Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 6 of 11 (Year 2019)
You can access all years at this link: Media and Blog Articles – Links for All Years
If clicking on a link brings you to the wrong page in the comment stream, click here to get to the most recent comments.
Media and Blog Articles
EmBee suggested that it would be good if there was a thread for new articles, so that people would be aware of where to comment. So, I created this permanent page. I’ll make a permanent list of links posted here and keep adding to it, but not deleting, so we’ll end up having sort of a “bibliography” of FATCA/CBT articles. [Note: Some articles are not open for comments]
For more articles on FATCA, enter FATCA into Google then click on the link “more news for fatca” just below the most recent featured article.
Notes:
From JC: To see #FATCA on Twitter for latest breaking news. JC finds that is quite a good source and there even are some international articles that one may read using Google Translate. Others may help certain tweets and articles remain in elevated position by retweeting them.
From Badger: On an important archival note, please use the Internet Archive Wayback machine https://archive.org/web/ (see bottom right ‘Save Page Now’ box to enter URLs of webpages you want saved for posterity, and try to save backup copies of articles and other items of interest in some other form – such as a datastick or external drive. Some important and very significant webpages and the fulltexts of articles are no longer available (although some can be retrieved if someone using the Wayback machine saved them).
Be sure to read the comment stream for this thread — there are usually very recent articles mentioned.
2019.12.15
Canadians travelling to or through the US should pay attention to their withering rights, H.M. Jocelyn, CBC News, Canada.
2019.12.12
EU revives issue of FATCA information exchange as year-end deadline for banks approaches, Helen Burggraf, AmericanExpatFinance.
2019.12.10
13 Reasons Why I Committed Citizide, John Richardson, TaxConnections.
US tax filing requirements that Americans living in Canada should know, David Altro and Avi Guttman, Globe and Mail, Canada.
2019.12.07
Confirmed – Rep. Holding to leave Congress at end of 2020, after reintroducing Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad Act, Helen Burggraf, AmericanExpatFinance.
2019.12.06
Trump is trying to make it took expensive for poor immigrants to stay, Annalisa Merrelli, Quartz, US.
2019.12.05
Revenue Neutrality And A Move To Residence-based Taxation: Open Letter To Democrats Abroad, John Richardson, Karen Alpert, Laura Snyder, TaxConnections.
What It’s Like to Retire Abroad, Glenn Ruffenach, Wall Street Journal, US.
2020.01.01: This thread is now closed. Please comment at Media and Blog Articles Part 7 of 7
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@JC
Problem 1: I sympathize, it would take a certain amount of nerve to simply go dark.
Problem 2: It will never go away unless legal and accounting professionals given an honest account of the risks; in the meantime all we can do is help educate the public.
Problem 3: a real problem and a bad one in some countries, but no reason to enter the US tax system.
EU revives issue of FATCA information exchange as year-end deadline for banks approaches
Dec 12, 2019
https://www.americanexpatfinance.com/news/item/333-eu-revives-issue-of-fatca-information-exchange
I have thought of “Accidentals” as a “Trojan Horse” to help bring about change. They are a group for which U.S. Citizenship-Based Double Taxation may be least defendable.
#JC
Somewhat paradoxically the fact the status quo is so comfortable for Accidentals in Canada means that there is less incentive to fight against FATCA; one could even argue that any fight is a risk not worth taking. European banks being dicks to US person customers – well beyond what the IRS requires of them – make it a very different situation for those Accidentals.
EmBee: Lots of reading to do on this thread today, but just want to give you some quick kudos for your creativity once again! Awesome, indeed!
@ MuzzledNoMore & BB
Thanks. Happy you found it. I kind of hope John comes across it … my little thank you to him for that article and so many more.
@RR
IT may be easy…for now. As the IR prepares to plug in missing tins and other info while updating their system and personnel demands ,we will see how long ‘easy ‘will last. Also,can you find me a Canadian political leader with any backbone to stand up to US pressure.
@JC
I f ” I have thought of “Accidentals” as a “Trojan Horse” to help bring about change ” is true . Why weren’t they present at the Meadows hearings ?
I far as I remember , you folks at IBS were fairly mute on that point at the time of the hearings.
@RR
Time will tell, won’t it? I doubt it will ever happen – no ROI.
Another article designed by a compliance condor to scare people into the IRS net: https://tgam.ca/35fsiNn?fbclid=IwAR0S18KnootOsr3HM8GfaHILigQtjsUODATLicVS-GO4JA9roO26BeSe7Q8
The Globe & Mail seems to reprint the same “advertorial” from these clowns every few months. I’ll send yet another grumpy letter to the business editor…
Probably a waste of time, but sent to various Globe & Mail editors:
A mild word of complaint about this article, from 10 December:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/taxes/article-us-tax-filing-requirements-that-americans-living-in-canada-should
I believe this is not the first time that these authors, David Altro and Avi Guttman, have recycled this piece. What is ostensibly “public service” on their part is mostly an attempt to drum up business.
The authors fail to mention a few key points:
While the number of Canadian accounts reported under FATCA this year (900,000) is indeed outrageous, when one factors in multiple accounts per person, Canadians living in the US, and temporary US expats in Canada, the number of dual-citizen Canadian residents having their financial information reported to the IRS is much smaller – perhaps on the order of 50,000. Note also that Canadian banks do not actively seek out US citizens – they present customers with a simple question about US person status, which customers are free to answer as they see fit, with no further validation to ensure that the answer is correct.
The authors then go on to list all the various forms that must be submitted to the IRS, the various US taxes that must be paid, and the various enormous and terrifying penalties to which a US person in Canada is subject to. What the authors brazenly fail to mention is this: the US government has no power to collect penalties in Canada from a Canadian citizen (the IRS can request CRA assistance in collecting from a Canadian resident who is not a Canadian citizen – this it has done precisely once).
The compliance rate for US persons in Canada is estimated to be somewhere between 5 and 10 percent, based on IRS and State Department data. The vast majority of dual citizens in Canada do not file US tax returns, nor should they, because there is no risk to their not doing so, provided of course that they have no US assets or income sources.
The authors also fail to mention one expensive cure for the problem of US tax obligation – renouncing US citizenship at a cost of US$2350. If they did, I’m fairly certain they would not mention that it’s perfectly legal (and increasingly popular based on anecdotal reports) to simply renounce without any US tax compliance.
Overall, the authors convey the impression that the IRS is hunting down dual citizens in Canada, who are at risk of terrible penalties, unless of course they hire an accountant to bring them into compliance, at some considerable expense even if no US taxes are owed. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Even with limited FATCA data flowing south from those who have identified them as US persons to their banks, the IRS makes no effort to find US persons in Canada who have not been filing US tax returns. They don’t have the resources and it’s a waste of their time given the difficulty in collection. On the other hand, those who have been pressured into compliance are often faced with steep bills, not only accounting fees but in some cases taxes or penalties that arise due to inconsistencies in the tax systems.
In future I would advise the Globe & Mail to stop providing free product placement to compliance firms, whose business model seems to be “helpfully” scaring Canadian dual citizens into needless and expensive US tax filing. Instead, provide more balanced coverage of the issue highlighting the fact that the vast majority of dual citizens do not file, and should not file. The uncritical publishing of compliance industry “advertorial” content does a disservice to Canadians.
Great response! I’ll bear it in mind should any sort of equivalent article be printed here in the UK.
Scare mongering at its’ worst. Especially the comment by Northern Passage. The good news is that nobody else reads comments in an online article in the G&M
@ Ron Henderson
Good! They need to see the other side of the coin. Some of the comments are good, some add more morsels to the compliance fear stew and some are actually helpful. I hate to think that as a result of reading this G&M article that person(s) out there are worrying themselves sick as I did one Christmas season. That was years ago. I think it was and still is the Canadian court challenge that keeps me from another panic attack. It’s something positive for me to focus on. It reminds me that some very special people are trying to do something right here in Canada to fight back.
Reading that article jogged my memory. Almost a decade ago, a friend sent me an email linking a similar G&M article. That article caused my OMG moment and subsequent ill considered decision to start filing. I filed for a few years before I finally figured out what a crock it was and stopped filing just as suddenly as I had started.
The G&M has been publishing articles like this for a long time and has established a consistent pattern. My question is why? What’s in it for the G&M? The only possible beneficiaries of these infomercials are the slime ball tax vultures who write them and the US government. They are of absolutely no benefit to Canada or Canadians. Maybe the slime balls offered to pay the Globe to publish their drivel instead of the other way around? Regardless, seeing crap articles like this makes me angry.
‘Latest changes to Preclearance Agreement give U.S. officials dangerously extended power on Canadian soil’
Another important area to watch re US encroachment on Canadian sovereignty and our Charter rights – literally right on our own home soil.
the link is here;
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-border-crossing-rights-1.5382547
@ badger
Sovereignty creep just gets worser and worser. FATCA “integrated” (as in the US dominated, RE data collection at least) our tax systems. The preclearance agreement “integrates” (as in the US dominates, guns on hips no less!) our border crossings. And coming up soon, the USMCA “will integrate” (as in the US will dominate) our economic/trade systems. No surprise Chrystia Freeland, globalist extraordinaire, is so enthusiastic about this latest sellout of Canadian sovereignty. No surprise it’s called USMCA not CUSMA.
Trudeau: Please Mr. Trump, may we negotiate a new trade deal with China?
Trump: No. China is bad.
Trudeau: Okay, no deal with China. That’s USMCA rules. Sorry for asking.
Bully for Samantha Power, Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
Here she is on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, pitching to America the idea that the U.S. needs a strong international diplomatic corps.
Ironically, her pitch is needed in ways she herself doesn’t even begin to see. Could there be anything more thoroughly American in attitude towards the world than what she casually says to sell her idea?
“[In today’s world] diplomacy becomes more, not less, important because we no longer just get to take what we want and do what we want, you know, ….”
The pitch amounts to this: “Exceptionalism and entitlement, norms which even I, Samantha Power, as an American inherently expect, don’t hold today like they once did. We are reduced to needing diplomacy.”
https://youtu.be/_UjT2Hd0if4?t=106
Why bully for Samantha Power? FATCA has been imposed on the world by U.S. “diplomacy”.
@ Shovel
Ah yes, Samantha Power … one of the 3 women behind the man who ordered the “intervention” which brought about the destruction of Libya. That was a whole lot of taking and doing what the USA wanted (even dragged Canada into their taking and doing). So NOW, finally, she discovers diplomacy … sheesh! Wonder how the Libyans who once lived in a prosperous, democratic (can Samantha say Jamahiriya?) country in Africa would say about her marvellous turnaround, coming much too late.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/01/12/gaddafis-libya-was-africas-most-prosperous-democracy/
Shovel and EmBee: and Samantha Powers discovers diplomacy at a time when the U.S. is losing, every day, more and more of the best diplomats she could have ever had – U.S. citizens living in other countries. Heck! We didn’t even charge the government for our services! 🙂
https://francoamericanflophouse.wordpress.com/
Just want to let everyone know that the doors are open again at the Franco-American Flophouse. Sadly Victoria Ferauge has been through “One Hell of a Year” with her health but she is feeling better now and happily she is back to writing again. What a treasure she proved herself to be when she tag-teamed with Lynne Swanson on expat articles several years ago. Here’s just one example:
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/240259-americans-abroad-need-tax-justice-too.
EmBee: Thanks so much for alerting us to The Flophouse. Good to have Victoria back in action!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-companies-won-tax-breaks-193939309.html