Media and Blog Articles – part 2 of 11 (Year 2015)

1,837 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles – part 2 of 11 (Year 2015)”

1. And on that same note, the Homeland media just figured out the right angle to get Elephants riled up about offshore accounts too:
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-deal-shows-clintons-complicated-ties-1438223492?mod=rss_US_News

2. @Eric
   Is the case of poor Cecil not Zimbabwe`s laws being extraterritorial? They would basically ask for extradition of the dentist-hunter because he broke THEIR laws?

3. LM,

   Totally done with you? Hopefully, but there are conditions, like these (received in my email today):

   http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc305.html

   Topic 305 – Recordkeeping
   Well-organized records make it easier to prepare a tax return and help provide answers if your return is selected for examination or to prepare a response if you receive an IRS notice.

   Records such as receipts, canceled checks and other documents that support an item of income or a deduction, or a credit appearing on a return must be kept so long as they may become material in the administration of any internal revenue law, which generally will be until the period of limitation expires for that return. For assessment of tax you owe, this generally is 3 years from the date you filed the return. Returns filed before the due date are treated as filed on the due date.

   There is no period of limitations to assess tax when a return is fraudulent or when no return is filed. If income that you should have reported is not reported, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on the return, the time to assess is 6 years from when the return is filed. For filing a claim for credit or refund, the period to make the claim generally is 3 years from the date the original return was filed (or the due date for filing the return if the return was filed before that date), or 2 years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. For filing a claim for an overpayment resulting from a bad debt deduction or a loss from worthless securities, the time to make the claim is 7 years from when the return was due.

   In tax years 2014 and later, you should keep records of your own and your family members’ health care insurance coverage, including records of employer provided coverage or premiums paid and type of coverage for private coverage, so you can show that you and your family members had and maintained required minimum essential coverage. If you are claiming the premium tax credit, you will need information about any advance credit payments you received through the Health Insurance Marketplace, the premiums you paid, and the type of coverage you obtained at the Marketplace. If you or any of your family members are exempt from minimum essential coverage, you should retain certificates of exemption you may receive from the Marketplace or any other documentation to support an exemption claimed on your tax return.

   If you have employees, you must keep all your employment tax records for at least 4 years after the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later. For more information, see Publication 15, (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide.

   If you are in business, there is no particular method of bookkeeping you must use. However, you must use a method that clearly and accurately reflects your gross income and expenses. The records should substantiate both your income and expenses. Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records, and Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses, provide additional information on required documentation for taxpayers with business expenses. Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax for Individuals, provides more information on recordkeeping requirements for individuals.

   More Tax Topic Categories

4. Brokers hit the ground running on FATCA compliance

   http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20150802/NEWS06/308029994/planning-and-training-help-insurance-brokers-comply-with-new-fatca?tags=|59|75|83|302

5. FATCA Update: Confidentiality of Information Transmitted to IRS; Announcement of “More Favorable” IGA Terms; and More IGAs

   http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/fatca-update-confidentiality-of-75076/

6. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/im-canadian-expat-donald-sutherland-blasts-inability-to-vote-in-canadian-federal-elections

   May be opportunity to mention FATCA and US extraterritorial CBT – lots of the commentators posit that the US right to vote from ‘abroad’ is because of CBT

7. Doug Goldstein interviewed Rob Wood on renouncing citizenship
   http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/goldstein-on-gelt/what-happens-if-you-renounce-your-u-s-citizenship/2015/08/02/

8. Eric, did you get and hear the actual interview with Robert Wood? I got a short comment about a widow who did not share finances with her former husband and now has to deal with how to carry on with the finances in, now, her estate. She brought an adult child to her consultation with Doug Goldstein, a good idea and could relate to *US-ness* but what I got was not Robert Wood. (I don’t see a contact email address to report.) Thanks.

   I’m now able to listen to the podcast in Google Chrome.

9. @Calgary
   Looks like you only got the first few minutes of the podcast. It went on for quite a while after the widow stuff. Wood joined him then and answered some questions – mostly with “it depends….”

10. Thanks, Polly. I’m now able to listen to the complete podcast through Google Chrome. Seems to further debunk the myth of Robert Stack’s http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/pages/myth-vs-fatca.aspx,

    Myth No. 2: Some claim that U.S. citizens living overseas will become outcasts in the international financial world.

    Mr. Goldstein suggests you ask yourself the questions:

    What is your connection with the US — what is your long-term connection to the US?

    Which we’ve also discussed: Are you a *homelander abroad* or, like my family, NOT?

    and, as we know here, you must first determine if you even are a US-deemed US citizen OR NOT.

    *****
    And, then, there are the important litigation questions to determine other aspects, like international law, constitutionality and discrimination based on national origin and how do the terms of my country’s IGA agree or not with my country’s Tax Treaty with the US (if my country has a Tax Treaty with the US) —

    READ GINNY AND GWEN’S JULY 30 2015 REPLY ARGUMENT TO GOVERNMENT — brief, brilliant arguments that can easily be understood (from http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/05/03/99929-needed-in-94-more-days-to-make-the-100000-august-4-2015-payment-for-canadian-fatca-iga-lawsuit-il-nous-reste-99929-a-ramasser-pour-notre-poursuite-judiciaire/).

11. @calgary & LM

    The U.S. is never done with anybody.

    “…if a CLN has been issued, but the Department of State later discovers that such issuance was improper (for example, because fraudulent documentation was submitted, or the requisite intent appears to be lacking), the Department of State could initiate proceedings to revoke the CLN. If the recipient is unable to establish beyond a preponderance of the evidence that citizenship was lost on the date claimed, the CLN would be revoked. To the extent that the IRS believes a CLN was improperly issued, the IRS could present such evidence to the Department of State and request that revocation proceedings be commenced.”
    http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CPRT-JCS-2-03/pdf/GPO-CPRT-JCS-2-03-7-2.pdf

12. Shovel,

    Don’t burst my bubble. I know you’re right though for those of us born with what has turned into a curse for those who dared leave the homeland.

13. 11 hours and no one else signaled this one. We have to be sharper than this. Early comments are important on any article.

    Obama Jokes About Birth Certificate, But Accidental American Status Is No Joke.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/08/03/obama-jokes-about-birth-certificate-but-accidental-american-status-is-no-joke/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    This has got to be a lightning rod here on IBS as “Accidental American” is a theme. Comments Open.

14. Thanks for alerting us to this, JC!

15. Comments open on this article:
    Point out that Harper WON’T help us save for old age – calling an Ontario Pension plan a “tax grab” and a “tax hike”, but he IS SO VERY HAPPY to CONTINUE to ASSIST THE US in LOCATING AND EXTRATERRITORIALLY TAXING our Canadian REGISTERED SAVINGS, Disability benefits, Education savings, Canadian family homes, mutual funds and other Canadian assets by WILLFULLY MAINTAINING the unconscionable TAX TREATY GAPS in the Canada-US Tax treaty. Harper and the Cons won’t assist our home province to help us to save for our old age, but he WILL assist a FOREIGN COUNTRY – the US to extraterritorially LOOT our legal local savings in order to impose US TAXES ON CANADIANS!

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/08/03/harper-on-the-offensive-slams-wynne-and-notley.html

    “…….Pointing out that Ottawa provides services to provincial pension schemes in Quebec and Saskatchewan, she said Harper is showing “blatant disrespect” for Ontario.

    Harper fired back Monday, called the proposed Ontario pension plan a tax grab that will imperil jobs.

    “Kathleen Wynne is mad that I won’t help her do that … you’re bloody right,” he said. “The Conservative government is not going to help bring in that kind of a tax hike…”….

16. Was at the top. But better here too:

    Two women challenge law allowing Ottawa to give info to U.S. tax collectors
    http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1445874/two-women-challenge-law-allowing-ottawa-to-give-info-to-u-s-tax-collectors/

17. Thanks for Forever Canadian’s initial post of Neal Hall’s article in Metro News, who spotted the article before its author had a chance to send it to me. Neal is an old friend of mine who I introduced to Gwen. It’s fantastic that he included an appeal for donations link without any my urging on my part. I hope he would also be encouraged to continue covering our trials and tribulations with our positive comments at the article itself. Today could be historic!

    Thanks, Gwen, for agreeing to be interviewed for this article.

18. Thanks, Bubblebustin, Gwen for making the Neal Hall article in Metro News happen — and Forever Canadian to alerting us to it.

    Gwen, Ginny, Stephen, John, Tricia and all Brockers and Sandboxers who are in Vancouver either in person or in spirit — the best for another day’s proceedings and argument by the Arvay team.

    We must fund this litigation. Our futures and our children’s futures in Canada (and, hopefully, other countries) depend on the start of litigation here, in the US and, hopefully, in other countries. If we fail to fund here, we have no fair and just future for we are branded with that US deemed-US citizenship tattoo and second-class for the rights we have because we or our parent(s) were born in such a country that practices citizenship taxation, out of step with the rest of the world.

    http://www.adcs-adsc.ca/

19. I don’t know if anyone already posted this — good article and mention of ADCS, from July 30:

    POULSEN: How would you like the U.S. snooping into your bank account?
    By Chuck Poulsen
    http://infotel.ca/opinion/needlepoint-class/poulsen-how-would-you-like-the-us-snooping-into-your-bank-account/it21678

20. Thanks, canoe. I hadn’t seen that Vernon article, with its connection to *the man in the blue suit*.

21. http://www.canadiansecuritieslaw.com/2015/07/articles/international-developments/oecd-common-reporting-standard-to-come-into-effect-in-canada-on-july-1-2017/?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original

    OECD Common Reporting Standard to come into effect in Canada on July 1, 2017
    Posted on July 31, 2015 (Canadian Securities Law, Stikeman Elliott)
    Darin Renton and Junaid Subhan –

    Canadian financial institutions will be subject to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Common Reporting Standard as of July 1, 2017 with the first exchanges of financial account information beginning in 2018. The CRS, known formally as the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, was developed by the OECD and approved in July 2014 as a global standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information. Over 90 jurisdictions have undertaken to join the CRS, which is intended to address tax evasion and to improve international tax compliance.

    The CRS will require the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to provide information to foreign tax authorities about accounts held in Canada by residents of their jurisdictions. Consequently, Canadian financial institutions will be required to identify accounts held by non-Canadian residents and report certain information pertaining to these accounts to the CRA. The CRS is based on the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). It would therefore allow Canadian financial institutions to base CRS compliance partially on existing FATCA compliance procedures. However, it is expected that the volume of data that would be reported under CRS would be significantly greater than that reported under FATCA.

22. This is Jonathan Lachowitz again,

    Changes Coming to U.S. Expats’ Fbar/Fincen Filing Experience
    http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/08/05/changes-coming-to-u-s-expats-fbarfincen-filing-experience/

    Reference new legislation here: in section 2006. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3236/text#toc-HCFC1B5C758A944DE807AC0FC688A702A

23. Re: that new WSJ article. Comments open. What is said is not as controversial as his last article. And he seems to acknowledge the comments on that article.

24. Interestingly, the same author (Lachowitz), in his submission to the Senate Finance Committee, comes out repeatedly in favor of RBT. He falls short of calling for repeal of FATCA and FBARs (in fact, he does so, but also states that this may be “unrealistic” in the current climate), but his suggestions go far beyond Same Country Exemption. He also goes into issues of foreign pensions, foreign spouses, and calls for an end to self-employment tax (if CBT is not repealed), among other things. So I’d say this guy has his thoughts mostly in the right place. You wouldn’t quite guess that from his WSJ articles.

25. An obituary in today’s NY Times for Dr. Louis Sokoloff quotes sound advice given to him by his grandfather. This kind of advice could be given to children of Americans abroad as well as the Obama administration’s expat terror war continues in its fifth year:

    “He advised me to choose a profession, any one, in which all of my significant possessions would reside in my mind because, being Jewish, sooner or later, I would be persecuted and would lose all my material possessions; what was contained in my mind, however, could never be taken from me and would accompany me everywhere to be used again.”

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