Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 3 of 11 (Year 2016)

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

1. No comment opportunities, but here is another Baby Ella article: http://www.internationalinvestment.net/regions/canada-anti-fatca-campaigners-revel-banks-letter-baby/

2. @LM

   This is the text – sorry I don’t know how to include the photo of a Canadian child:

   Dear President Obama, I’m A Baby Not A Tax Cheat / Robert W. Wood

   I recently received a copy of a letter sent to Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama from an eight-month-old Canadian American infant. If you are wondering how an eight-month-old could write a letter, she had help from an adult (Lynne) facing similar tax issues. You see, Baby Elle (not her real name) received a FATCA letter about her small Canadian bank account. That means Baby Elle needs quite a lot of help, including filling out forms.

   Baby Elle could renounce her U.S. citizenship, but the account does not hold enough money to enable Baby Elle to do it properly and pay the steep U.S. filing fee. This is hardly the Panama Papers, but Baby Elle seems caught within their pages. Baby Elle is just an ordinary dual U.S. Canadian already–at eight months old!–caught in a crazy compliance system that is making it increasingly difficult to support both countries. Baby Elle’s letter speaks to some of the reasons that record numbers are renouncing their U.S. citizenship. It is reminiscent of Dear Mrs. Obama, Why I Gave Up My U.S. Citizenship and Dear Mr. President, Why I’m Leaving America.

   The voice of a child might be more persuasive than those of adults.
   …
   [ with Baby Elle’s letter as originally posted originally at MapleSandbox: http://maplesandbox.ca/2016/baby-elles-fatca-letter/.%5D

3. Does anyone know if this letter was actually sent to Obama and Trudeau, or just posted in (now) several publications. If not already, I think it (or a hard copy of the news report) SHOULD be sent to Trudeau (and a number of Ministers).

4. Thanks, Ellen D.

   Will you allow me to update your comment by putting a link into your post for Baby Elle’s letter, which is originally at MapleSandbox: http://maplesandbox.ca/2016/baby-elles-fatca-letter/? Brock does not / is not supposed to publish the contents of a complete news article without permission of the author of the article, in this case Robert Wood.

5. @LM I tweeted the letter to Trudeau and Obama. Several people retweeted my tweets.

6. Thousands of bank customers called on to reveal US connections

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/79049481/thousands-of-bank-customers-called-on-to-reveal-us-connections

   Christchurch company director Jo Scott was taken aback by a recent letter from Kiwibank​ asking if she was an American and whether her company had financial links to the US.

   She isn’t and her company doesn’t.

   So she was even more surprised when the letter went on to warn that, if she failed to fill out the accompanying four page declaration, Kiwibank​ would provide information about her accounts to New Zealand Inland Revenue (IRD) which would pass it onto the US Internal Revenue Service .

   “It was such a heavy handed letter. I complied, but I did think ‘why is my bank helping find American tax dodgers?’ As a New Zealander I was quite shocked to hear that my New Zealand Bank has to enforce American law.”

7. @Blaze –
   I am not a TWEETer (so correct me if I need education here), but how much of this information gets transferred with a TWEET? Does it just provide a link to the article?
   Maybe the entire article could be sent to Trudeau (Obama is a very lame duck and has shown no mercy or empathy whatsoever).
   Just my 2 cents.

8. @ LM and All
   There’s another article in International Investment (posted April 18th) about Daniel Therrien …
   http://www.internationalinvestment.net/regions/canada-commissioner-warns-of-tax-law-conflict-with-fatca/
   I still think his testimony at the ETHI meeting was milque toast and the so-called “privacy gains” he thinks he got from the CRA are piffle. It absolutely enrages me that THEY think a complete disclosure of a person’s bank account details is being used for “tax administrating purposes”. That information is ONLY being used to eke out form-filing penalties. With today’s low interest rates and tomorrow’s negative interest rates, even with a relatively high bank balance one is not likely to receive enough “income” from one’s account(s) as to trigger any significant US tax.

9. I have a question that hopefully someone can answer. If and when your bank sends you a 4 page document to fill in, one of the questions is if you have a parent who is a US citizen. I understand that you are only a US citizen for tax purposes if your parent lived in the states for a certain period if time after the age of 14. So how can you answer this question without immediately having your bank “dop you in” to the IRS. Your bank doesn’t know the complex US law and will see any connection to the US as “proven guilty”. This is a real concern for my daughter and we are panicking.

10. @Kiwi

    Have you received such a document asking you about parentage?

11. Too soon to panic. She isn’t American. You can either try to explain why to the bank or you can just say no.

12. Interesting article in Huffington Post on the U.S. includes discussion of FTCA.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-martin/america-is-a-cult_b_9720140.html

13. Interesting, Cheryl, and right on the money is the author. The USA, epitome of an exceptional cult, more easy to see when one no longer lives inside the homeland.

14. “IMF, World Bank, U.N., OECD form new group to stop tax erosion”

    The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said on Tuesday they are joining forces with other international organizations to cooperate on tax issues and develop new tools and standards to halt tax base erosion and evasion.

    The new grouping, which will also include the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will focus particularly on building effective tax systems in developing economies, the partners said.

    The effort was announced just weeks after the release of the so-called “Panama Papers” stirred outrage at the widespread use of tax haven countries and shell companies by wealthy global elites and corporations to hide assets and avoid paying taxes.

    The Panama Papers could create a rare moment to break down secrecy, Robert Stack, a U.S. Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary, said in New York on Tuesday.

    “I don’t think one could underestimate the at least short-term impact that the release of the Panama Papers has on the issue of transparency,” Stack said at the NYU/KPMG Tax Lecture, separate from the IMF and World Bank announcement.

    U.S. authorities are in a “funny position” if they criticize Panama given the United States’ own lack of transparency, he added.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-imf-g20-tax-idUSKCN0XG1WM

15. The Reuters article above states: “”….pledged to crack down on tax evasion and base erosion, as well as to fight the exploitation of tax law mismatches…”

    Would CBT be considered a tax law mismatch?

16. @Charl – It should be, but I’m sure it won’t be. They would say the tax treaties make it okay. I think they’re talking about inversions.

17. And transfer pricing.

18. Alex nails it again:

    http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/item/22999-panama-papers-obama-and-globalists-kill-right-to-privacy

19. From another thread…

    …dense, gullible, inept officials of our other-country governments (perhaps especially those now *leaders of* Canada – April 14, 2016 — Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier at Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy & Ethics re Transfer of Information to the United States IRS
    ) almost deserve to be hoodwinked and monies stolen from their treasuries. My thoughts as I try to get my head around this new advice / opinion: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/private-eyes-they-re-watching-you-33957/

    FATCA Overview

    FATCA refers to the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Adopted in 2010, the original construction of FACTA was designed as a one way street benefitting the U.S. Government in regard to financial and tax reporting. Under FATCA non-U.S. financial institutions are required to provide the U.S. government with data about U.S. persons with the U.S. not required to give anything in return to foreign governments. The original construction was met with strong reaction from foreign financial institutions who ultimately faced similar issues with respect to tax evasion.

    The United States has entered into numerous reciprocal inter-governmental agreements with the intent of providing foreign governments with reciprocal information except that the information that the U.S. needs to provide is far less than what foreign governments and financial institutions need to provide. Approximately 101 jurisdictions have entered into tax information exchange agreements with the U.S. Government.

    The IRS will not provide its reciprocal FATCA partners with any information regarding depository (cash) accounts held by entities, even entities resident in the FATCA partner country. Additionally, the IRS will not provide a FATCA partner country with information whether the account is held by an individual or entity including entities resident in the FATCA partner country unless the accounts earn U.S. source income. The IRS will not provide information about the controlling persons of entities even if those entities are owned and controlled by residents of the reciprocal country.

    In order to avoid disclosure under a reciprocal inter-governmental agreement with the U.S., all that that is required holding cash accounts through an entity and non-cash accounts in U.S. securities through an entity. For assets that generate U.S. source income, the income should be blocked.

    …

    The U.S. is unlikely to enter into GATCA in the future due to the fact that the information requested in the exchange agreement is not currently reported to the IRS by U.S. financial institutions. The U.S. Government cannot agree to the GATCA-style reporting requirements without Congressional approval. The political view is that Congress does not want to harm the banking industry by driving money offshore and destroying the competitive advantage of U.S. banks.

    The only thing necessary to avoid reporting under GATCA is the transfer of client assets to a financial institution resident in the U.S. for GATCA purposes. A trust with a U.S. resident trustee, but structured as a non-U.S. trust for U.S. tax purposes is the key to solving the problem.

    …

    As the dust continues to settle in Panama over the next few rainy seasons, wealthy international families have no time to delay in weighing their planning alternatives. It seems to be an odd result that the U.S. emerges as the new “go to” jurisdiction in order to dance around the reporting obligations of FATCA and GACTA as well as other U.S. reporting obligations. The trick is a careful balance of avoiding treatment as a U.S. person while being considered a U.S. trust for all other purposes. Additionally, a number of U.S. states do not require an LLC manager or member to be listed on a public database.

    Future articles will delve into the structure and planning of these trusts.

20. @LM It was tweeted with a link to the Sandbox post. I tweeted it several times. Others retweeted it or tweeted another version.

    Some of the tweets also included the image of Baby Elle playing with her TD block (special thanks to GwEvil for adapting the block).

    My experience is politicians sometimes pay more attention to tweets than they do to letters or e-mails because they are publicly available.

    In addition, I understand young people seldom send e-mails or snail mail letters. They more frequently use texts and social media like Twitter. I understand Twitter is now becoming archaic among young people, but I’m not sure what has replaced it.

    trudeau, Obama, LeBouthillier, Morneau, Dubourg, Brison, Rankin, Cullen, Dusseult, May, etc. etc. all have Twitter accounts. In fact, I think it is now very rare for an elected official to not have a Twitter account.

    It was through Twitter that Elizabeth a Thompson first contacted me.

    I don’t know if any of the politicians are paying much attention. But I have had more response through Twitter than I have had through e-mails or written letters. In fact, it seemed to be my tweets that resulted in the NDP request for me to testify at Finance Committee.

    It is amazing how much can be conveyed in 140 characters. Now if only we could make some of the tweets go viral, we might be able to get the media and the politicians to pay some attention.

    I will ask Baby Elle’s Nana (Somerfugl) what she and Baby Elle’s Mommy and Daddy would like to do about sending a real letter or e-mail.

21. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/20/press-freedom-reporters-without-borders_n_9737012.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-business&ir=Canada+Business

    Canada went through a “dark age” for press freedom during the government of Stephen Harper, but “only time will tell” if things will improve under the Trudeau government, an international media watchdog said Wednesday.

    Canada fell 10 spots to 18th place in the latest ranking of press freedom from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), while the U.S. rose eight spots to 41st place.

    “With mounting concern over the government’s ‘growing secrecy’ and rampant bureaucracy in executing Access to Information (ATI) requests, Stephen Harper’s reign was considered a ‘dark age’ for journalism,” RSF said in its report. “Current Prime Minister Trudeau has strongly advocated for a ‘free media’ but only time will tell if his promises will be fulfilled.”

    … or another flip-flop?

22. “The IRS will not provide information about the controlling persons of entities even if those entities are owned and controlled by residents of the reciprocal country.”

    The new Treasury rule (http://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2016/04/15/u-s-rule-would-force-banks-to-identify-shell-company-owners/) supposedly is intended to require banks to reveal the beneficial owners of shell companies.

    However, according to a report in the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/08/panama-papers-us-treasury-rule-shell-companies-hiding-money), critics of the proposed rule say it won’t be effective.

    Who knows. They’re all lying liars – impossible to be sure what’s going on behind the scenes.

23. @Blaze

    I’m pretty sure Twitter and Facebook are being replaced by Instagram for many. I can’t get the hang of it.

24. Amazing article on time:

    http://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myths/

25. @ Blaze – thank you for the scoop on Twitter. Guess I’m just not “there” yet (don’t have a cell phone either…….)

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