Author Archives: pacifica777

RefugeeFromAmerica was in contact with BMO’s President’s Office about BMO’s FATCA policies and also with the CRA Commissioner’s Office and has sent in the following report.

In response to the CBC story about the vast number of bank accounts reported to the CRA/IRS, I thought I’d share an experience we had at a BMO branch back in August. In particular, I wanted to provide a data point to corroborate the suspicion that at least some Canadian financial institutions are not observing FATCA reporting minima and that, at least at the local level, they are violating Canadian law by not readily providing information to customers about FATCA reporting. Quoted below is a previously composed account of what transpired during our branch visit [and the events that followed it]

 

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Last year Laura Snyder asked visitors to the Isaac Brock website to participate in a survey about FATCA and the taxation of US citizens living overseas.

Snyder’s report on the survey results, an introduction with links to its four detailed parts, is available on John Richardson’s website, Citizenship Solutions.

In addition, in early December the report will be the subject of a presentation at a conference in Prague on the subject of diasporas. Snyder’s conference paper that specifically addresses the myth of the wealthy American expat is available here .

The survey report and the conference paper are the subject of a recent article in the American Expat Financial News Journal

The survey report corroborates and complements the results of other surveys demonstrating that US citizens and green card holders living outside the United States experience a wide range of hardships as a result of US non-resident taxation and banking policies.

Further, as discussed in detail in Snyder’s conference paper, the new survey data dispels the myth of the wealthy American expat whose principal purpose in living overseas is to avoid US taxation.

Notably, among the 602 survey participants living in 47 different countries:

-        67% have an income of less than $70,000 per year and 90% have an income of less than $150,000 per year;

-        39% left the United States to join a romantic partner in another country, 28% left to pursue professional opportunities, and 2% were born outside the United States and have never lived in the United States; just one participant reported leaving the United States in order to avoid US taxation;

-        48% of those with annual income of $21,000 to $40,000 and 41% of all participants pay significant fees for professional tax preparation despite owing nothing in US taxes;

-        32% of those with annual income of $1 to $20,000 and 38% of all participants are unable to reconcile the US tax system with the system of their country of residence, with the result that their investments and retirement vehicles are harshly penalized by the US system;

-        37% of those with annual income of $41,000 to $70,000 and 30% of all participants have been unable to open one or more bank accounts because they are a US citizen or green card holder;

-        19% of those with annual income of $1 to $20,000 and 13% of participants overall have been removed from one or more joint accounts with their non-US citizen spouse because the survey participant is a US citizen or green card holder. With respect to unemployed participant, the number experiencing this problem jumps to 26%.

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We’ll be getting together for lunch Saturday, 16 November, at 1:00 pm, at Montana’s BBQ Restaurant, 1750 Ogilvie Road.  Plenty of free parking on site, also accessible by OCTranspo.

We’re currently expecting 10 people.  Hope you can join us too!   Please rsvp by leaving a comment or e-mail me at pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca

Seeing this at the last minute?  Please rsvp, if you can.  If not, just come and join us.

A great FATCA backgrounder from John Richardson, published in American Expat Finance yesterday.  FATCA articles aimed at the general public often focus on the impact on individuals, but this one primarily covers the macroeconomic impact.  It packs a lot in a short article, good for sending to people who want to know more about FATCA (friends) or who should know more about FATCA (policy makers).

American Expat Finance Editor’s introduction below, article itself continues next page.  Reprinted with permission of American Expat Finance.

Over the last few weeks and moths, more media attention than usual has been paid to the 2010 Obama law knows as the Foreign Account

Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). And invariably, we have been noticing, journalists from respected media organizations like The Guardian and Financial Times newspapers in London keep referring to it as a “tax evasion law,” no doubt because that was its original purpose.

That may well have been true in 2010, says Toronto-based expat lawyer and expat rights campaigner John Richardson…

But, he argues here, as anyone familiar with FATCA’s massive impact on individuals who don’t live in the U.S. now – and indeed haven’t for decades and possibly never did, and are tax residents of other countries – it has evolved into an all-but- impossible-to-avoid “extra-territorial money-sucking machine.”

It has also made it very difficult for such individuals to engage in normal financial and retirement planning – or even to get, and keep, a local bank account. 

And while it may remain a disincentive for Homeland Americans to attempt to hide their wealth (the way some used to) in Swiss banks, FATCA (along with the Common Reporting Standard, as the OECD’s global version of FATCA is called), is now playing a role in enabling the U.S. to act as a tax haven to wealthy individuals in other countries who are seeking to keep their personal wealth from their own tax authorities. 

The fact that the U.S. hasn’t signed up to the CRS, arguing that it has no need to  – because FATCA gives it all the information it needs to know about its own citizens – helps to make this possible, Richardson points out.  Continue reading

Thanks to Calgary411 for posting this on the Media thread.  There’s been a lot of discussion on this, so I’ve created a separate post for it and moved the comments here.

Greg Swanson has written a three-part series, “Americans abroad: a case study in the dumbing down of American policymakers,” providing a concise synopsis of the situation faced by US persons outside the US as a result of CBT and the history behind it.

Part I and Part II are online at Medium.com now.  Part III to follow soon. I’ll post the link when it does.

Greg is the coordinator of PurpleExpat.org, which is focused on the elimination of citizenship-based taxation.

Further to my post about commenting in general entitled Announcement March 31st, some specific points on repetitious commenting:

Going back and forth on a point doesn’t advance discussions and, after enough rejoinders, other readers tend to tune it out.  Repetitious comments made by a person or persons in a short period of time can be particularly problematic when a person replies, saying basically the same thing again, to every comment made in reply to their initial comment.

Such comments provide only redundant information and redundant thoughts/ideas while making a thread difficult to read efficiently.  Some people suddenly learn of a problem with their real or alleged US citizenship and are in distress and need information f-a-s-t.  As well, exchange of thoughts and ideas is hampered by repetitious and circular discussion.  Please bear this in mind when commenting.

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Karen Alpert (Australia), John Richardson (Canada), Larry Stern (Israel) and Leonard Tuber (Israel) will discuss “territorial vs. citizenship-based taxation, their many advantages and disadvantages, and the myriad of challenges and questions posed by the US’s use of this type of tax system,” Monday 3 June 12:00 BST (11:00 UTC / 07:00 EDT).

You can submit questions at the TaxLinked site.  For more information and/or to submit a question, click here.

A debate/discussion on Citizenship And Worldwide Taxation: Is It Morally Justified Or Unjustified? between John Richardson and Edward Zelinsky will take place Friday May 17, 2019,  14:00 EDT (18:00 UTC), hosted by TaxConnections, live on YouTube.   It will run for an hour-and-a-half.  

CBT is morally unjustified:  John Richardson (Lawyer, Citizenship Solutions, Toronto, Canada)

CBT is morally justified: Edward Zelinsky (Law Professor, Cardozo School of Law, New York, USA)

Click here for full information, to see the questions which have been submitted, to pre-register, and/or to submit questions   (P.S.: Note at the bottom of this page videos of people who we know.)

The United States Imposes A Separate And Much More Punitive Tax On U.S. Citizens Who Are Residents Of Other Countries, John Richardson, TaxConnections.

 TaxConnections and CitizenshipSolutions Posts by John Richardson, Laura Snyder and Edward Zelinski written after this event was announced: Continue reading →