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.
@ WhiteKat
Try posting those two again before you go to bed and then check in the morning to see if they get through. You never know when CBC will close the comments and those are too good to let slide. I feel like I almost wrote a Rx there — take 2 aspirins and call me in the morning. 😉
I thought the United States would make provisions for Canada not being a tax haven.
I was wrong.
I thought Jim Flaherty RIP was standing up for the rights of US-tainted Canadians.
I was wrong.
I thought I could sit tight and US ambassador David Jacobson would sort things out.
I was wrong.
I thought the government of Canada would not sell Canadians out to the US FATCA imperative.
I was wrong.
I thought Canada was much nicer than the United States. (PS – I never did time in a residential school.)
I was wrong.
I thought Obama might make things easy for the “accidental” class of US persons.
I was wrong.
I thought Canada would wait for a confirmed legal basis before handing over Canadian personal information to the United States.
I was wrong.
I thought worse come to worst I could renounce US citizenship for $450 or maybe even relinquish US citizenship for free.
I was wrong.
I thought Justin Trudeau and the Liberal tide would set “overseas” US-tainted me safe onto Canadian shore.
I was wrong.
I thought if I helped to raise $600,000 for a big court case that rounding up good witnesses would be no problemo.
I was wrong.
I thought if only a media outlet like the CBC would give our story big coverage the word would spread like wildfire.
I was wrong.
I thought I could comment on a CBC story to add missing information.
I was wrong.
Any STATISTS out there starting to see a pattern?
@usxcanada
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Yogi Berra
@usXcanadian
People want to hide and that is the crux of this whole situation. Maybe more people would come forward as witnesses if they knew their account info has already been sent to the IRS?
@Neil
The last time I read about an interview with Bill Bryson , (a year or two ago), he stated that he had not become a UK citizen as he was scared of failing the test! I wondered how Fatca was affecting him and if he could become an advocate for affected people. He did in fact take his wife and family to live in the US for a number of years before returning to the UK. He was such an Anglophyle that I wondered if this move was because he wanted his wife to become a US citizen to avoid the alien spouse inheritance problems. This was of course before Fatca shit hit the fan.
@WhiteKat
Those are good comments. I don’t understand…I just looked-carefully for them and I don’t see them. It’s 3:15 am our time.
Now I have one of those “content disabled” comments. There are only 2 links so that cannot be it…
Ed Zachary
I wonder what other little US/Canada ‘deals’ will be announced in the near future?
Content disabled.
Flag
Patricia Moon
@Ed Zachary You’ll love this one. Under the Beyond the Border Act, U.S. police will be operating on OUR SOIL! And they want to do so under US law. I kid you not.
http://actionplan.gc.ca/en/page/bbg-tpf/beyond-border-action-plan#part3
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/03/proposed-canada-us-border-police-teams-on-hold-over-legal-jurisdiction-questions.html
@calgary411 – “From Phil Hodgen’s blog: March 15, 2016: Why Social Security does not go on the Form 8854 balance sheet”
I was a bit disappointed in this Hodgen article. It was trailed a few weeks ago in relation to foreign social security: http://hodgen.com/expatriation-feelz-bank-accounts-and-foreign-social-security/
But this article only discusses US Social Security. And the legal case cited (Flemming v. Nestor, https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/US/363/363.US.603.54.html) is unfortunately a peculiarly American situation (the guy was deported and deprived of his benefits as punishment for having been a Communist in his youth). And although Hodgen says in the trailer that “The same logic that applies to U.S. Social Security benefits applies to foreign Social Security benefits”, he does not explain why he thinks that. Maybe he is planning to write a future piece discussing whether “foreign” social security is an asset for the purposes of the 8854 balance sheet.
Comment ???
https://www.facebook.com/groups/citizenshiptaxation/1006617026094712/?ref=notif¬if_t=group_activity
I’m very curious as to whether the author of this article even reads the comments. I mean, if the comments are not read by the author, then he/she will continue to write half-informed dribble the next time
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
‘Commissioner Koskinen Calls On Congress to Adopt Common Reporting Standard (3/15/16)’
.”A Tax Notes Today article reports that, in a speech to the Tax Executives Institute, IRS Commissioner Koskinen called for Congress to approve the U.S. use of the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) to replace reporting under FATCA…”…
http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.ca/2016/03/commissioner-koskinen-calls-on-congress.html
IRS commissioner Koskinen: Congress approval needed for CRS
By: Helen Burggraf | 16 Mar 2016
http://www.internationalinvestment.net/regions/irs-commissioner-koskinen-congress-approval-needed-for-crs/
..”.Koskinen was quoted by various tax industry journals as saying that the reason the US hasn’t signed up to the CRS was because “we [the IRS] don’t have the legal authority to provide – on a reciprocal basis – the range of information the other countries are prepared to share with each other and with us..”…..
…
“…….According to LexisNexis.com, one of the publications to cover Koskinen’s remarks, there are “questions…about how much data the IRS can share about individual taxpayers under the existing statutory framework”.
But Koskinen insisted that the IRS was engaging in the OECD’s efforts to establish the reporting system, in spite of the fact that for now, it is not a signatory, nor likely to be for the foreseeable future…..”…….
..”.Some observers have suggested that the US, by remaining outside the CRS, would become a de facto tax haven, by virtue of the fact that its bilateral FATCA agreements don’t cover as many areas of information as the CRS will…”…..
…..”…the legislation that eventually became FATCA failed several times to make it through Congress, and, some critics say, might not have in 2010, had it not been buried inside a domestic jobs bill, the HIRE Act, and thus received little attention.”
The problem with such ambitious projects is that’s they’re rendered useless unless everyone does it. Perhaps the threat of sanctions might get the US to sign on to the CRS.
BEHIND THE HEADLINES: The return of Trudeaumania?
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/78915/headlines-return-trudeaumania
How the Trudeau government, Revenue Canada and the Canadian courts deal with the thorny issue of FATCA will become clear in the months ahead as legal challenges to Washington’s avaricious demands for financial information come before Canadian judges. – See more at: http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/78915/headlines-return-trudeaumania#sthash.ds8ucnii.dpuf
@badger
Is the IRS blinking?
@Badger et. al.
Re: IRS commissioner Koskinen: Congress approval needed for CRS, by Helen Burggraf | 16 Mar 2016
Like the Liberal Government’s FATCA flip-flop, this story is extremely significant and really should have its own post. I’m busy at work right now but would ask any Brock author to move this to the front page where it belongs.
This is a stunning admission by IRS commissioner Koskinen which has huge legal and diplomatic implications:
“…Koskinen was quoted by various tax industry journals as saying that the reason the US hasn’t signed up to the CRS was because “we [the IRS] don’t have the legal authority to provide – on a reciprocal basis – the range of information the other countries are prepared to share with each other and with us”…
I can’t wait to see the reaction from various IGA signatories, especially countries like India, which bet the farm – and their government’s entire reputations – on false FATCA reciprocity with the intent to recover “black money”. As we knew all along, they’ve been duped – and the IRS emperor has no clothes.
Thanks, badger. I’ve appropriated your link and put it in the comments for the current iPolitics.ca Elizabeth Thompson piece: http://ipolitics.ca/2016/03/17/trudeau-liberals-reverse-position-on-controversial-irs-information-sharing-deal/.
Thanks, badger! Thanks, bubblebustin! Thanks, Deckard! And, of course, thanks also to Neill!
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/03/17/is-the-us-irs-blinking-brocker-bubbleustin-asks-brocker-badger/
@bubblebustin, not sure why Koskinen was so frank. Maybe he’ll move on and it doesn’t cost him anything to acknowledge some truth. Maybe because the US will never do it, Congress won’t, and so the IRS can blame them for not participating.
@Deckhard and @calgary;
Hoping that may make the Canadian and every other IGA signatory government squirm – as the IRS announces and admits what the signatories had collaborated with the US to obscure from their own taxpayers – that FATCA does not provide for reciprocity, and the IGAs are not actually reciprocal in terms of what and how much is ‘exchanged’ on the part of the US. Reminding me that the Canadian feds said in their rationale for the FATCA IGA enabling legislation that they needed to implement US FATCA in order to do OECD CRS…..
Koskinen is setting the tone so it wont come as a shock later. He can then say “we told you so” before, and this is not news.
The CBC article is now closed but a real flurry of activity today (over 900) posts and lots appalled at the FATCA stuff.
@Cheryl…..and there would be a LOT more if so many of ours were not labelled “content disabled”! I’ve had six and the Kat has had quite a few also. A big huge pockmark on the CBC. (Funny, they “content disabled” my comment asking why they were labelling so many as “content disabled”. They could have at LEAST stated why!!!!!!!)
Sorry. I was on the wrong article…What an idiot.
The CBC article is closed, but I just got a link from another Brocker via email that made me smile:
*The Dime, March 17, 2016 — “KPMG to buy CRA under privatization deal”
*We could almost believe this!
@Calgary Toooo Funny. I needed a chuckle. But it does show subtle changes in attitude re sunny ways.
European Pushback!!!! Europe is proposing a “mini-FATCA” against the US in retaliation for its failure to provide adequate reciprocity.
http://www.academyfinance.ch/v2/next_events/AF654.pdf
My thanks to a reader (who prefers not to comment here) for sharing this important development with me.