Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 3 of 11 (Year 2016)
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-3-of-3 )
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” 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.
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 aren’t on this list yet.
2016.12.29
Switzerland moves further to end bank secrecy, Financial Times, UK.
2016.12.23
How FATCA Infringes and Trammels our Statehood, Stephen Kangal, Trinidad and Tobago News, Trinidad and Tobago.
Barclay’s chief preparing to take a stand against US regulators over unduly high fines to European banks, James Quinn, The Telegraph, UK.
2016.12.22
Canada refuses to name bank that broke money laundering rules 1225 timtes, Mike De Souze, Robert Cribb & Marco Oved, National Observer.
Financial Intelligence agency gave bankers head up about money laundering disclosure, Mike De Souza, Robert Cribb & Marco Oved, National Observer.
2016.12.21
US citizens may pay double tax on Kahlon’s child savings program, Michael Zeff, Jerusalem Post, Israel.
Applying to be Swiss in the Trump Era, Steve Krump, SwissInfo, Switzerland.
2016.12.20
File That Tax, Boom Chicago, YouTube, Netherlands.
Tijuana City Councilman Faces US Money Laundering Charges, Sandra Dibble and Dana Littlefield, San Diego Union, US.
2016.12.19
Senate Report Finds IRS Agents Living Large on Public’s Dime, Guillermo Jiminez, Tax Revolution Institute, US.
AG to UNC: Come to Parliament first – a Joint Select Committee to deal with FATCA . . ., Ria Taitt, Daily Express, Trinidad.
Rand Paul criticizes framework of tax reform plan, Naomi Jagoda, The Hill, US.
Articles from earlier 2016 are at this link
Articles from 2015 are at this link
Articles from 2014 are at this link
Media and Blog Articles thread, Part 1 of 3, is at this link.
Media and Blog Articles thread, Part 2 of 3 is at this link.
@The Mom
Yikes! But we can trust the US, can’t we?
Sounds like someone dropped the ball over there in Trudeauland.
Priorities — taking care of the great distraction of Canadians to glorified sports (and other things more important than those like Canadian rights and freedoms) that have doping as a means to create more and more excitement (and breath-taking accomplishments?) to divert our attention.
The Mom, bubblebustin,
Seems the melding of Canada into the US, eventual North American Union. Remember: As Canada’s next prime minister, Justin Trudeau promises better relations with U.S. on top of the already-put-in-place Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness.
@Neill
I don’t get it. I can’t imagine that you think it is o.k. for the U.S. government to tax Ginny. Are you recommending this course of action to ensure that Ginny has standing for the court case? When FATCA really gets going, there are going to be a lot of innocent accidental American victims out there who are going to be a dreadful situation without any prior warning. They don’t need to be created.
Thanks for the Clinton news story. Yikes! Any chats planned with additional Republican candidates, especially Trump? Trump’s tax plan talks about imposing a one-off tax on all of the money that corporations hold abroad, even those with substantial operations, and I do wonder what plans he has for individuals.
@Publius,
No I don’t think the US has any right to tax somebody who doesn’t reside int he US on income earned outside the US.
My point is the following:
If the US is smart they only go after big fish. Taken to it’s logical extreme CBT creates a total nightmare so if they did go after everyone then they would lose. So they will be smart and only go after the big fish.
Problem is if you file form 211 on somebody then they have to take the report seriously I would expect. They have to try and collect the tax to pay the reward. So they would be forced to go after a smaller fish since they can’t prove they are not a big fish. Then they lose.
I may be wrong and the IRS might do a letter writing campaign to small people. I think they will lose if they do but their greed and attention to ‘the law’ might drive them to this.
@Canadian Ginny,
>Care to share your US taint story?
I have told it numerous times here. I came to the US for a job in 97. I am from the UK. My wife came in 01. I have been very successful. By the time I realized there was such a thing as a covered expat I was already one. I had no intention to leave the US but I don’t like the taste in my mouth by being forced to become a US citizen to protect my family (unlimited marritable exemption).
In 2010 out of the blue BNY Mellon sent my wife a 1099-DIV for her ISA’s. This set off a 2 year process were we realized that the ISA were not pensions protected by the treaty and that they contained PFICs. I also realized we had only filed the FBAR for bank accounts. We entered OVDP under legal advice and the IRS took me for more money than your typical American makes in 5 years.
After 1 year of spiraling costs for tax prep and legal fees I was suicidal. I took control of the situation. I took a huge gamble. I purchased Lacerte (the top of the line tax prep s/w used by pros from Intuit).
I leaned all the rules for PFIC and all the other foreign stuff. In order to avoid some balance penalties in OVDP I scrapped the tax returns I had paid $8k for and did 10 years of tax returns myself. These returns included 400+ form 8621’s. So big was this project that I wrote special s/w to write out the form 8621’s and insert them into the tax returns. Even entering the data into Lacerte would be a huge job. I then submitted my tax returns to the IRS. They had told me I couldn’t comply and their final gambit was to demand I produce the actual forms. Unfortunately for them I expected this and had already done them and I dropped the massive files on them.
I took advantage of obscure laws for my PFIC’s. The IRS came back and said my numbers were wrong. They corrected my returns for me and tried to charge me even more tax. We showed them the obscure law and they gave up. They claimed they couldn’t do the calculations I had done. They did back of the envelope calcs and said my numbers looked good. They accepted probably the only self prepared returns in OVDP.
That 1099-DIV in 2010 was followed by another in 2011. I had learned so much though that I could see the reported numbers made no sense. After trying to talk to BNY Mellon and being blown off I submitted form 211 and became an official IRS whistle blower. My case is still active and is assigned to a guy in the IRS still after a couple of years. I may yet claw back some of my money.
So I paid the Obama tax but I never was allowed to vote for him or the other guy, I am not allowed to leave the IRS. RBT won’t help me at all.
An American Betrayal!
https://twitter.com/stejacobi/status/692453602464522243
@Neill
Thank u for sharing this info… I knew u taught yourself to read all these things & so forth… u are in a way better position then I am because to be honest… all this crap is way over my head… my life & the lives of my family use to be very straight forward… savings, investments & such… Even with the software… its still more then I can deal with…
US should only care what is in their borders… if the money was made in another country… why should they get any of it… my family has real estate going over 3 generations… prior to the US… some of the elders in my family fought hard to get it back after it was taken during the war… now if we sell… the US wants a chunk of it… why… not one US dollar was used to purchase it… This is what annoys me… didn’t think having legal immigration to the US was tax slave forever… we kept it just in case… never thought anything of it… too long held… just to fix this issues my family has… we are talking many different countries… taxing in each is very different…
@US_Foreign_Person,
You may be surprised what you can do when you have no choice.
So your trapped by say having a GC and your a covered expat. I would be researching my options like mad. There are likely lots of tax planning opportunities. I see Hodgen talking about rearranging stuff regularly.
I just kept searching. Purchased books. Read the online forums the tax pros use.
Last year I took a look at my tax return and the massive amount of tax I was paying to Obama. Paying for the healthcare of others at the same time Obama and his pals tell me I don’t pay my fair share.
I have enough never to have to work again with my frugal lifestyle. They can’t take it if I don’t earn it and why have all that work stress and complicated tax returns? I quit working last October. Screw them. I’ll do my research and look like a normal person at tax time. I’ll pay zero tax in 2016 despite earning a lot of money from investments. All thanks to the 0% capital gains/dividend brackets.
How the US can live with itself I will never understand:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/01/27/the-worlds-next-top-tax-haven-is-america/?utm_source=followingimmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160127#308e7c2de385
Neill:
What you have been forced to go through (and are still going through) is shocking. The end result of the US government’s ridiculous tax system is to deprive itself of even greater revenue by forcing you to quit your obviously successful career! If that isn’t the very definition of “asinine” I don’t know what is!
Thank you for the knowledge you share with us here!
I agree with MuzzledNoMore, Neill.
You are really between a rock and a hard place. You were forced into but made the best choice for yourself, and the US has lost lucrative benefit off your career. The US shoots itself in the foot over and over and over with the consequences to itself (and the many *us*) with FATCA and US CBT (though, as you point out, RBT would not change anything for you).
I, too, thank you for all you contribute here.
The US won’t do what the Canadian government does under its amnesty program:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/voluntarydisclosures/
See under “VD examples”
Jill did not report her interest income earned outside of Canada or file her T1135 Foreign Income Verification
No FBAR-like penalties for Canadian residents.
@Neill
Good for u… as I said before… u did a great job in standing up for yourself & your family
As legal immigrants… why would the US assume we all came into the US with no past… savings/investments… we kept one foot in our home country…. one foot in our host country… some countries could care less on what we made in other countries as long as we paid what was made in their country… we were stupid… we assumed it was the same all over… I do not understand the logic of paying on something that was not made in the US… we went from being dirt poor to comfort… now the US wants to reap everything we made everywhere… immigrants have no voice, no vote, easy pockets to pick…
Sorry about this rambling… I am still ticked off…
Republican Debate: Watch Live Stream Free Online today
http://time.com/4193925/watch-republican-debate-free-online/
The hashtag for the debate is #GOPDebate. TWEET away maybe they will bring up issue on air
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/28/canada-cuts-off-some-intelligence-sharing-with-u-s-out-of-fear-for-canadians-privacy/
Interesting development. Apparently the Canadian government is so concerned about the privacy of Canadian citizens that it has stopped sharing intelligence information with the US government while at the same time having no concern about sharing the financial information of some Canadian citizens. Double standard much?
What Canada could have said:
“The United States has imposed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) on Lebanese banks to curb tax evasion by U.S. citizens, but this is not our responsibility, and should be an affair between a country and its citizens. What if we requested that similar measures be taken to pursue Lebanese people outside Lebanon? Would the U.S. Treasury give us access to all case files and accounts?”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/01/29/Who-benefits-from-restrictions-on-Lebanese-banks-.html
Here’s one from last night’s Global National. The British government is cleaning house and getting old, outdated laws off the books. How about it, USA? http://globalnews.ca/news/2484007/what-are-you-doing-with-that-salmon-sir-some-british-laws-outdated-others-timeless/
https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/2016-form-1099s-are-fatca-compliant/
IRS has issued the final version of 2016 Form 1099’s which contain a checkbox to be used if the form is being used to meet requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
The 2016 Forms Form 1099-B (Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions), 1099-DIV (Dividends and Distributions), 1099-INT (Interest Income), 1099-OID (Original Issue Discount) and 1099-MISC (Miscellaneous Income) each contain a checkbox entitled “FATCA filing requirement” that the form instructions instruct taxpayers to complete if they are using the form to meet the requirements of either of those regs.
Republicans overseas released straw poll showing Rand Paul at the top. People said they thought he cared and understood about the issues.
Thanks commenters (who can comment through Facebook) for your excellent comments / education to readers on this Huffington Post article: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/cleo-hamel/us-citizenship-problems_b_9070622.html, titled *Ted Cruz Is Not The Only One With U.S. Citizenship Problems*.
@MuzzledNoMore
Agreed, some laws need to get off the books. Your post reminds me of that panel game show on CBC back in the ’70’s where they highlighted obscure Canadian Laws. Remember it? Called “That’s the Law”:
http://youtu.be/UjO1qK2GAY8
@Calgary411
I saw that tax connections post too. I was hoping someone who knows accountant speak could decider what it means…
Expatriate health plans. I’ll let you foreigners understand it:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-16-14.pdf
In defence of CBT (Zelininsky):
Abstract:
“The states’ income tax systems are important repositories of experience which confirm the administrative benefits of citizenship-based taxation. Domicile today plays an important role in state tax systems as a gap-filler when more objective statutory residence laws fail to assign any state of residence to the taxpayer. Citizenship is an administrable proxy for domicile and serves a similar gap-filling role in the federal taxation of individuals whose income and activities straddle across national boundaries.”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2720254&download=yes
The Zelinsky article also states:
“I thus confess that, just as I am unimpressed by stories
about Boris Johnson or by complaints that U.S. citizenship-based
taxation is sui generis, the self-serving pleadings of U.S.
citizens living abroad leave me unconvinced.
If you would like to give him a piece of your mind: Edward A. Zelinsky at atzelinsky@yu.edu