FATCA and Australia – Part 1 of 2
January 2020: This thread continues at FATCA and Australia – Part 2 of 2.
Let’s Fix the Australia/US Tax Treaty! The Australia/US tax treaty needs urgent revision to prevent double taxation. Get involved at www.FixTheTaxTreaty.org
Posts on The Isaac Brock Society website concerning FATCA and Australia
For articles on other websites, see Media and Blog Articles
For general discussion of FATCA, see FATCA Discussion Thread
For links to some websites and contact info (government, organisations, tax information), see Australia Information Links
25: John Richardson and Karen Alpert Session in Brisbane Australia Oct 25, 2018
August 2018
01: U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and Netherlands form international tax enforcement group
January 2018
July 2017
March 2017
13: What Lessons Can Be Learned from the Sad Stories of “IRS Compliant” Australians Shaun and Mary?
November 2016
30: “Solving U.S. Citizenship Problems” – Online January 9, 2017 (Australia)
August 2016
25: Let’s Fix the Australia/US Tax Treaty!
May 2016
15: Australia: Dealing with Superannuation
February 2016
19: #Australia funds America’s #FATCA #Ethnic Identification System
September 2012
27: Last Day to make a FATCA submission to the Australian Govt
August 2012
28: Australian Government wants YOU to tell them what to do about FATCA
July 2012
20: Australian Financial Services Council lobbies Washington for FATCA exemption
Ambassador John Berry Joe Hockey Australian Ambassador to the USA NO replies to our queries (to my knowledge)
@JakDac
Do you think Joe Hockey would respond to our queries? He was the Australian Treasurer who signed the Australian-US IGA in the first place.
http://jbh.ministers.treasury.gov.au/media-release/017-2014/
NEVER hear from him on MANY emails and Facebook as Ambassador
Thank you so much for your email.
Obviously I have now resigned from Parliament so I am unable to respond to correspondence.
I will however get the chance to read emails from time to time so don’t think your effort has not been appreciated.
Warm regards,
Joe
Interesting though
The Hon Joe Hockey
Treasurer
18 September 2013 – 21 September 2015
28 April 2014Media Release
Signing of Tax Agreement with the United States
Australia and the United States have today signed an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to reduce the burden on Australian financial institutions in complying with the United States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
FATCA is an information-reporting regime that was enacted by the United States in March 2010. It will commence on 1 July 2014 and will affect a large part of the Australian financial services sector.
The conclusion of this treaty-status IGA will help Australian financial institutions comply with FATCA. It reduces the overall burden on Australian business, minimises costs by simplifying due diligence requirements and broadens arrangements between the Australian Tax Office and the US Internal Revenue Service.
The IGA will also improve existing tax information-sharing arrangements between Australia and the United States, for the purpose of preventing tax evasion. This will help to enhance the integrity of both countries’ tax systems.
The Government will introduce legislation to give effect to the IGA as soon as practicable. Public consultation will immediately commence on the draft legislation and its explanatory memorandum.
A copy of the IGA is available on the Treasury website.
“The conclusion of this treaty-status IGA will help Australian financial institutions comply with FATCA.”
AND: AU/USA citizens, be damned!
The point is…they shouldn’t HAVE to!
All I can surmise is that the world’s gov’ts are in lock-step with a more insidious plan. Otherwise, they would have banded together in protest/defense of their own autonomy & there would not be this immediate “flipping on their backs” response.
I made a meme about this– is there any way to embed or insert an image?
Jane,
You could tweet your meme and post a link to the tweet here. Or if you have the image online, you could post a link and ask the admins to embed it for you.
As for the IGA — I agree wholeheartedly. What happened to our rights as AUSTRALIAN citizens?
My guess is that the government rolled over quickly for two reasons: a) the banks insisted (and when banks are more than a third of the value of the sharemarket, they tend to get what they want); b) the (ephemeral) promise of reciprocity.
I’m personally upset at Trump. If a vile dictator arrives in a country who also “owns” our currency, then what?
@Karen. I guess I expected better of our kind (humans). For all of the blustering, we have failed our planet, big-time (as in, we’re destroying it, to our own demise).
I can relinquish & be done at 50+, but my kids are being robbed…it guts me.
Jane,
Yes, I find Trump pretty scary too…
https://twitter.com/jeremyscheuch/status/708871496890916868
https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/708880804026290177
And I don’t know what any of the candidates will do for the environment.
All we can do is express our opinions and exercise our rights. If no one speaks up, nothing will change.
Like the FATCA meme. Sometimes I think of the US as acting like a toddler who hasn’t learned to share his toys. FATCA is the ultimate dummy spit. Too bad we can’t convince the rest of the world to give the US a timeout.
I’m replying to Karen & others…
Trump is Hitler- for the USA. If they don’t see it, the rest should act. The issue is FATCA acting as a mechanism on behalf of the USA in all countries. Time to end it.
Mixed blessings?
Rubio:
“I believe Donald Trump as our nominee is going to shatter and fracture the Republican Party and the conservative movement,” the Sunshine State senator said. “I think it’s already having that function.”
Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rubio-doubts-supporting-trump/2016/03/12/id/718836/#ixzz42nLudGBI
@Jane, “Trump is Hitler”
I rightfully recoil when I hear persons compare persons to Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot or refer to persons as Nazis.
To set the table, I relinquished a decade ago, no CLN but the USG confirmed in writing I relinquished. Regardless, I am of of the personal opinion that a person should only vote in one place and would support the re-enactment of the prohibition of duals voting in non-US elections.
You clearly do not like Trump, fair enough.
One of the following WILL be the next president; Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Cruz, Rubio.
IF Trump is Hitler what does that make Clinton? Clinton has the support of the neocon warmongers if Trump is the nominee. Clinton is also part of the Obama Administration and formerly represented “Americans Abroad” as Secy State.
Amongst Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Rubio, Cruz which ones bear responsibility for actually voting for such things as FATCA and FAST?
On the matter of War, there are only two candidates not tainted by the disaster of the middle east and those two persons are Trump and Sanders.
In regards to the expat witch hunt there is only one candidate without blood on their hands and that is Trump.
I assume you will be voting in the United States? Who do you support and why? Clinton is a neocon war monger and past performance indicates she will get the US involved in more nation building.
To be blunt, I do not care what the USA does as long as they do not involve other nations in particular my own.
I remember the election of Reagan and the scaremonger warmongering. Reagan was going to see Europe up in flames with the USSR.
I long for the man of peace and that man was Ronald Reagan.
Trump may be a lot of things but he does not have the blood of war on his hands.
@Bubbles, “shatter and fracture the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”
The Conservative movement gained legs under Ronald Reagan but is now dead with respect to the elite GOP.
The neocons took over the party with their american exceptionalism and nation building projects.
But again the neocons are political parasites always looking for a host hence their public statements that they will support Clinton if Trump is the nominee.
Bush 2 was bad but Obama blew apart the middle east tinderbox with the help of Secretary Clinton.
@Karen; interesting twitter items.
1.) Recently a tabloid dug up old photos from the 1930’s showing my Queen as a child rendering a “nazi salute.” I was disgusted by that photo as it was not what it was. I have actually found old pictures of George with his arm stretched out that while looking like a nazi salue are nothing of the sort!!
2.) I am European and the US gun culture is foreign to me. I am happy with the laws in my country and do not want US like laws in my country. That said, a twitter user made a lawful comment that in the context of the USA fits. I have seen many twitter comments from other countries that I frankly do not get or understand but accept them for what they are.
Just as I do not judge what Americans do in their culture, I ask that Americans do not judge or interfere in my culture. Hence, Obama interfering in the upcoming UK Brexit debate, its none of his business.
The Clintons gave mastered the art of political triangulation:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(politics)
@George Fair point. All of the US is foreign to me now. The view you get from the Australian press is that the US is full of gun-toting, ultra-conservative right-to-lifers. I’m sure that’s just as accurate as the view of Australia as Crocodile Dundee with a bit of Rabbit-Proof Fence thrown in on the side. (Actually, I’ve never seen Crocodile Dundee, perhaps Priscilla Queen of the Desert would be a better reference?)
Anyways, I’m just observing this election from the sidelines. I vote where I live and not in a foreign country. There is, however, a bit of frustration here (and probably in Europe as well), that Trump could end up being the “leader of the free world” and there’s nothing anyone outside of the US can do to stop the trainwreck.
All the more reason for us to educate our governments on what the US is really up to with FATCA and stop this extra-territorial data/tax grab.
@Karen, “There is, however, a bit of frustration here (and probably in Europe as well), that Trump could end up being the “leader of the free world” and there’s nothing anyone outside of the US can do to stop the trainwreck.”
The problem is NOT that Trump would be the leader of the free world, the problem is that the USA considers itself to to be the leader of the free world.
Imagine for a moment Clinton as leader of the free world with the backing of the neocons?
The world is a better place when the world does not look to the USA for leadership!!!
@George – exactly (which is why I put “leader of the free world” in quotes).
The last time I voted in a US election I voted for the first Clinton and I was there to vote. Clinton promised a better health insurance system, one that people with disabilities could be apart of. But when he was elected nothing happen. I knew I could not live there, because I could not buy health insurance. So I decided to come home to Australia. (By that time I was calling Australia home.) To top it off at that time my US passport (which had my Australian residency visa) was stolen so I had to get both replaced. I did not feel safe in the US. I resolved to be an Australian citizen and to live my life in Australia. When I got back to Australia I applied for Australian citizenship as soon as I could. I have never voted for an US president since.
@George
I consider R Reagan the start of the downhill-slide. He, the “trickle-down-economics” initiator, began the move towards our current/inevitable, “corporations are people”. Most definitely NOT a positive.
Sen. Sanders would be the best choice. HRC is Ms. Wall St., all the way.
Trump is a scam artist & is using Hitler-esque techniques in his campaign– I’m not the first/only to see this.
FATCA & TPP are the beginning of the end if something doesn’t change.
Imho.
Feel like commenting ?
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Comment ???
https://www.facebook.com/groups/citizenshiptaxation/1006617026094712/?ref=notif¬if_t=group_activity
https://www.change.org/p/bernie-sanders-bernie-sanders-citizenship-based-taxation-and-fatca
Do you know techs that can set up petitions this way for our situation / automatically finds local government rep / and minister and sends email great
http://www.dontkillbulkbill.com/