Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

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.

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

  1. I’d love to be able to contact her. She needs to keep her options open. Emigrating is HARD. You might think it’s not because you speak the same language (in essence) but the cultural differences can still be staggering.

    I’m at home now in the UK, but it took a number of years. And I still sometimes make cultural mistakes.

    I’d shout at her to keep the US citizenship just in case Australia doesn’t suit her.

  2. @plaxy

    Sorry. Goes without saying she should lie to the bank if she wants to neither renounce nor be FATCA-reported, i.e. fly under the radar.

  3. “… since she’s currently compliant by virtue of living in the US…”

    Many living in thr US are not compliant. She wrote that she needs to file five years worth of tax returns to renounce. She has not been filing, she is not compliant.

  4. “Sounds like Starre doesn’t really want to leave the US and is blaming it on money.”

    Why? For those of us with out, lack of money is often the determining factor in many aspects of our lives.

  5. @Bird person

    I agree, but I would take Japanese citizenship to rid myself and family of this mess if I could. Escapees often do not have a choice in where they escape to. Just got to deal with whatever is found where you end up.

  6. @Plaxy

    Yes, she could just forget about her US passport and use her Australian passport to enter and leave the US. I know that that used to work. Around 30 years ago I went to college with a student from N. Europe. She had, in the past, overstayed her visa in the States and was caught when leaving. They let her go home but saud she could no longer enter the US, at least for a period of time. So she “lost” her passport back in her home country and got a new one and sailed right through US immigration for classes at our college. But that was 30 years ago.

    US passports have IC chips inserted in them now to make them compatible for the “new” passport uniformity agreements many countries have entered into. A purpose of which is to prevent people from doing just as you suggest. If Australia is doing this with their passports, she is likely to get caught.

  7. @JapanT

    Regarding the Medium piece. The author is fully compliant now, as a US resident. She just thinks she’ll need a special accountant to cross T’s and dot I’s if she files an exit return. She also thought she needed a $1000 for a lawyer to renounce. The article suggests someone in the early stages of research.

    I contacted the author, cleared up some misconceptions, and recommended that she come here to educate herself when she’s really serious about leaving. She now understands that she can simply up sticks and move to Australia without renouncing or compliance, as an Aussie-born Aussie.

  8. It may or may not make sense for her to leave the US and then drop off the radar, but she is now at least aware that it’s possible, and in her case (Aussie passport and birthplace) she is not somehow trapped in a “debtor’s prison” without the funds to escape, in her memorable but unfortunately inaccurate phrase.

  10. Japan T:

    Plaxy

    Yes, she could just forget about her US passport and use her Australian passport to enter and leave the US.

    Some duals do that, apparently. I never did, and don’t see why one would want to try, if travelling to the US by air from outside the North American continent.

    Presumably a visa or ESTA thing would be required? Would that not involve answering questions about citizenship?

  11. Japan T:

    “US passports have IC chips inserted in them now to make them compatible for the “new” passport uniformity agreements many countries have entered into. A purpose of which is to prevent people from doing just as you suggest. ”

    I haven’t suggested, and wouldn’t suggest, that a dual citizen should enter the US on the wrong passport. I don’t see the point, and it’s not even clear to me how that would work, for a person in Australia applying for ESTA or visa.

  12. Ah, yes, forgot about the ESTA. Even more difficult.

    My set point with entering the US is dated. I keep forgetting that the once common granting entry and a 90 day stay without a visa from many “friendly” countries.

    A lot more difficult now, which I knew was going to happen, just not exactly how it would be made more difficult.

  13. Plaxy and Nononymous: indeed, it may come down to lying to the bank. I think this is a theoretical risk. They always say, the coverup is worse than the crime, see Nixon, R. and Trump, D. So yes, a celebrity or a Manafort may get caught for denying US citizenship on bank account application. All others: no. And frankly, while it is lying, I don’t see why my Belgian-born Belgian son should have to tell a Belgian bank that his father foisted a US passport on him. No need to shoot oneself in the foot, life is complicated enough as is.

  14. Indeed – it’s up to the person who is being asked the question to decide what answer to give. There’s no crime to cover up: opening a bank account is not a crime, and FATCA/IGA bends over backwards not to impose any obligation on USCs, to try to fend off possible court action by the USC.

    Furthermore, US citizenship can’t be imposed against the person’s will. If the person doesn’t consider him/herself to be a US citizen, and doesn’t file US taxes or keep and use a US passport, s/he’s not a US citizen in any way that matters, and doesn’t have any reason to say s/he is, unless s/he chooses.

    Speaking for myself, I didn’t consider lying a practical or appropriate response to the problem. It’s bad enough to be wrongly suspected of being untrustworthy; to justify the suspicion by lying would in my view be counter-productive, damage my self-respect, and leave me without a leg to stand on in making a complaint. The FATCA-ers are in the wrong in this situation, not me; I prefer to keep it that way.

    It all comes down to the same thing: the person answering the question is the one who has to decide how to answer. There’s no one size fits all answer.

  15. It would be good to know the particular circumstances where the IRS would issue a substitute return for a non-resident US taxpayer.

    “With respect to taxpayers who reside abroad, we have seen fact patterns where taxpayers are actively working with the IRS to resolve account-related issues, including adjustments following a Substitute for Return assessment.”

    https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/nta-blog-tas-cases-demonstrate-the-harm-caused-by-irs-policies-on-passport-certification

  18. Plaxy: I love your answer. Opening up a bank account is not a crime. (I do note however that I’ll shortly be sending my FBARs to the Financial Crimes EN. Having a non-US account may not be criminal, but it’s getting there.) It is very unpleasant to have to contemplate lying to one’s bank, I agree, and also it depends on how one considers oneself. I do consider myself a US citizen. I could pretend to myself that I do not consider myself a US citizen or person and therefore am answering truthfully when I deny US personhood, but no, in my case it is just lying. But of course I haven’t been in this situation because of my birthplace. So far I have managed to avoid answering questions, since I haven’t opened a new bank account since FATCA and have ignored my banks’ various efforts to get me to answer their forms. That said, one reason I became “compliant” again is to be able to answer bank forms if need be. My initial fear was that they’d “find me out” and send my data to the IRS who would then pursue me for not having declared my bank accounts. I know better now, but too late, I’m on the wagon now. With the side effect that I’m reaching 5 years compliance, making it easier to renounce. But one gets used to all this, desensitized in a way, and I am no longer anxious or fearful and therefore why not keep my blue passport after all, at least for now.

  19. “I love your answer. Opening up a bank account is not a crime.”

    Nor is having an account abroad. Nor is living abroad. Nor is tax avoidance. Yet there are penalties for each of these activities or penalties are in the works.

  21. Unless you define denial of banking services to anyone with a US birthplace (and/or no non-US citizenship) as a penalty, of course.

  22. That would be one. Having to provide sensitive info that homelanders don’t have to is another. My banking spying on me for the IRS another. Threat of losing my passport if I don’t comply and threats of huge fines if I do.

    They have made it illegal to live abroad with out actually legislatively making it illegal, the cowards.

  23. Fred:

    “I am no longer anxious or fearful and therefore why not keep my blue passport after all, at least for now.”

    Absolutely. 🙂

    US citizenship is good value if you know the details of what you’re signing up for and are inclined to agree to the deal.

  25. So glad John Richardson immediately commented on this. What a shocking example of a compliance condor looking to drum up new business!

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