Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 5 of 11 (Year 2018)
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
2018.12.23
New bill could lessen tax woes for Canadian residents with US citizenship: but the outlook is bleak for thousands grappling with Trump’s repatriation tax, Elizabeth Thompson, CBC News, Canada.
2018.12.21
Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad Act of 2018! Let’s Get This Passed! Anthony Parent, John Richardson, Keith Redmond, IRS Medic. US.
TTFI bill introduced today, great news for Americans living in Canada, Reddit Forum.
FATCA: Significant Relief in New Proposed Regulations, Jeremy Naylor, Amanda H. Nussbaum and Martin T. Hamilton, Mondaq.
2018.12.20
Tax Fairness for Americans Abroad Act, Democrats Abroad.
2018.12.19
TCJA and US Expats, Karen Alpert, Fix the Tax Treaty, Australia.
2018.12.18
Why Banks Have Become Judge, Jury & Prosecutor and will Shut you Down Judged Guilty for Nothing That is Actually Illegal, Patriot Rising.
20`18.12.17
IRS Issues Proposed FATCA Regulations, Adrienne M. Baker, Joseph A. Riley and Jeff J. Kang, Lexology.
2018.12.13
IRS Issues Proposed Regulations on FATCA, Other Reporting Conditions, ABA Banking Journal, US.
2018.12.11
How the IRS as Gutted, Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisenger, ProPublica, US.
2018.12.08
December 2018 International Tax Reform Updates- FATCA -GILTI – TTFI, Anthony Parent interviews Keith Redmond and John Richardson, IRS Medic. (video)
2018.12.05
Explaining GILTI – Individual Impact, Karen Alpert, Fix the Tax Treaty, Australia.
2018.12.03
Luxembourg: Exchange Of Information Vs Data Protection: A Brave New World Of Transparency, Antoine Dupuis and Guilles Sturbois, Mondaq.
2018.12.00 (December 2018 edition)
EU parliament versus FATCA, Financier Worldwide.
Newsletter, Purple Expat.
Articles from earlier in 2018 are in the Media and Blog Articles 2018 Archive. Links to previous years’ archives are also at that link.
Fred – a definite maybe. 😉
Do let us know what happens if you give it a try.
GOP tax law snubs US expats and ‘accidental Americans’ in The Conversation – based on the article I presented in Melbourne in January: https://theconversation.com/gop-tax-law-snubs-us-expats-and-accidental-americans-91710
Comments are open. Please share and comment.
Excellent and comprehensive article, Karen!!
BB: “Would someone be kind enough to create a post for the Transition Tax petition out of Israel JC and Karen are referring to?”
Done!
I haven’t read this fully, but it looks important. It comes from the Government Accounting Office, a non-partisan government agency that reviews policy areas at the request of Congress and makes recommendations.
GAO report recommends greater clarity over foreign pensions
Talks about lack of clarity over reporting facing U.S. participants in foreign workplace retirement plans and those who have had foreign pensions and want to transfer into a U.S. plan. ‘GAO interviewed stakeholders in the United States and in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—chosen because these locations host relatively large populations of U.S. individuals and have well-developed workplace retirement systems.’
https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-19
@Publius
Excellent find. Thank you. As US NRA owning a US pension, I can say first-hand that even this isn’t easy, never mind the other direction. US tax on pensions was the major factor in my green card abandonment a decade ago.
The last two sentences of the report summary raised a wry smile: “The agencies generally agreed with GAO’s recommendations. IRS disagreed with two of GAO’s recommendations.” No surprise there.
Sleep peacefully in your beds, non-renouncers.
https://federalnewsradio.com/budget/2018/03/mnuchin-irs-funding-needed-to-implement-tax-law-improve-customer-service
An unintentionally comical bit of selfie-tizing in which the client-seeker confuses cause and effect:
“Most U.S. Expats Do Not File Correct U.S. Tax Returns
For most U.S. citizens living abroad, life is pretty good – at least that’s what the latest statistics are telling us. In a 2015 survey of thousands of expats worldwide, a whopping 81% responded that they are generally happy with life overseas.
At the risk of spoiling this picture of expat bliss, further statistics show, however, that most U.S. expats are failing quite miserably in the area of tax compliance…”
https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/most-u-s-expats-do-not-file-correct-u-s-tax-returns/#.Wp_OSevfWK0
Another unintended consequence that might get more media attention than *us*:
https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/new-tax-reform-law-could-discourage-sports-team-player-trades-prompting-concern-from-major-league-baseball?utm_campaign=daily-mar%207%202018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&eid=fb961c62ae0186d9f1654fb49dc009db
Thank you @Publius, that GAO report is very interesting. Worth reading in entirety.
No surprise that the IRS says they have known about these problems for several years, have discussed maybe doing something about them, but bottom line is too bad, regardless, you USPs ‘abroad’ must comply with US law applied extraterritorially, no matter how much it costs to get expert advice, and no matter how much of your legal local retirement funds are to be sacrificed needlessly due to the distortions of US extraterritorial taxation as applied to those outside the US, and the inherent conflict between US laws applied extraterritorially and how the rest of the world does things.
Interesting that they note the existence of ‘accidentals’. Other comments look as if no treaty relief requiring treaty re-negotiation is likely – because its ‘time-consuming’.
As for advising individuals to read the details of their specific home country’s treaty with the US and then apply them, after acknowledging that it is so complex as to require expert help in order to comply correctly and avoid being penalized for even inadvertant mistakes – that’s more of the too bad so sad bs.
Also of note is that the IRS says they don’t have the resources to analyze the FATCA data to see whether our ‘foreign’ retirement plans even actually pose a tax evasion risk, and at least, then the GAO questions why they’re collecting the data then if they don’t even know whether it is useful, and have no plans to analyze it for risk. They also know full well that the plans in the countries they cite have layers of legal and governmental oversight both in terms of controlling contributions and in monitoring distributions.
I think this report should be presented to the IGA signatory countries as evidence that the US Treasury and IRS are indiscriminately demanding masses of data that they can’t even really use, and which does NOT have demonstrated high usefulness in administering the US tax system. That was the purported rationale for the Harper Cons and now the Sunny Glibs to enable and defend the FATCA IGA and in subverting our constitutional and Charter rights in Canada, but an agency of the US itself is pointing out that the IRS is not able to even analyze the data it demands from the rest of the world – which we provide at our own taxpayer and accountholder expense.
How long will our home country governments be able to pretend that this is anything but a non-reciprocal data grab under extortionate threat by the US? And one whose purported rationale continues to erode.
I think this is additional fodder for any lawsuits.
Just as an aside, poking about on the GAO website, I found an old GAO report on the FBAR which stated that it should be reviewed or repealed;’ Bank Secrecy Act Reporting Requirements Have Not Yet Met Expectations, Suggesting Need for Amendment’
GGD-81-80: Published: Jul 23, 1981. Publicly Released: Jul 23, 1981.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/140/134315.pdf
The report shows no evidence that the FBAR was ever meant to be used in the twisted manner it is currently, against ordinary individuals, and as a substitute revenue fundraiser – with penalties instituted in place of zero US tax owed. In fact it really focuses on certain types of actual crimes and criminals (mostly drug and currency related) with no mention of people’s local legal ordinary banking.
Making no bones about it:
The almost surreal thing about it: although sympathy is expressed with regard to the complex reporting requirements, none of them seem to notice anything unfair about building up a database of people’s retirement funds with the aim of preventing the accountholders from “evading” double taxation on money that’s being saved for retirement.
Gotta track those taxable events – especially distributions!
GOP tax law snubs US expats and ‘accidental Americans’
March 6, 2018 10.39pm AEDT Karen Alpert
Comments open.
https://theconversation.com/gop-tax-law-snubs-us-expats-and-accidental-americans-91710
More comment about the way the IRS rushed to change the withholding tables:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-08/how-old-are-your-kids-the-answer-could-determine-your-tax-bill
DA announces progress on RBT.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155522317529492&id=537279491
BB: That DA link certainly sounds very positive! Perhaps April might bring us something after all.
@ MuzzledNoMore
Greg Swanson with help from Karen Alpert has an analysis of the DA plan:
https://purpleexpat.org/wp/2018/03/06/democrats-abroad-release-fix-23-tax-problems-americans-abroad/
I do not like the Departure Certificate concept. Just let your people go, America. No hoops please. Some up and went ages ago and they don’t want to be enrolled in your system in order to be deemed to have departed it.
…and some of us (or our children born in countries other than the US) never went to that *foreign* (to us /them) country / never entered the US system. It is suggested they would require a Departure Certificate from it? Would that also require *requisite mental capacity*?
Those kids don’t have a US birthplace so pas de problem.
Yue reports this document as new in RO FATCA/FBAR Lawsuit.
Our action always beats personal attacks: link below is RO #FATCA lawsuit reply brief 2 Gov’t opposition 2 RO SCOTUS petition on standing filed today. FACT: THX 2 DA Smallhoover STMT, no Ds will vote 2 repeal b/c of fear of their own base led RO 2 sue 1st.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-911/38303/20180309110231177_17-911%20cert.%20reply%20-%20final.pdf
“THX 2 DA Smallhoover STMT, no Ds will vote 2 repeal b/c of fear of their own base led RO 2 sue 1st.”
“Thanks to Democrats Abroad Smallhoover statement, no Democrats will vote to repeal because of fear of their own base led Republicans Overseas to sue first.”
Is my transliteration correct? What does it mean?
@plaxy that is out of the context of a twitter discussion about which party is doing things to help and which are not. I believe Yue is referring to the time of the Obama administration and that RO did not want to push for repeal FATCA legislation as it appeared no Dems would vote for repeal. Then RO decided to launch the lawsuit.
While the date of the document is March 2018, I thought that this case, in regards to asking the Supreme Court to review standing issues that the 6th court raised, has already been asked. ?
It is a bit cryptic in that it is from twitter and tweets are limited in character.
Oh, ok, thanks JC, now I understand.
I don’t recall seeing the petition for certiorari before. There was a request for en banc hearing, which was denied, but I don’t recall the date it was denied. They have 90 days from denial of en banc hearing during which they can file a petition for certiorari.
“It is a bit cryptic in that it is from twitter and tweets are limited in character.”
I know. If I was King I’d ban it. 🙂
I wonder what Treasury will do. Will they oppose the petition for certiorari?
I guess we’ll find out before November what Mnuchin thinks about FATCA.
@plaxy
That makes it sound like 8938 isn’t really about “FATCA”ts offshoring their money at all, but about taxing people who have saved in foreign pension plans where they live for a long time. So, the longer a person has lived abroad, the bigger the payout.
It does, doesn’t it? Maybe the Swiss bank episode gave them new ideas. They seem to have gone into that campaign searching for US-resident accountholders, but I believe most of the accounts that got turned over were actually Swiss-resident accounts. USCs, many no doubt saving for their
retirementprimary asset.Mutual funds, trusts, PFICs….