Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 5 of 11 (Year 2018)

1,714 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 5 of 11 (Year 2018)”

1. “Interesting to note that the US for a while both had CBT and lack of voting rights abroad. ”

   According to FAWCO’s statement, their organisation was instrumental in changing that. (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1667616446626191&id=131996010188250&refid=18&_ft_=qid.6539403569413655043%3Amf_story_key.962373357262070%3Atop_level_post_id.962373357262070%3Atl_objid.962373357262070%3Apage_id.131996010188250%3Asrc.22%3Apage_insights.%7B%22131996010188250%22%3A%7B%22page_id%22%3A131996010188250%2C%22role%22%3A1%2C%22actor_id%22%3A1510532951%2C%22psn%22%3A%22EntGroupMallPostCreationStory%22%2C%22attached_story%22%3A%7B%22role%22%3A1%2C%22page_id%22%3A131996010188250%2C%22post_context%22%3A%7B%22story_fbid%22%3A1667616446626191%2C%22publish_time%22%3A1522101924%2C%22story_name%22%3A%22EntStatusCreationStory%22%2C%22object_fbtype%22%3A266%7D%2C%22actor_id%22%3A131996010188250%2C%22psn%22%3A%22EntStatusCreationStory%22%2C%22sl%22%3A6%7D%2C%22sl%22%3A6%2C%22targets%22%3A%5B%7B%22page_id%22%3A131996010188250%2C%22actor_id%22%3A1510532951%2C%22role%22%3A1%2C%22post_id%22%3A1667616446626191%2C%22share_id%22%3A0%7D%5D%7D%7D&__tn__=C-R)

   (Giant URL! No idea why. I got the link from the entry on the American Expatriates page)

   Personally I always felt the right to vote in US elections to be more of a burden than a privilege. Who the devil do you vote for if one side is offering you Lyndon Baines Johnson and the other side is offering you Barry Goldwater? Which one are you going to help inflict on the world? Similar dilemmas seemed to be presented in most election years. You know your vote won’t matter diddly-squat but you still feel bad about it. Or I did.

   However, those who do want to vote in US elections probably don’t need to be to worried. I didn’t intend to cause alarm by mentioning it, I was just saying that I gather from the FAWCO statement that that’s one of their concerns about possible undesirable consequences.

2. “Who the devil do you vote for if one side is offering you Lyndon Baines Johnson and the other side is offering you Barry Goldwater”

   I opted for Johnson, fautes de mieux, but Goldwater and Ayn Rand have won in the end.

3. I for one would also choose RBT over voting rights. I just think that it is in a country’s interest to keep its citizens abroad interested in homeland politics. And personally I am a nerd when it comes to US politics.
   And Plaxy: I think Trump v Clinton was a tough one too. The former, while clearly making America weak again and being planet-toxic, did allow for hope that some kind of tax reform would help us.

4. Fred – I can’t imagine circumstances which could lead me to cast a vote for Trump. 🙂 🙂 🙂

   I think it’s very unfortunate (for USCs outside US) that FATCA seems to have led to a trust in the other party which it doesn’t take a genius to see is totally unwarranted by past practice.

   They’re all in the same game.

5. There is ZERO connection between taxation and voting rights. There is no requirement to certify payment of taxes on one’s voter registration card or on one’s ballot anywhere within the 50 states. Why should there be such a certification outside the 50 states? Let’s not give them any ideas! 🙂

6. In the real world there may be no connection between taxation and voting rights. In America a connection can easily be deemed into existence, and has been in the past. As I understand it, states used to be fond of imposing taxes on the non-US-source income of USCs outside the US who wrote requesting an absentee ballot.

   However, I don’t see that there’s much reason to be concerned about voting rights at present. Threatening bank access has turned out to be much more effective than charging expats to vote.

7. A history lesson according to Democrats Abroad:

   “During the final days of the 94th Congress, House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill engineered the passage of “The Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act of 1975” through a crowded calendar. President Ford signed the Act into law in January 1976. Many Americans, however, refrained from voting while overseas because they feared tax consequences. In 1977-78, Dean Ferrier and Peter Alegi led the efforts to resolve this problem. In November 1978 Congress modified the Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act to make clear that exercising a vote in a federal election would not by itself cause any state, local or federal tax consequences. With this solid base, Democrats Abroad then helped convince Congress to pass the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986, which laid the legal basis for a vast expansion of access to voting by Americans residing abroad. Each year more local barriers are removed as the federal legislation is enforced at the state and local level. This breakthrough legislation has swept away almost all important legal obstacles to absentee voting by Americans abroad.”

   https://www.democratsabroad.org/history

8. Peter Alegi eh. Now isn’t that interesting.

   See “Taxing Citizens in a Global Economy” p. fn 112
   https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.co.uk/&httpsredir=1&article=1550&context=law_faculty_scholarship

9. p. 27 (468 in the original pagination)

10. From ssrn link (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=931953)

    112 Perhaps in recognition of the political difficulties of eliminating tax on the invest- ment income of wealthy Americans living abroad, many have focused on the narrower goal of eliminating tax only on foreign earned income. Testifying before the House Subcom- mittee on International Operations, one advocate of eliminating tax on foreign earned income argued that:

    Politically, I think that [exemption of overseas citizens’ passive income] is a non-starter. Certainly the idea that an American with an investment portfolio can choose to become a bona fide resident overseas—and be exempted from United States tax [sic] is nonsense. Those coming [to this hearing] and asking for it are fooling themselves. Our group does not so request.

    U.S. Citizens Overseas: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on International Operations of the H. Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 102d Cong. 65 (1991) [hereinafter Hearing, U.S. Citizens Overseas] (statement of Peter Alegi, Chair, Federated League of Americans Around the Globe).

    Thanks a bunch, Peter Alegi.

11. Well written but, full factual errors, and missing facts and logical errors which lead to a false conclusion. If those things were correct then the conclusion would have had to been CBT should die.
    Add to that, the fact this was written pre-FATCA, pre-expensive relinquishment, pre-weaponized FBAR. Three changes in the system that fully nullify several of his arguments for CBT.

12. It’s Alegi’s pro-CBT-confiscation testimony at the hearing that annoys me. I suppose his retirement plans were safely tucked up in America.

13. Where does Kirsch draw a line as to being counted as a member of the US citzenship community. Do you necessarily need a cln? What if you never used or want to use any of the benefits ? What sbout accidentals? Has he clarified or changed his position since ?

14. The entire argumentation reads as if the author knew that the logical conclusion was to end CBT, but that was not what he wanted so he tweaked the weighting of the arguments (e.g. ambassador has to be complete reason or not relevant), chose to leave out information to change the result (e.g. did not mention that evacuation has to be paid for) and even used basic human rights as an argument for CBT (right to enter your country of citizenship).
    I found correlation between the statement footnoted to the fn 116 and the statement in the footnote itself interesting: prime example of the thinking of someone brainwashed in American exceptionalism.

15. Well…he doesn’t like tax citizenship. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=785425)

    Otherwise he just seems to think CBT is the gift that keeps on giving. You can find his other papers by searching at ssrn. He has been at it for years.

16. Alegi is the Democrat mentioned in the DA history quoted from by BB, above. FEIE fan, as mentioned in the footnote. Hence his love of CBT I suppose.

17. The disparity can be explained with:
    A) it undermines one of his arguments for CBT (mentioned in 2007 document).
    B) he argues in such a way as to come the conclusion which comes best in line with the opinion the professor grading him has.
    C) multiple personality disorder possibly caused by the double-think forced on homelanders through the exceptionalism brainwashing.

18. Actually, I think someone with good writing skills could take his 2007 document and fill in the blanks, fix the logic, and take into account the current situation (FATCA, renunciation fees, weaponized FBAR, transition tax, etc) and come up with a very good paper on how (full and real) RBT is the ONLY fair, neutral, and administratable solution using his own arguments against him.

19. Certiorari denied.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040218zor_p8k0.pdf

20. Moodys is doing another road show.

    https://moodysgartner.com/learning-tax/

    Toronto on 14 April, online webinar 26 April, doubtless more to follow.

    It would be fun if people showed up and asked polite questions about, say, the tax treaty protecting Canadian citizens from IRS collection, compliance not being required to renounce US citizenship, or banks not validating answers to FATCA questions. I plan to show up next time one comes my way.

21. “A Discussion Of Belated Alternatives To The Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program And Recommendations For Further Improvements”
    https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/a-discussion-of-belated-alternatives-to-the-offshore-voluntary-disclosure-program-and-recommendations-for-further-improvements-part-3-of-3/#.WsM_5qLTXYV

22. Américains Accidentels on Facebook has been posting copies of messages they are sending companies (online banks) that explicitly refuse to open accounts for people based on US personhood. The messages inform the banks of antidiscrimination laws and threaten further action if accounts remain closed to US persons. Pretty concrete evidence FATCA continuing to be harmful 8 years later. Meanwhile anti-tax avoidance being whipped up again in Europe, with “thousands of billions of euros” “escaping” governments, could be used to pay for “28 million jobs”… The usual suspects are of course probably rooting for FATCA and fantasizing on generalizing CBT to all countries.

23. https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/american-participants-in-foreign-retirement-plans-need-clearer-rules

24. John Richardson and I were guests on a Transition Tax session hosted by TaxLinked. You can listen here: https://youtu.be/SwoLZ4vngtk

25. @ Karen
    Listening right now. Thanks to you and John for doing this. Of course I’m just part of the seasoned choir but I really hope some newbies catch this broadcast too.

Comments are closed.