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.
Watcher: Every time I think I’ve heard it all I hear another one. Thanks so much for posting that amazing testimonial from medium.com. I will reference it in my next communication with the UN.
On the medium.com article.
Yet folks still say “All roads lead to renounciation.”. Her’s led to a maze, love the illustration, that she is still preparing to navigate despite having a second natonality. Many of us in countries that truely make immigration difficult do not even have that option.
It’s natural to find it hard to leave a country you care about. The writer doesn’t actually seem to be facing any genuine practical difficulties. Many leave the US despite having to work and scrimp and save for years in order to pay thousands of dollars to pay for visas which will allow them to earn a living and eventually settle in the destination country. The writer of the medium article doesn’t face those obstacles. If she gathers her courage and makes the leap, she’ll discover that while FATCA is unjust and outrageous, it doesn’t mean she has to pay US tax on her Australian income.
And of course she doesn’t have to find money to pay a fancy lawyer to “help” her renounce US citizenship before she can leave.
A spell living in Australia would probably be a good idea, to help her make up her mind what she really wants to do. And luckily she has right of entry to both countries and works freelance, so an extended working visit should be feasible.
@Plaxy,
She writes that she has to save to pay for a lawyer and for the renounciation fee, airfare and moving expenses. So yes, she does face those obstacles.
If she does as you suggest and moves to Australia before renouncing, then she would have to at least file and pay full SS contributions to the US while paying Australian taxes.
@Plaxy
This is what she wrote.
“I remain in limbo. Not wealthy enough to stay or go. I found a lawyer, but I need to save up to pay him about $1,000, plus the renunciation fee of $2,350, which, realistically, given what I earn, will take time. Then I’ll have to hire a special tax accountant to ensure that all my taxes for the past @ve years are in good order. Then I’ll need to save more money for moving costs, a plane ticket, a new place to live. And then, and only then, if everything goes the way it needs to, I’ll be free. I’m lucky—I’m a relatively easy case, says Richardson—and yet it will be a few years before I can go. “
“She writes that she has to save to pay for a lawyer and for the renounciation fee, airfare and moving expenses. So yes, she does face those obstacles.”
She will inevitably have to buy a ticket to get from the US to Australia, yes indeed she will. And she will have other moving costs. Just like anybody else.
She absolutely doesn’t have to pay a lawyer to help her renounce. And trying to renounce while in the US would just be silly.
“If she does as you suggest and moves to Australia before renouncing, then she would have to at least file and pay full SS contributions to the US while paying Australian taxes.”
If she’s earning US money, certainly. If she stops earning US money and starts earning Australian money only, she has no problem with US taxes unless she unwisely continues to file US tax returns.
As for renouncing, she is in the same boat as the rest of us in having to pay $2350. If she can save that up before leaving the US, she can ring the embassy the day she lands. If not, she may be able to afford to renounce later. It’s certainly not the case that she can’t leave America because she can’t afford to pay a lawyer to help her renounce.
She’s understandably confused. We’ve all been there.
On the article about the young Australian-American, frankly the situation does not seem that confusing to me. She is blessed with a non-US birthplace, meaning she can live abroad as an Australian. Open bank accounts, do business, etc. I would never contemplate renouncing in those circumstances. Just feed the IRS yearly sanitized data, if you wish, and be done with it. Heck, some people with kids even get free money from the IRS (happened to me when I started to file again). Obviously being super-compliant with everything is harder — but not that hard if you’re starting from scratch and avoid certain investments, etc. But still, a huge absurd pain in the neck. Why submit oneself to this? My kids have a non-US birthplace. Nobody in the US will ever know that they have bank accounts in the EU. By the way I think that an ethical professional (lawyer or accountant) should absolutely tell her about the do-nothing option. Just like doctors can offer to do nothing in some cases.
Plaxy: “If she’s earning US money, certainly. If she stops earning US money and starts earning Australian money only, she has no problem with US taxes unless she unwisely continues to file US tax returns.”
Perhaps. On the other hand, isn’t there a tax treaty for this? If she lives in Australia and gets US income, that income will presumably not be Foreign Earned (for the US) and thus not qualify for the FEIE. However, if she declares it to Australia and pays (higher?) taxes on it, then could she not claim the foreign tax credit? I don’t know, I’m asking, and I only have 10 more lunchtime minutes so I won’t be able to find out now. Or, if she is US-taxed for US-income, could she not use the treaty to not pay Australian taxes on it? Or just pay the difference to Australia, if Australia has higher taxes?
I guess this is only a problem for 99,9 percenters, the 0.1 percenters probably would laugh this off and instantly know how to divert income from various sources to other various destinations in very legal ways to very legally pay very few taxes. But then they’d probably prefer to reside in the US anyway.
To continue to play devil’s advocate, what happens if you are low income and cease to file in the US, because you earn less than, what is the threshold? — USD 10000 yearly. And one day you jump back in, hey, now I’m earning more than 10000. What are they going to do? Launch an investigation???
Fred – I agree. Although I haven’t looked into it, it seems likely that most USCs in Australia should be able to continue as USCs and pay little or no US taxes on earned income, even if self-employed. There would probably be fewer duals if it were not so. 🙂
“To continue to play devil’s advocate, what happens if you are low income and cease to file in the US, because you earn less than, what is the threshold? — USD 10000 yearly. And one day you jump back in, hey, now I’m earning more than 10000. What are they going to do? Launch an investigation???”
Personally I’m sceptical that the IRS would ever risk going to court for no reason except to try to prove that a USC who has already paid tax to his/her high-taxing country of residence should send yet more tax to America. They’ve built a gigantic extraterritorial corporation taxation regime on that shaky claim that the non-US income of a US person morphs into US-taxable income. Billions and billions are involved. An adverse court ruling could demolish the whole rigmarole in the blink of an eye.
First, yes, her problems are shared by all. If one can pay what she clearly can not pay, then I guess it would seem to be no more than a pain in the neck. Sounds like she and I are in the same boat, every hour I spend filing out useless paper work is one hour less I have to earn money. I can not afford the time required to file US taxes, being so far below the FEIE. Those not in similar circumstances continue to prove their inability to understand the plight of such people.
Is there a tax treaty between the US and Australia? if she owes taxes to Australia while in the US, would not the US comply with an Australian request for assitance in getting its due and visa versa? If she now lives in the US and needs to back file 5 years of returns, sounds like she is noncompliant while living and earning money in the US.
Although, she being Australian, she has a lot more options those of us with only USCship.
What risk does the IRS have when going after us small fry. They can not lose a court case against those so poor as to not be able to defends against them or take them to court.
The Medium article was a bit silly – she was very confused. She’s an Australian citizen born in Sydney, she can simply move to Australia, decline to mention US citizenship when opening a bank account, and either cease or do minimal/sanitized US tax filings. Since she can’t afford a plane ticket, presumably she doesn’t have a lot of US assets to worry about.
The point being, the only maze she’s caught in is one of her own confusion and misunderstanding – which is understandable, we were all a bit baffled at first.
She’s actually in a very good position if she wants to leave the US, she can easily and without risk drop off the radar and sever all ties to the IRS.
It may be more difficult to “decline to mention” US citizenship in Australia than it seems to be in Canada. If so, that’s a good reason to renounce a.s.a.p.
I think a problem may be that as she grew up in the States and has her whole life there and very minimal connection with Australia, she just might like to be able to at least travel back to the US to visit her family and friends there. Thus, she’d need to dance to the IRS’s tune.
Most, if not all of our situations differ from hers. We are already physically outside the US and have, to differing degrees, established lives out side the US. She is not and has not.
A lot of duals in Australia have reported having difficulties but I do not know how their USness was discovered.
“..she just might like to be able to at least travel back to the US to visit her family and friends there.”
If she wants to renounce, that will probably be her priority purchase before spending money on further airfares.
If she doesn’t want to renounce she’ll have right of entry.
And have the responsibility of filing tax returns to two countries.
“And have the responsibility of filing tax returns to two countries.”
If she wants to comply.
If she wants to go back, she’d better comply.
Not at all. As long as she doesn’t play their deeming fileforming penalty of perjury games, she can choose whether to keep her passport with right of entry, or renounce and get a visa when visiting the US – just like most people have to do.
Why would she have difficulty opening a bank account as an Australian citizen only, with an Australian passport showing Sydney as her birthplace? If they ask questions about her accent she can tell them she grew up in Canada.
It’s the US birthplace on ID that causes problems for dual citizens in some countries (but not all). Nothing else does.
I would suggest she move to Australia and either renounce immediately, since she’s currently compliant by virtue of living in the US, or save time and money by ignoring the whole thing and live as Australian only. If she wants to go back to the US ten years later and start filing again she can claim she lived as a kept concubine with no earnings or savings – no filing obligations and no FATCA reporting to prove otherwise.
“Why would she have difficulty opening a bank account as an Australian citizen only, with an Australian passport showing Sydney as her birthplace? If they ask questions about her accent she can tell them she grew up in Canada.”
I don’t know what the onboarding procedures are like in Australia. Here, you typically don’t get any opportunity to chat about accents. You answer the questions in writing or online, which means a US citizen must lie or tell the truth. It’s obviously up to the applicant to make the decision.
What it’s like in Australia, I do not know.
Yes, it goes without saying that she should lie about US citizenship on the account application. My point is simply that the bank can’t prove otherwise if she’s got an Australian passport and birthplace.
“ it goes without saying that she should lie about US citizenship on the account application. ”
Obviously, that doesn’t go without saying. It’s up to the applicant to decide whether they want to lie or tell the truth.
Sounds like Starre doesn’t really want to leave the US and is blaming it on money.