Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

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.

 

2,818 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 3 of 11 (Year 2016)”

  1. @BC Doc
    @Bubblebustin

    You know, the best part about this Panama Papers thing is that it’s finally started a global conversation about all the shit we’ve been talking about for the last five years, especially to expose America’s hypocrisy as it rails against foreign tax havens while building walls around their own.

    Just do a Google search on “FATCA” then hit the News tab. Top hit right now is Robert Wood’s “Panama Papers Expose Celebs, Politicians, Billionaires With Offshore Tax Havens Despite FATCA” article. Look below that and you’ll see:

    Explore in depth (3,430 more articles)

    We should rejoice!

  2. Hello Toronto – – this was announce on CTV just now (so no opportunity to comment):
    The Justice Minister will be at a $500/plate dinner in Toronto. No date or place was mentioned on the news banner. HOWEVER, are there any Brockers who might want to stand outside with placards and fliers? I mean, if one can do this at a sports event, why not at a dressier event with one of the main focuses of our frustration?????

  3. @iota
    I’m not so sure it is the West against the rest. Maybe the strong against the weak. Greece is part of the West, but not the list of countries the U.S. will share data with even though a clampdown on tax evasion is something Greece desperately needs and Greece is a democracy. India is not part of the West, but U.S. has said it will share with India.

  4. I hate that Forbes “turn off your ad blocker so we can bombard you with ads and spam” message. Not going to happen, but its too bad because Robert Woods wrote some good articles on FATCA and CBT.

  5. @Publius – sorry, it was just careless shorthand for the countries that aligned themselves with the US following WWII, and flourished economically in consequence.

    The dominoes have shifted some over the years, I agree.

  7. If you get some face time with Jody, ask her how her pledge of “Openness. Transparency. Fairness.
    Making government work for Canadians.” http://www.liberal.ca/openness-and-transparency/ applies to her defense of the Canadian enforcement of a foreign nation’s extraterritorial law and the subsequent maltreatment of Canadian citizens and resident taxpayers – in contravention of our Constitutional and Charter rights. And misusing our own Canadian taxes to pay for it.

  9. Brilliant article. Thanks to Daniel for constantly rooting out such pieces and posting them on the American Expatriates Facebook page.

    “A country that will build virtual walls to keep corporations in will do the same to individuals.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433730/corporate-inversion-renouncing-us-citizenship-america-builds-walls-around-itself

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433730/corporate-inversion-renouncing-us-citizenship-america-builds-walls-around-itself

  10. Badger – –
    A private reception with the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould
    Thursday April 7, 6 – 8 PM
    Well, that doesn’t give anyone much time to go down and protest. Too bad…..

  12. @Barbara – to sidestep the paywall.

    Enter: This is a story that should be about the US into Google.
    Select News Tab
    Click on article.

  13. @JC: Wow, when I first clicked the link (again, from a Facebook posting) I didn’t experience the paywall. Went right through.

    To clarify JC’s comment, here’s what to enter into the Google News search bar:

    This is a story that should be about the US

    A must-read for everyone.

  14. “No US Names in Panama Papers Leak- Why Not?”
    http://eoinhiggins.com/no-us-names-in-panama-papers-leak-why-not/

    Answer: because there’s a treaty.

    Making matters worse for Americans wanting to store their ill-gotten gains offshore, the 2010 United States—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement included a taxation clause that effectively shut down any chance of the rich in the US using Panama as a shelter.

    The Tax Information Exchange Agreement includes a clause, Article 5, that specifies the terms of information sharing between the two countries on tax related matters:

    “The competent authority of the requested Party shall provide upon request by the competent authority of the requesting Party information for the purposes referred to in Article 1 of this Agreement. Such information shall be exchanged without regard to whether the requested Party needs such information for its own tax purposes or the conduct being investigated would constitute a crime under the laws of the requested Party if it had occurred in the territory of the requested Party.”

    The Article goes on to make clear that Mossack Fonseca’s type of services would particularly be included in the information request:

    “Each Party shall ensure that it has the authority, for the purposes referred to in Article 1 of this Agreement and subject to Article 2 of this Agreement, to obtain and provide, through its competent authority and upon request:

    (a) information held by banks, other financial institutions, and any person, including nominees and trustees, acting in an agency or fiduciary capacity; and

    (b) information regarding the ownership of companies, partnerships, trusts, foundations, and other persons, including…. ownership information on all such persons in an ownership chain; in the case of trusts, information on settlors, trustees and beneficiaries; and in the case of foundations, information on founders, members of the foundation council and beneficiaries.”

    If Panama had ever been an attractive destination for American offshore storage of funds, this agreement shut the door on that possibility.

  15. http://www.newsweek.com/panama-papers-top-ten-tax-havens-where-money-hidden-444512

    WORLD
    PANAMA PAPERS: TOP TEN TAX HAVENS—WHERE THE MONEY IS HIDDEN
    BY LUCY CLARKE-BILLINGS

    “U.S.

    The United States is more of a cause for concern than any other individual country, according to the Financial Secrecy Index, because of both the size of its offshore sector, and also its rather wayward attitude to international cooperation and reform.

    The U.S. provides a wide array of secrecy and tax-free facilities for non-residents, both at a federal level and at the level of individual states.

    Though the U.S. has been a pioneer in defending itself from foreign secrecy jurisdictions, aggressively taking on the Swiss banking establishment and setting up its technically quite strong Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), it provides little information in return to other countries, making it a formidable, harmful and irresponsible secrecy jurisdiction at both the federal and state levels.”

  16. Financial Secrecy Index
    http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com

    The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. A politically neutral ranking, it is a tool for understanding global financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows or capital flight.

    The index was launched on November 2, 2015.

  17. I can’t get the link for this but CTV article online this morning.

    “Offshore accounts are for more than money laundering”

  21. Cheryl, re: ” The CTV article is very sympathetic to “expat Americans””

    From the article: There are an estimated 8 million Americans living abroad. That means there are that many people who might want easy access to local banks to deposit their paycheck, pay bills or get cash. “There seems to be the presumption that if you have an account in a foreign country you are trying to hide money from the government,” said Jane Bruno, whose Florida-based tax consulting and preparation business specializes in helping Americans living overseas. ”

    Unfortunately the article discriminates against ‘US persons’ by presuming they are first and foremost ‘Americans abroad’, thus perpetuating the notion of second class Canadians(Australian, Chinese, etc) in the countries that ‘US persons’ call home. The article says one of the reasons that “Americans” have foreign bank accounts is for “convenience.” So we are not Canadians(Australians, Chinese), who NEED bank accounts like every other Canadian(Australian Chinese citizen, etc), but rather we are transported “Americans” who are merely “inconvenienced” by having trouble getting a bank account in a “foreign country”. This is the message received by the average Canadian (Australian, Chinese citizen, etc) when they read articles like this.

  22. I don’t understand much about the intricacies of problems plaguing the US government regarding corporate taxation, but one thing stood out to me in Obama and Treasury’s updated plan for business and international tax reform for G-7 countries:

    “Establish a new per-country minimum tax (19%, less a foreign tax credit equal to 85% of the per-country average foreign effective tax rate) on foreign earnings that would reduce firms’ ability to avoid U.S. tax by shifting profits overseas, reduce the incentive to shift production overseas, and increase the global competitiveness of U.S. corporations.”

    Can someone tell me what the point would be in “fixing” such a rate? I think competition is healthy.

  24. @whitecat I agree although it is good I think to reference that they have accounts in the country where they live and work. It seems we rarely get everything

  25. @Cheryl, re: “It seems we rarely get everything ”

    It seems we rarely see the main issues (inconvenient banking is not it).

    Boy, do I sound like a glass half empty person. Bubbles, don’t say anything.

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