Media and Blog Articles – part 2 of 11 (Year 2015)
You can access all years at this link: Media and Blog Articles – Links for All Years
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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. You could mention such articles in the comment stream for this page, or if I see one on another thread, I can copy the link to here. I’ll keep adding to the list, but not deleting, so we’ll end up having sort of a “bibliography” too. [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.
Note also: JC suggests 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.
Be sure to read the comment stream for this thread — there are usually very recent articles mentioned there that are not yet on this list.
2015.01.01
Raising revenue off Caribbean backs, Bruce Zagaris, NationNews, Barbados.
On or about 2016.01.01
16 issues to make 2016 candy for the market, Westfield Times.
2015.12.31
Tax reporting norms: FinMin updates guidance note on compliance, K.R. Srivats, Hindu Business Line, India.
2015.12.30
Top Tax Blogs from 2015, Tax Connections. (Congratulations to John Richardson and Lynne Swanson who placed 2nd and 4th!)
Global dragnet puts pressure on tax evaders as year-end deadlines loom, Jeff Gray, Globe and Mail, Canada.
IRS Employee Whose Job Was Assisting Victims Of Identity Theft Charged in $1 Million Identity Theft Tax Fraud, Paul Caron, TaxProfBlog, US.
How America’s Wealthiest Are Saving Billions Through a Private Tax System, TruthDig.
RA Returns Home, TaxProTalk forum.
2015.12.29
For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions, Noam Scheiber and Patricia Cohen, New York Times, US.
IRS Stirs Up New Crisis With Non-Profits Over Social Security Numbers, Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times.
DNC Must Heed Warning Bells From 2000, Bennet Kelley, Huffington Post, US.
2015.12.28
IRS Creates “International Practice Units” for their IRS Revenue Agents in International Tax Matters, Patrick Martin, Tax-Expatriation, US.
MF investors: Les than a4th comply with US tax law, Jayshree P. Upadhyay & Ashley Coutinho, Business Standard, India.
IRS service should improve after some saw their ‘worst tax season,” advocate says, Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch, US.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/02/11/thousands-renounce-u-s-citizenship-hitting-new-record-not-just-over-taxes/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId%2Fblog%2Fcomment%2F1057-33134-10026
New tax rules could erode financial privacy
Security fears; Global authorities to begin sharing sensitive data
BY MARY TERESA BITTI, FINANCIAL POST AUGUST 26, 2015
lots of reference to Berg and the Canadian suit. “COURT DECISION COULD AFFECT ELECTION”
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/rules+could+erode+financial+privacy/11320728/story.html
Interesting that Tom Mulcair took to facebook to answer a few voter’s questions. Of course he could pick which questions to answer. Did not see any about FATCA but have not finished wading through all the questions
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/tom-mulcair-first-federal-leader-to-engage-in-facebook-q-a-1.2535985
Harbour View: FATCA Me? No FATCA You!
by Andrew Work | on August 28, 2015
http://harbourtimes.com/2015/08/28/harbour-view-fatca-me-no-fatca-you/
A news story by genevalunch.com’s editor about Swiss bank secrecy and an interview with the US Ambassador to Switzerland includes this:
“Perhaps the list of at-risk countries for Swiss banks should include the US, where some states continue to take a more lenient approach to registering companies than Switzerland does, and to hosting wealth from the Americas without asking too many questions.”
The articles concludes:
“I’d like to see, however, an end to the righteousnous and hypocrisy that continue to mark US reporting on the subject, often based on a lack of information or unwillingness to question the federal government’s pronouncements.”
http://genevalunch.com/2015/08/28/ambassador-levines-take-on-tax-fraud-fifa/
The Bloomberg interview and article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-27/tax-dodger-hunt-neutralizes-swiss-bank-secrecy-u-s-envoy-says
Ambassador LeVine has always struck me as nothing more than a bobble-head (what else can we really expect) At least the last Ambassador there acknowledged the plight of Americans living in Switzerland. I’m sure she’d LOVE to “turn the page” on this whole nasty affair! Unfortunately US policy has left too big a wake of destruction in the lives of ordinary people in Switzerland, and continues to do so. Something she seems to be above getting into the mud about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/28/harperman-song_n_8055336.html?utm_hp_ref=canada = more muzzling of free speech. May every concerned Canadian pick up on this and run with it.
EmBee, a verse or two for *US Persons*?
@ calgary411
Will this do?
Who attacks our charter rights?
Harperman, Harperman
Who ends up in courtroom fights?
Harperman, Harperman
The FATCA sellout travesty
Is now in court for all to see
Harperman, it’s time for you to go
Who invades our privacy?
Harperman, Harperman
Who plans this in secrecy?
Harperman, Harperman
Makes our banks follow U.S. law
I.D. theft is the tragic flaw
Harperman, it’s time for you to go
CHORUS
We want you gone, gone, gone
You and your pawn, pawn, pawns
No more con, con, cons
Time to move on, on, on
Get out of town, town, town
Don’t want you round, round, round
Harperman, it’s time for you to go
They put Tony Turner on leave for writing this protest song but they can’t stop people from chiming in with more verses. BTW, his YouTube video doubled its hits in the past few days.
http://harperman.ca/
Ruling next month on Canadian citizens’ challenge to FATCA
Thursday, 27 August, 2015
http://www.step.org/news/ruling-next-month-canadian-citizens-challenge-fatca
Help, ik ben een Amerikaan
http://fd.nl/personal-finance/1116658/help-ik-ben-een-amerikaan
@JC: Thanks for finding the article in the Dutch “Het Financieele Dagblad”. It covers much of the usual such as duals learning that they are taxable by the US, the difficulties to obtain an SS card and the high cost of compliance.
It also mentioned that there are thought to be around 33,000 dual US citizens in the Netherlands and an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 greencard holders. Get ready for a wave of renunciations in that country.
Note the comments associated with this article as well!
http://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/us-behoerden-passen-bussenhoehe-individuell-an-1.18604086
Awesome, EmBee. I knew you would have a great FATCA verse! Music speaks volumes.
Singer-songwriter Tony Turner has written a brilliant sing-along song called “Harperman”. The extremely positive reaction to this song led to the idea of holding a Cross-Canada Harperman Sing-Along to give the whole country an opportunity to join in. On Thursday, September 17, on Parliament Hill and in 14 other locations across Canada, and online as well, people will raise their voices to sing out a joyful message from coast to coast to coast…”Harperman, it’s time for you to go!”
Re: non English articles. You might right click on the page, then select translate to English. Or you might Google: Google Translate. At the top is for short translations. If you click on the Google Translate page then you may put in a whole article and translate that.
A former UK politician who is a frequent guest on FOX talks about foreign accounts without really talking about the problems:
http://triblive.com/business/brownebusiness/8988810-74/tax-offshore-accounts
Quora asks if US citizens should be allowed to give up citizenship to avoid future taxes:
https://www.quora.com/Should-Eduardo-Saverin-a-Facebook-co-founder-and-other-US-citizens-to-be-fair-be-allowed-to-give-up-US-citizenship-to-avoid-paying-future-taxes
But the recent spread of fees has less to do with economics than with political expediency. Politicians have seized on charges as an easy way of raising money, and have inflated some fees until they bear little relation to the cost of the service supposedly being purchased. Too often the result is a regressive, economically distorting swindle.
It is no wonder charges are popular with governments. Rather than being flagged up in finance bills, as new taxes are, they can be slipped into legislation that attracts less scrutiny. And they can be aimed at politically unorganised groups, rather than the public at large, meaning they are less loudly opposed than tax increases or welfare cuts.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21662545-charging-public-services-sometimes-makes-sense-often-though-it-racket-itll-cost-you
Ending with…
@orwell:
Thanks for the link to the NZZ article.
The case of the Hypothekarbank Lenzburg (Mortgage Bank Lenzburg) is rather interesting and illustrates the point frequently made on this board that “why go after big fish when there are so small fish to fry”. Translation of the last paragraph of the article:
“Many US Customers resident here
Why the Hypothekarbank Lenzburg signed up for the hardest Category 2 of the US program is not clear, even after the publication of all activities in the agreement. The bank did not have a strategy for US customers, nor did it have a US desk. There were no customer visits in the USA, no structures were offered and the bank was active almost exclusively in its home-canton. Of the 96 accounts with a US connection, 92 were for US citizens or dual citizens, also with a Swiss passport, resident in Switzerland. The USA assigned a relatively mild $560,000 penalty. This is perhaps even lower than the legal costs.”
http://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/us-behoerden-passen-bussenhoehe-individuell-an-1.18604086
CBC, August 30, 2015: Scott Walker: Canada-U.S. border wall worth considering — ‘That is a legitimate issue for us to look at,’ Republican presidential candidate tells Meet The Press
Comments one: “I didn’t emigrate from the US just for the poutine. As for the other Americans left behind, well, who cares? If they can’t see the walls closing in by now. then it’s too late for them.”
Reconsider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs
Scott Walker probably has a financial interest in wall building.
A humorous look at the fence the last time someone brought up the idea:
…”Once known as the “friendliest border in the world” I think nice, polite Canadians could support a tidy, newly painted, two-foot-high picket fence. Anything else will be an insult to our cooperative attitude toward a neighbour who can sometimes be psychotic and “invasion happy.”
Americans might just this once listen to one of their own smart and peace-loving citizens, Ashley Brilliant, who is famous for saying: “Be a good neighbour and leave us alone.”
I am always surprised at what American governments consider a good idea. Canada remains a loyal friend to the behemoth to the south and we continue to believe that cooler heads containing actual brains will prevail.
As the saying goes, Americans will always do the right thing … after they try every other dumbass idea first. You just have to wait them out and, while doing so, try to keep a straight face.”
http://www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/2012/05/the-us/canada-border-wall-build-it-and-they-will-laugh
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20150830_New_tax_law_has_more_folks_renouncing_U_S__citizenship.html#disqus_thread
‘New tax law has more folks renouncing U.S. citizenship
Another article where those renouncing aren’t interviewed, and mere speculation by Andrew Mitchel seems to attempt to rationalize/justify the unconscionable fee to renounce;
“….A month after FATCA went into effect, the cost to file a renunciation jumped from $450 to $2,350. Andrew Mitchel, a Connecticut attorney who has closely tracked renunciations, thinks the fee increase was related to the need to hire more personnel “to do the processing” of “the flood of people” seeking to dissolve their citizenship…”……..
Who cares what Mitchel ” thinks”? He isn’t really tracking the real date, isn’t an expert in this field, and hasn’t done the work and analysis and research that Eric and others here have done, and neither he nor the journalists are demanding that the State Dept. cough up real numbers from their files via FOI. Strangely, the journalists frequently either don’t ask State at all, or swallow the usual US government brand of BS when they do.
Posted on August 30, 2015 by Paul Mirengoff in Banking, IRS, Law
IRS sued over treatment of Americans who bank abroad
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/08/irs-sued-over-treatment-of-americans-who-bank-abroad.php
Comments in Facebook, Tom Alciere and Daniel Kuettel already there.
@Bubblebustin
The former US Ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer, was a class act and showed his willingness to discuss this difficult topic with US citizens residing in Switzerland by organizing several “townhall” meetings. Although unconfirmed, there were rumors that he personally interceded with the Swiss government to prevent the government-owned PostFinance from cancelling Americans’ bank accounts there. Ambassador LeVine has mostly avoided the difficult “caught in the cross-fire” topic and confines her appearances to hermetically sealed events.
In a October 5, 2014 interview with the “Schweiz am Sonntag” newspaper, she said gave this empty reponse:
“I understand the problems of Americans living in Switzerland very well and try to help them. Next week I will fly to Washington D.C. and will speak with important people about the situation of our citizens in Switzerland. If we, with the Swiss banks, can take a step forward in the tax debate, I am confident that the situation of Americans abroad will improve.”
It is approaching 11 months since she made that statement.
US policies causing UK bank account closures, even for non US persons
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/26/hsbc-closed-bank-accounts
United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority is worried that some U.K. banks might be adopting the blanket approach of closing any accounts that risk displeasing the U.S.. The article mentions a British expatriate (not a U.S. person) living in Tanzania who doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong “other than live in a country the US doesn’t like.”
The article also notes that the U.K. “Financial Conduct Authority has concerns about an overreaction to US jitters. ‘De-risking is banks acting in a blanket way … it will make potentially significant parts of geographic, ethnic and business classes unbanked if allowed to continue,’ the FCA’s chief executive told MPs earlier this year.