Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

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

If clicking on a comment link brings you to the wrong comment, click here  to get on the most recent page of comments.(alternatively, to reach the most recent comment page, go to  the url in the bar at the top of your browser and delete everything after http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments-part-2-of-2  )

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.

Articles from earlier in 2015 are at this link

 Articles from 2014 are at this link

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comment thread, Part 1 of 2, is at this link

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comment thread, Part 3 of 3, is at this link

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

  1. @Neil
    Medicare does not transfer abroad ie you need to be ‘resident’ there to get coverage BUT if you are not resident, you can get treatment when you visit provided you have 10yrs of contributions and have signed up.
    http://www.expatinfodesk.com/expat-guide/relinquishing-citizenship/renunciating-your-us-passport/misconceptions-about-renunciation-of-a-us-passport/
    I have had part A&B for some years as I needed to be able to have coverage for myself should I need to nurse a sick relative in the US. I have now relinquished part B and no longer pay the premiums but I still have my part A card. They send it to me abroad, and it is all legal.

  2. @publius
    Good to know the NHS have tightened the rules for non residents receiving treatment. They would treat anyone for free who walked through their door, no questions asked. The Drs understandably did not want to take on the role of gatekeepers. How do they police it now?
    I guess the early retirees who move abroad within the EU can use their ehic travel insurance card for medical emergencies.
    But anyone receiving a pension within the EU is entitled to healthcare where they are resident in the EU.

  5. @Neil
    Yes, she fails to mention that many banks now shun Americans abroad and forex companies no longer want to have US persons as customers.
    Americans can no longer have holiday homes abroad as banks will not take them as non residents. They are now effectively prisoners of the USA.

  8. American Expats Scramble to Keep U.S. Investment Accounts
    Sep 20, 2015
    http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/09/20/american-expats-scramble-to-keep-u-s-investment-accounts/

    For those with investment accounts in the US (with overseas address), many FFI (aka US financial institutions) will not sweep cash balances to money market accounts as these money market instruments are mutual funds.

    Under comments-
    Joe The Engineer wrote:
    Governments are good at making normal activity illegal.

  11. @Barbara

    Ornithologically, it would be a BEVY of black swans while they’re still milling about merely plotting to destroy the world, but a WEDGE of black swans once they take flight together to carry-out their nefarious individual and collective missions. If you ever see a V-shaped formation of black swans flying overhead while you’re loading groceries into your car then you’ll really know we’re all doomed 😉

  12. @Deckard1138: I don’t own a car to load groceries into, but I take your point. Perhaps a murder of crows would have been a better metaphor for the sinister FATCA demons. In Norse mythology, crows were used as spies to travel to the four corners of the earth and report back to Odin.

  13. Black swans are not criminals – they are native to Australia. I was amazed at their beauty when I saw them for the first time. What! Are they being FATCA’ed as well?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan
    The black swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced.

  14. @Barbara
    Thanks, I really prefer your analogy now that I’ve heard it. Makes complete sense for FATCA.

    @EllenDownunder
    Equally fascinating is the origins of the black swan analogy, which does indeed turn on the species found in Australia:

    The phrase “black swan” derives from a Latin expression; its oldest known occurrence is the poet Juvenal’s characterization of something being “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” (“a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan”; 6.165).[3] When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed not to exist. The importance of the metaphor lies in its analogy to the fragility of any system of thought. A set of conclusions is potentially undone once any of its fundamental postulates is disproved. In this case, the observation of a single black swan would be the undoing of the logic of any system of thought, as well as any reasoning that followed from that underlying logic.

    Juvenal’s phrase was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility. The London expression derives from the Old World presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers.[4] In that context, a black swan was impossible or at least nonexistent. After Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Western Australia in 1697,[5] the term metamorphosed to connote that a perceived impossibility might later be disproven. Taleb notes that in the 19th century John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification.[6]

    Black swan events were discussed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2001 book Fooled By Randomness, which concerned financial events. His 2007 book The Black Swan extended the metaphor to events outside of financial markets. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as “black swans”—undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the September 2001 attacks as examples of black swan events.[7]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

  20. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11884432/EUs-data-sharing-deal-with-US-is-invalid-European-Courts-Advocate-General-says.html

    Very interesting. The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has just published an opinion in relation to the ongoing case brought against Facebook by Max Schrems. He/she believes that the Safe Harbour ageement from 2000 is invalid. The Safe Harbour agreement is the basis for the transfer of personal information outside the EU. It’s just an opinion and hasn’t been separately addressed by the ECJ but at least it offers just a little encouragement.

    (excerpt from the article quoting the opinion)

    “It is apparent from the findings of the High Court of Ireland and of the Commission itself that the law and practice of the United States allow the large-scale collection of the personal data of citizens of the EU which is transferred, without those citizens benefiting from effective judicial protection…

    “The Advocate General considers furthermore that the access enjoyed by the United States intelligence services to the transferred data constitutes an interference with the right to respect for private life and the right to protection of personal data, which are guaranteed by the Charter.

    “Likewise, the inability of citizens of the EU to be heard on the question of the surveillance and interception of their data in the United States amounts, in the Advocate General’s view, to an interference with the right of EU citizens of the to an effective remedy, protected by the Charter.”

  21. JC: Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU for finding the immensely important article by Jacqueline Bugnion. She is one of the first authors and legal minds that I came across back in the summer of 2011 when I was panicking my way through my first days of FATCA. I had an opportunity to meet her personally along with several other Brockers in Toronto at the RBT/CBT Debate last year. She has my deepest respect and gratitude.

    I will volunteer to post this article. Perhaps Pacifica might include it in the sidebar somewhere also. I would like to wait until after September 30 to post it as we have so many time-sensitive issues going on until the end of the month that need to stay “above the fold”. Of course, if CBT were to die its long-deserved death we wouldn’t have to worry about what happens on September 30! I have always maintained that, at the root of our problems lie those three little letters. If it were not for CBT our identity and citizenship would not be an issue and we could all go about our lives as we had always done before we received our FATCA “education”.

    Thanks again, JC!

  22. @Edelweiss, thats an important article……….

    So that it will be on the same page, here is the infamous Carl Levin that ties into this.

    http://bsmlegal.com/PDFs/CarlLevin.pdf

    Now, would an EU ruling on data affect FATCA IGA with respect to EU Citizens resident in the EU, who have clinging US Nationality?

    I think we are getting closer and closer where this can be attacked in the EU.

  23. @JC
    Thank you for sharing a link to Jacqueline Bugnion’s absolutely excellent analysis on the problems with CBT and the longstanding financial attacks against citizens living outside the US. This is the most powerful and succinct documentation of the issues and why USC are leaving the fold in droves. This article should be accompanying any submission to any politician or journalist to diminish dismissals of our issues and a return to unthinking Berg-style “just get on with it, you are defeated” commentary.

  24. Thanks, JC.

    For those who already realize it and those who don’t, from the pdf:

    Jacqueline Bugnion is a former director of American Citizens Abroad Inc., a U.S.- based expatriate advocacy group.

    In this article, originally submitted as an open letter to the congressional taxwriting committees, Bugnion argues that citizenship-based taxation has a devastating effect on Americans residing abroad, and she urges lawmakers to introduce residence-based taxation.

    The comments are Bugnion’s personal views and do not reflect those of any association with which she has been affiliated.

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