from Jackie Bugnion
Hi everyone,
Last night I saw a statement of Brady published in Politico on his latest on tax reform. The last sentences is truly encouraging. The article is below. I understand “letting them pay taxes only where they live” to indicate RBT. Since the Ways and Means has announced that it will publish its legislative draft next week, the language is most likely already determined. There have been several proposals for tax reform of Americans abroad from various organisations. Let’s all get behind whatever Congress comes up with and show a united front. This is a one chance in a lifetime to improve the situation of Americans abroad. Please activate your networks in this sense.
Best,
Jackie Bugnion
This was at the end of a POLITICO e-mail, sent 25 October.
He[Brady] said the committee is considering an issue dear to U.S. citizens living abroad — letting them pay taxes only where they live — though no decision has been made.
Some additional e-mail trail, I will not disclose sender:
Just listening to Ari Fleischer on TV about the tax reform bill and he said something that I wasn’t aware of, but some of you might be: He said that once the bill comes out of W&M Committee it goes directly to a floor vote. There are no floor amendments or changes permitted. Thought this is something to look for.
@George: worse than nothing for some groups, I suspect. Subpart F gets much crazier due to the need to enforce the territorial tax system and prevent corporations from recharacterising US-source income as foreign-source income. But Subpart F also applies to US persons abroad who own local companies, as long as CBT is not repealed. This means diaspora business owners are going to have much more painful Form 5471s.
No mention of Section 901 (foreign tax credit for individuals), 911 (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion), 877 or 877A (exit taxes), 2801 (inheritance tax on US heirs of covered expatriates).
This (at page 4) makes me suspect that phantom gains problems will continue:
Still digesting the rest.
@ Eric
Guess that confirms my “nothin’ burger” assessment after having quickly skimmed the Ways & Means pdf. RO’s and American Expatriates FB sites haven’t commented yet. Don’t blame them because after all that hard work … zilch!
Shock and Awe. No one should be surprised. All roads lead to renunciation.
https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/363306066/Tax-Cuts-and-Jobs-Act?skip_app_promo=true
FULL TEXT OF THE BILL
Thats fine…..a new campaign for Greece, Ireland and lots of other countries to tax their citizens who are hiding in the USA sometimes behind a blue passport. It does not matter even if they are first generation hiding behind their place of birth in the USA……they are tax subjects of Ireland, Greece, Germany……
RO and Solomon Yue are on the “hot seat” big time.
Not a stinken crumb and….yes and…..Trump does have the authority to stop signing IGAs, he likely has the authroity to toss all IGAs signed……but he has the authority to simply index FBARs with inflation!!
We got nothing and as is pointed out a self employed person with a business of some sort is likely screwed more.
In general, I see no improvement in the paperwork situation either. No mention of Sections 6031–6039J, foreign trusts, or bank accounts; one change to treatment PFICs (page 71, doesn’t affect anyone here, I assume no one has their own captive insurance company).
One minor thing appears to be getting concretely worse. Page 65: Short-term exception to Controlled Foreign Corporation status is gone, which means the corresponding exception to Category IV/V filer status for Form 5471 should disappear too. I.e. if you start a “foreign” company in December you will have to file Schedules H/I/J/M for that period.
None of it is on #realdonaldtrump’s horizon. Sad.
Oh…….we need to demand Obamacare worldwide. Student loans…pell grants worldwide. Food stamps…..worldwide….VA Loan money…..
If you want us….you need to pay for us.
ACA commentary
https://www.americansabroad.org/media/files/files/afcb36c8/GOP_Response_PR.pdf?platform=hootsuite
JC thanks for that link it should be amalgamated by the mods to page one
@USC
I move our earlier dialogue to this thread as the other is for other puroses.
“So, sorry for trying to have a conversation with you – quite happy to refrain from that in the future.”
No, you are not. A “conversation” requires “listening” and given your comments, it is obvious that you are not listening. You are not present in the situation of those who have not just gotten of the boat and have lived in their current land for years. You suggest the impossible. There is no way for anyone who has had no reason to hide where they are from to hide it after 20 years of living life, conversing with neighbors, friends and coworkers. Any suggestion to hide where I am from now that I have been living a normal life here for 20 years demonstrates that you are not interested in engaging in conversation, you are not listening. Unless, of course you let me borrow your time machine so I can go back 25 years and lie about my nationality to everyone I meet in Japan
This is true for whomever you may be trying to “converse” with. Beyond that, there are realities of living in Japan and other countries with similar requirements on their residents that you have demonstated a complete lack of knowledge about and unwillingness to listen to and learn about.
Here are a few of these realities. I have had to provide each and every employer with my actual passport, which they photocopy for their records. Some employers “ask” for our passports perioically to ensure our visa status has not changed.
All nonJapanese had an Alien Registration card, aka the “Gijin Card”. Leave home without it and get stopped by the police can get you arrested and taken immediately to confinement awaiting deportation, or as is often the case wth caucasians, escorted by the police to your residence to get your gaijin card. Once there, they will search your residence, no search warrant needed.
In the past, we gaijin had to present our gaijin cards and let it be photo copied to rent a video, open a bank account, cash or buy a money order, receive a packge at the post office and many other mundane daily activities.
So, what information was on the gaijin card, issued by the Ministry of Justice (the Police); Photo, name, address in Japan, NATIONALITY, employer’s name and address, visa status, expiry date of visa, and in the past, thumb print.
Newer gaijin cards did not have the thumb print but retained all the rest. Changes to the gaijin card could be carried out by City Hall.
This is the system under which I have lived for close to two decades. How, oh pray do tell, HOW does one undo all this?
The gaijin card has recently been replaced by the Residence card which retains all the above minus the thumb print and, in my case-I have a Permanent Resident visa, employer information. Changes must be noted within two weeks of the change but now only at national immigration centers, not easily accessible for those not living near Tokyo and other large cities.
With the advent of the national ID number (My Number), each employer now demands a photocopy of both the Residence Card and My Number card, front and back, on the same sheet of paper. Banks are now requiring the same as does the post office to cash or buy international postal money orders.
Same plea as above, please do tell how to avoid this? How do I hide and stay hidden?
Then we have the Family Registry (Koseki) system that all Japanese, (save the Emperor and his kin) that must be maintained. Extracts of it are commonly required for vaious activities including; opening a bank account, enrolling in school, receiving health card, receiving any state benefits to nome a few. The only way to get on a koseki is to Japanese or marry a Japanese. I do not have one, I am entered onto my wife’s koseki. My extract of my wife’s koseki has my nationality displayed. “Head of Household” is provided on each extract followed by “Relationship to Head of Household”. In my case, my name appears as head of household and my relationship as “本人”/“actual person”.
My wife’s extract of her koseki lists my name as head of house hold and her relationship to the head of household as “wife”. Can you guess what is entered on my childrens’ koseki? Given that you have not shown the willingness to use information already provided and that there is other incidental info that will add more color to the picture, I will not leave it up to you to fill in the blanks. Let’s say I have five children, 3 boys and two girls. On each, my name is listed as head of household. My eldest son’s is listed as “First born son”, the second as “second born son” and my youngest son as “third born son”. My eldset daughter is listed as “First born daughter” and my youngest daughter as “second born daughter”.
So, you can see, that even with the loan of your time machine, none of your suggestions work for any USC married to a Japanese and living in Japan.
Many at IBS are so involved in the technical that they ignore the facts of the lives of those with whom they mistakenly believe they are “converseing”.
Many here make comments that seem to be based upon one or more of the following false premises. One is that the various nations we live in are without any of their own data collection systems that are now accessable to the US via FATCA IGAs. FATCA just imposes another layer upon what already exists. It does not stand alone in the countries it is implemented in but is integrated into what is already there, to varying degrees differing in each country.
Another is that the only possible outcome of any law is the outcome which the law provides must or must not happen. This ignores, among other things, the fact that outside of a courtroom, no one really knows what “the law” requires. As far as FATCA is concened, do you really think that every bank manager, bank teller, credit card employee, employer, etc. know what the law requires? Or, is it more likely that they follow whatever the latest memo issued from on high on the subect tells them to do? Do the people issuing the memos truely know? Much has been written that bank lockout need not occur, yet it does.
How about the local bureaucrats? My experience has been that it is not uncommon to find that they do not know their own laws yet we assume they know what US law requires of them? This says nothing about our employers, managers, coworkers or family members.
Another myth that seems to be believed is that there are such things as secure data banks and ways to securely send private data between them. These are just as real as an “unsinkable ship”. How many data breeches must we read about in the news before we learn that this is a myth? Or, has it become so common place that we have grown numb to the dangers?
“And can’t get their heads round the idea of having to raise taxes in one place in order to pay for cutting taxes in another.”
Why is it that the taxpayer can and must do with less but the US gov can not survive with a single cent less than the automatic increases in spending?
“@Deplorable: Kindly leave the American partisan personality-bashing out of this. Cursing the Clintons is so far removed from what this site is about, that it almost seems as though you randomly chose this site. Podesta, Epstein, the Clinton Foundation, all have ZERO to do with the things that concern us here. Clintons, Obamas, Bushes, Trumps, they’re all part of the same system, all corrupt, none more or less evil than any other, and none with any genuine interest in abolishing FATCA or CBT. So please keep your Trump worship and Clinton hate out of this. Let’s keep it on topic.
Thanks, Barbara.
Please stay on topic @ Deplorable.
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Oh PLEASE!
“I still want to see Trump and all his cronies cast into a fiery pit of lava for all eternity,”
Yep, that and all the MANY other such comments on Trump are on topic and have not elicited even on “Official” rebuke that I have seen, yet pointing out money laundering and non filing by the Clinton’s is off topic.
You all ZERO or ALL, not, one but not the other. We most certsinly have a bias problem.
The ACA’s respinse clearly states the benefits of RBT. Is the a shift from recent Territorial tax?