FATCA Discussion Thread (Ask your questions) Part Two
Please ask your questions here about FATCA.
Participants will need to provide their e-mail address (real or fake) and an alias. The only written rule is that participants must use a same alias each time they post (and not “anonymous” or derivatives thereof).
Bear in mind that any responses that you get from participants is peer-to-peer help, and it is not intended as a replacement for professional advice. Also, the Isaac Brock Society provides this disclaimer: neither the Society nor any of its members are professionals. We offer our advice here only in friendship and we recommend that our readers seek professional advice if they need it.
If you wish to receive an e-mail notification of comments, check the box to that effect when making your first comment.
NB: This discussion is a continuation of an older discussion that became too large for our software to handle well. See FATCA Discussion Thread (Ask your questions) for earlier discussion.
Recent academic scholarship on FATCA
Once the FATCA “Genie was let out of the Lamp”, I am afraid there is no putting it back. Copy cat culture prevails in international tax law. The impact will be lasting, for sure.
A Kiwi with dual US/NZ citizenship, just emailed me a link to this blog which is owned by a Mark Hubbard. Along with the link was a note that some Brockers might be interested in reading and commenting.
This is one of the few found in NZ that have FATCA awareness, and this post was back in January, where he was commenting on FATCA and Obama inauguration double speak. For the fun of it, I quickly made a comment and invited him over here to look around. If anyone is interested they might post a comment there too, just to stimulate some across country communication about FATCA resistance efforts.
Just a quick thank you to Just Me, and the other respondent who commented on my blog. The Isaac Brock Society has many themes in common with my concerns, and issues within New Zealand, so I’ll feature it over the coming week when I get a chance.
Good luck to your cause.
@ Mark Hubbard
I tried to comment on your blog but it got lost. I’ll just paste it here in case you’re still around …
This Canadian is happy to have discovered your blog, Mark. (Thanks, Just Me.) I’m loving the loon in you (no disrespect, people — see Mark’s disclaimer at the bottom of the page). I have a real soft spot for Kiwis and would like to think they are part of the anti-FATCA forces being cobbled together in Canada and in other countries. — Em
Cheers Em. But I’m a minor, minor voice: DownUnder we were overtaken by rampant statism – government spend is 44% of the spend in our economy – many years ago, and we few classical liberals left are all just taking in the view on the road to our serfdom under mobocracy. Indeed, I think all social democracy proves, anymore, is that lambs would vote for abattoirs if you offered them a free lunch first.
@Em
Mark’s blog is very easy to post on, so for someone as poetic with words as you, how could you get lost? I put your comment there for you. 🙂
Thanks Mark for finding us here, and welcome. Great comment about the sheep! So true.
FATCA’s crucial sidekick, the hunt for ‘beneficial owner,’ pushed as G20 nations, senior US senators urge action
So, as I see it, this is pointing right back to Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada to name a couple states where beneficial ownership is shrouded in Corporate mystery. So, the FATCA boomerang increasing looks aimed at America… Well, dear Senators, was that your intention when you launched FATCA?
FATCA Sets Stage for EU Clamp Down on Tax Evasion
The enactment of FATCA has ramped up negotiations at the EU and OECD level on how to improve the implementation of taxing cross-border investment income.
@ Just Me
I used “Anonymous”, clicked publish but nothing happened. I didn’t want to try again in case I doubled it. Thanks for doing it for me. Since you mentioned boomerang and you are in the land of OZ right now … this is for you.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/02/carribbean-bank-irs/2131327/
The U.S. obtained the order from a judge Tuesday after an IRS revenue agent reviewed information from 129 people who voluntarily came forward to disclose offshore accounts and decided further scrutiny of FirstCaribbean was warranted.
U.S. authorities have issued such blanket subpoenas, known as a “John Doe summons,” to seek out tax cheats in the past, most notably in the case of UBS AG, the largest bank in Switzerland. Iverson said this was the first for a Caribbean bank.
The World Trade Organisation has doled out an amusing punishment to the US for trying to force its gambling laws extraterritorially on Antigua:
The Government of Antigua will soon start accepting bids for their WTO authorized pirate site, to punish the United States for refusing to lift a trade blockade.
I look forward to the punishment they will impose for trying to foist FATCA on the rest of the world.
The Tax Justice Ideologues awakening amuses me…
Will the UK’s tax haven agreements be an exercise in missing the point?
They are so naive
They have a shared concern about “the harmful impacts of tax avoidance, tax competition and tax havens.”
and why do we have those problems, well these impacts are created by government legislation and taxing actions in the first place. The physics of politics ordains that for every action there is an equal and opposite action by those trying to escape those impacts. That should be no surprise.
What is surprising is they think that government will now create a solution via some GREAT BIG TRANSPARENT DATA SHARING “Son of FATCA” program and then wake up to the fact, that it might miss the point. Makes me laugh.
http://michaelpower.ca/2013/04/fatca-revisited/
FATCA and privacy issue raised. Canadian context.
…and one comment from Tim:
found this on the Privacy Commissioner’s site:
http://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/cp/2013-2014/cp_bg_e.asp
Project Backgrounders
Contributions Program 2013-2014
Organization: Queen’s University, Faculty of Law
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $10,000
Project Title: The Privacy Implications of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)
Project Leader: Arthur Cockfield
Project Description: The project will review the privacy implications of the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in light of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Specifically, the project will review implications on Canadian privacy rights and interests of any new agreement negotiated between Canada and the United States to implement FATCA. The project will also examine the interplay of FATCA with other Canadian laws that protect taxpayer privacy such as the Income Tax Act, the Canada-United States Tax Convention Act and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Finally, the project will review how Canadian banks are trying to comply with all relevant laws, and whether these banks are adopting new information technology systems to help them identify, sort, and transfer financial information to U.S. tax authorities.”
Good find, badger!
Calgary 411 and Badger,
Tim says that:
“I was told from pretty good sources that the Federal Privacy Commissioner was very close to ruling informally at least that participation in FATCA was in conflict with PIPEDA.”
This is interesting as I have not yet received a decision on my two separate complaints to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) of Canada: one dealing with privacy breaches of US persons in Canada that will occur when Canada approves FATCA and the second dealing with privacy breaches now occurring when non-US Canadian spouse refuses to disclose joint accounts with US person to IRS–but is forced to comply.
My discrimination complaint re FATCA to the Canada Human Rights Commission (which confirmed to me awareness of FATCA issue) was denied, as CHRC explained that FATCA is yet to be signed off and actual discrimination has not yet happened.
Have any other Canadian IB commenters recently filed such privacy/human rights complaints?
Although the decisions may well be negative, it still makes sense to file if we believe that our rights in Canada will be or have been violated and, as I have previously mentioned in this forum, I continue to fail to see the downside in filing and, when doing so, alerting relevant individuals that that such filings of concerned Canadians have taken place.
Great reasons for Bankfia to have FATCAs to keep money where it is at
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/67f9afde-a2c5-11e2-bd45-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2QXqVRwSd
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67f9afde-a2c5-11e2-bd45-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2SJAh6RYF
This leaves me to conclude that the unit of account is not really the same across the eurozone – that Spain and Germany have a different euro. This is also the reason why I believe southern Europeans have a rational reason to shift their savings to bank accounts in the north – because this would present the only way to preserve the value of their euros in the long run.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/04/15/the-wreck-of-the-euro/
Further analysis in this pro-USA site upon Bankfia interest in the FATCAs to keep local banks afloat
There are lots of consequences, but the one that may cause the most trouble fastest has to do with banking. If a Spanish euro is really worth much less than a German euro, sooner or later bank deposits in Spain are going to be worth less than bank deposits in Germany. Intelligent people will realize this and start moving their bank deposits out of Spanish banks and into German or even non-eurozone banks; those who fail to do this stand to lose a lot of money when the system finally snaps. Stupid people (some of whom may be operating central banks) will increasingly be the ones whose bank deposits keep the south European bank systems functioning, and there are probably not enough of them to keep the system running indefinitely.
FATCA: The large, unfriendly elephant in the room http://bit.ly/10ciqeo and will brook no dissent, or so say the faint hearted @RepealFatca
If Mr. Semeta has his way, any bank account held by an EU citizen will be, from January 2015 onwards, reported to the tax authority of its country of origin.
Tax evasion in Europe’s governance
@just me
That article by Martha Harris Myron at the Royal Gazette sounds good, but she makes no mention of the current threats to reciprocity which may serve to derail FATCA. Her urging of everyone to jump on to the compliance bandwagon is kind of naive, in that the big players she seems to be speaking to are always going to be one step ahead of people like her.
@Em…
Thanks for the song and the thought. I think John Williamson does a better version but couldn’t find it quickly, so here is an alternate that I like.
This is Australia Calling…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBkIJtvuM_A&playnext=1&list=PLBFAC23E1ECF6CA10
@bubblebustin. Reciprocity is not an issue for Bermuda. I think they are going for Model 2 of the IGA
http://bit.ly/18FcXRc
Interesting article in the WSJ
Say ‘Au Revoir’ to Your Credit
Discussion on the problems of Expats retaining credit when living abroad. No mention of FATCA, FBAR or Citizenship taxation, except this one little comment…
So, are you so fortunate? 🙂
and yes, Roger and I have both made comments. 🙂
I think this has been posted before, but good reminder about how CPAs are beginning to think about you as a client and protect themselves. All are becoming tax sleuths for the IRS.
Tax Maven Blog
FATCA Tax Reporting – 10 Red Flags
Hopefully you’ve protected yourself with carefully worded questions on every individual client’s tax organizer. Maybe you’ve even included FATCA notifications as part of all client engagement agreements.
But just because you have the legal liability bases covered, that doesn’t mean you won’t lose sleep if a FATCA issue is missed. Who wants to have that conversation with the client about tax penalties?
How can you increase the likelihood that you or your staff will spot a possible foreign tax reporting requirement? While there is no foolproof detective manual, here are 10 “red flags” that might warrant further investigation: