FATCA Discussion Thread (Ask your questions) Part Two
Please ask your questions here about FATCA.
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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.
@Mark..
I think the reason for that is as SIFMA as said, the “reason to know” standard is more than just a few indices… It is overly broad, and now you are seeing that in application.
BTW, did you read this? From Ben on Linked in…
http://www.dbfs.co.uk/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/DBFS-Are-you-affected-by-FATCA-published-gtnews_151013.pdf#!
Note what he called the GIIN. A prize… Gag me with a spoon!
I just put up this comment…
I must admit that I cringed when I hear you call the GIIN, a prize, as if it is some treasured benefit or token bestowed on you from a benevolent overlord that all should lust after. Maybe it was just an unfortunate choice of words.
The real prize, is the one the NSA will be collecting from you, as the UK IGA has paved the way for their easy access to the keys to your financial systems.
Europe might huff and puff about NSA spying, http://bit.ly/1amDfeY
and EU might want to close the door on SWIFT data exchange http://bit.ly/1gJNLTd,
but then at the same time you all just willingly opening the FATCA back door as you exit swiftly out the front.
You guys never learn. America wants EVERYTHING, and you meekly comply and call their GIIN tonic a prize. It is poison, and yet you eagerly drink from the prized chalice!
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/10/24/330981/us-spies-other-nations-because-we-can/
You get what they deserve, I guess. I hope someday a European country will grow a pair and stand up to the America bully. FATCA is sowing distaste, and NSA spying is sowing distrust. It is about time they start reaping the fruits of their labor. However, after a little media huffing and puffing, sadly enough Europe will continue its poodle ways. So it goes.
I loved the Freudian-slip reference to “the way the weather vein [sic] is pointing” in
http://www.strevus.com/blog/myth-3-the-solution-to-fatca-is-to-close-american-accounts/
“Once a bank has established that a customer is an American yes there is an element of reporting to the IRS. Yes, that is an extra burden but that is the way the weather vein is pointing across all jurisdictions. For example, the EU Savings Directive has a similar reporting requirement.”
It conjures an image of banks using FATCA to draw blood from their customers’ veins to feed some vampire.
$100M is a tax deductible business expense and considered a “rounding error” for the banks (at least according to one investment advisor I know who works for a bank).
I don’t know how banks will be able to turn people away without shooting themselves in the foot. The banking industry’s raison d’ être is to take in people’s money, and it would go against everything they are as an industry to turn anyone’s away, but still they have in countries where there are fewer Americans. Informing the general public that a bank has implemented FATCA is supposed to inspire confidence in them, I suppose, in that the bank won’t forfeit any of their customer’s money in withholding. I can see the CBA being very concerned about a run on Canadian banks if their customers saw the threat of that happening. The banks can also do it without you thinking it’s costing you more if they have to.
I’m just wondering, will those with US work or student visas be affected by FATCA and US CBT?
http://fatca.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/APAC-Asset-managers-will-not-be-spared-from-FATCA-say-officials.pdf
ONBOARDING and OFFBOARDING — oh, the horrors of the foreign financial instituitions’ compliance with FATCA.
Green card holders and citizens sidestepping FATCA because they can? That’s a given! If the banks are worried that self-certification puts them too much at risk, expect those with indicia to have to send for documentation to prove that they never became a citizen or green card holder.
Why can’t I help but think of ‘waterboarding’ whenever I see ‘offboarding’?
@I’m with Em and maybe someone else. Offboarding comes just before keel hauling.
This is a google translate version of an opinion piece in France’s Le Temps
All good ideas but unlikely to happen. However FATCA is doomed as fewer countries are willing to IGA themselves.
1. April = shock discovery of US reporting obligations.
2.April and May = many hours reading info here at IBS, at IRS website and phone calls for extra info from IRS.
3.May and June=self-filed 6 years of current and back tax and Fbar forms for 4 persons in my dual family, including letters of explaination for all years. Done via QD as advised by IRS telephone helpline who advised “just file current and 6 years back.”
4.July-October = all 4 duals renounced. First renunciant received CLN in Aug.
5. Have travelled to US on EU passport with Esta visa with absolutely no problems or any questions. Have non- US birthplace.
6.So far great relief at having done this tinged with a bit of sadness.
IMHO US is good to visit, not to live in. US are fine people, but saddled with many major issues. Am glad not longer part of that system.
Many thank you to all IBS person who have helped and advised me, good luck to all here trying to get through these challenges.
Interesting email exchange here regarding FATCA and banking in Ecuador. This guy (Gary Scot) is pushing a financial service, and championing Denmark accounts as a safe haven. Discounting that, I was more interested to hear what Ecuador government and banks were thinking about FATCA….
Have a read and see what you think…
http://www.garyascott.com/2013/10/25/33341.html
@allou, well done. Good to hear it’s all gone smoothly and that you had no troubles entering the US again after renouncing. Hope the rest of the CLN’s arrive soon, if they haven’t already.
@ Just Me
The Ecuador article was interesting. This bit caught my eye …
“This bank is also a specialist in multi currency accounts and the funds are managed from Canada (Denmark and Canada are two of the safest banking centers in the world).”
Canada is safe? Not if PM Harper signs an IGA it won’t be. I actually have more faith in Pres. Correa because he has stood up to the USA in other matters (Julian Assange, for instance) and he doesn’t buy into the American exceptionalism bit. I really do wonder about Gary Scott’s $79 Canada-Denmark-Ecuador plan though.
@allou
Between steps #3 and #4 did you make any attempts to determine whether the IRS accepted the returns as filed? This is somewhat difficult because unlike, say, Canada’s CRA, the IRS does not send anything back to the filer saying their return was accepted as is, or amended in the specified manner. Hence the question.
Please ignore the above question. Have reposted in ‘renunciation’ where it belongs (and where allou’s post was reposted).
Another blazing brand from Blaze!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/FATCA-Attack-Around-The-Gl-by-Lynne-Swanson-Banks_Financial_People-131025-839.html
http://ttnewsflash.com/?p=45488
‘Barbados will not be bullied’
“PRIME MINISTER Freundel Stuart has said that Barbados will not be bullied into signing on to the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA) while ignoring the amended OECD Convention on mutual assistance in tax matters……”
By Editor / October 25, 2013
@badger
Hmmmm. I might plsn a holiday in Barbados this coming winter. There is a plsce worthy of my hard earned retirement mony.
@badger
Hmmmm. I might plan a holiday in Barbados this coming winter. There is a place worthy of my hard earned retirement mony.
@ Blaze
Wonderful article. Thank you for writing it. It was so well written. You wrote every point needed to be presented.
I found that a bit incomprehensible. But a quick google yielded this – http://www.caribjournal.com/2013/10/25/barbados-eyes-inter-governmental-agreement-with-us-on-fatca/
Sigh.
Gotta like the ‘reciprocal’ part, though.
tdott, that is why I found the other article intriguing, yet confusing about the Barbados position.
Here is another FATCA article – re ‘foreign trusts’;
“In this report, Cotorceanu addresses the FATCA classification of trusts and concludes that most trusts will be foreign financial institutions under the final FATCA regulations and model intergovernmental agreements. That result is not only counterintuitive, but contrary to congressional intent. By trying to wedge trusts into the ill-suited category of FFIs, the IRS and Treasury have created many unanswered questions that will confound offshore trust companies as they try to become FATCA compliant.”
http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Features/DA7E5C0B6EF087B385257C0D0046A8F8?OpenDocument
@Badger… A country with some cajones? Could this be the Mouse that roared…
Maybe they got pissed off in the negotiations when they realized there were none, and decided they weren’t going to be bullied, so struck a different tone. I can imagine the FATCAnatic cram down experts could be pretty arrogant with a small country. Enough to solicit a rant and a rage from a Foreign Minister even while he is “eyeing an IGA”
I don’t get it.
“I look forward, therefore, to being able in the coming weeks to announce formally that the US is favourably disposed to negotiating a reciprocal Model 1 inter-governmental agreement with us,” he said. “And from our end, we will be working towards concluding agreement by year-end.”
and
“PRIME MINISTER Freundel Stuart has said that Barbados will not be bullied into signing on to the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA) while ignoring the amended OECD Convention on mutual assistance in tax matters……”
Both on the same day?
Will the real Prime Minister Freundel Stuart please stand up?
@Badger…
That article on Offshore Trusts as FFIs, is very interesting, although you really have to be a Trust wonk to read it.. Definitely a square peg in a round hole…
Hard to see that this was the intention of the FATCA statute to make them FFIs, but as we know the Regulation writers make shit up, and they appear to have done that with this.
But as compliance lawyers do,…. His response…
Still, there’s no point whining. Life’s hard; soldier on. Let’s do just that.
I guess that is what is expected of U.S, Persons around the world . No point whining. Soldier on.