Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Author Archives: Jefferson D. Tomas

Please help me develop my survey.

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Hi friends at IBS.

I am testing an opinion poll on my own blog, which doesn’t have many visitors as I really don’t promote it.  The poll is PollDaddy powered.  Would you help me test this poll?  The first question is obvious: are you for residence-based taxation?  The next one is a multiple choice list of issues and you are supposed to check off all of the issues that upset you.  Not very scientific because I can’t see the total number of votes on the 2nd one, but I thought I would give it a try.  Any suggestions on rephrasing of the points or different points?  Unfortunately, I think I already have the maximum number of questions on the second one.  PollDaddy is limited.  Perhaps I can use something else or write some code later to deal with it. Please test it out HERE

PRESS RELEASE THREAD

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Purpose of this thread:

1. Establishing some standard press release text to send on IBS letterhead to journalists and others. The press release would present IBS and our main issues and consensus opinions.
2. A list of journalists to whom to send such press release.
3. Agree on procedures for approving the press release (as of 26 May, this would appear to be a vote at IBS, final editing and approval by Petros and Just Me).
4. Agree on distribution plan for the press release.

Let’s get the press involved more in our issues !

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Many of us have been escalating our efforts to post comments to articles related to our issues in national and international news organisation websites.  This is great and will increase our voice.  But couldn’t we try another approach in parallel?   I propose that we check the websites of local news channels for the 3 main networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) in every one of the 50 state capitals and all of the major cities we can think of and see if the search function on their site shows any articles for FATCA or other keywords related to our issues.  If not, we could write them an email inviting them to look at recent articles in the national and international press that we have commented on as well as IBS, ACA and other sites of interest.   Here is a sample email I just tried on a CBS affiliate:

Continue reading →

Foreign banks freezing out U.S. millionaires

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Here is a Washington Post article that just broke that seems to contain a lot of text that we have already seen at sources like Bloomberg and WSJ.  Nothing really that new.

Foreign banks freezing out U.S. millionaires

The comments page is interesting: there is one remark mentioning the fact that FATCA-level reporting is not required of American banks.  Perhaps IBS members could put some comments there.

Michelle Bachmann:

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I came across the following remark from Don at hodgen.com :

Don says:   May 9, 2012 at 8:32 pm

… Other interesting news, Michelle Backmann has become a Swiss Citizen, strange but true.

I wonder what her stance on FATCA is?

Oddly enough, Wikipedia has been updated to show that she is “American-Swiss” (born April 6, 1956) “is an American–Swiss Republican member of the United States House of Representatives … “
Very interesting.

François Hollande defeats Nicolas Sarkozy in France

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I am surprised that nobody has yet posted about the results of Sunday’s second (and final) round of the French presidential election.  François Hollande (socialist) defeated Nicolas Sarkozy (center-right?) by a few percent and will be in office shortly.

BBC :  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17975660

Le Monde (major French newspaper):  http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/

Swiss Francophone TV :  http://www.rts.ch/info/monde/3974074-l-election-de-francois-hollande-n-est-pas-une-revolution-estime-la-presse.html

I wonder what this means for negotiations about FATCA ?   @Victoria?   My gut feeling is that the socialists would be rather FATCA-friendly, but I believe that the socialists in France are also very interested in civil rights and anti-discrimination.  I believe that somebody needs to be lobbying his new administration so that they can know the truth about what the US is trying to do (especially FATCA, but also FBAR and double taxation) before State and Treasury start trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

I just heard on CNN that Putin just won another term as President of Russia, and now the Constitution has been modified so that one can serve 6 terms.

Guilty until proven innocent at the border

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Someone related to me the other day an interesting discussion they had with a European who had run a business in Canada for some years.  He owned a Canadian business and held a Canadian residence permit.  He had clients to visit in the US.  At the US border, he was told that he must be a Canadian citizen or have a visa to visit the clients.   He said that he was only visiting the clients of his company; he was not going to take up employment in the US.  The answer of the border guard was that he “could” be entering the US to break the law by taking up employment.   After 6 hours they sent him back with no explanation of what laws he had “broken”.    Guilty until proven innocent?