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. @BC-Doc, “Drudge readers (I think) tend to be right wing, hence the many snarky comments.”

   The snarkiness is not restricted to the right/left wing, snarkiness is a unique American Quality that covers all political persuasions.

   I have seen vile comments over at Daily Kos on this subject over the years and they are anything but not right wing.

   The ONLY sympathy we can get is from the libertarians which is neither right nor left wing.

2. @George, they’re just going to make things harder and harder to punish those of us who had the gall to leave; if they can’t get us via the IRS or FBAR/FATCA, they’ll deliberately try to catch people out to disqualifify more applicants from successful ESTA applications.

   I am outraged that they expect people to actually admit to having ever taken an illegal drug, even if never having been caught. One can’t win. If one is honest, they’ll be barred, but if ever found out that they’d lied on the application, I’d imagine they’d throw the book at them.

   It feels like an Inquisition. I still feel under persecution though I have never been in any legal trouble. I fear that something will someday prevent me from ever being able to see my elderly parents again. It seems in one form or another, that I will be treated as an apostate.

3. @MonaLisa, we are apostates because we left. We committed high heresy because we relinquished. You know, I burned the bridge a decade ago and would do the exact same thing again.

   I travel without a CLN and fully realize there could be a day when they refuse me entry to see older relatives. So be it…..

   You know what? Think how bad this journey would have been without IBS? We do not know each other, yet we know each other.

4. There is no comments section, because NSA is the only U.S. Government agency that listens to the people, but here is the press release:

   Remember, “Strengthen Financial Transparency” is good even though it means “reducing financial privacy,” which is bad. Kinda like deterring tax evasion is good, whilst intimidating people into paying taxes is bad. DETER sounds good, INTIMIDATE sounds bad.

   Fact Sheet: Obama Administration Announces Steps to Strengthen Financial Transparency, and Combat Money Laundering, Corruption, and Tax Evasion
   https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/05/fact-sheet-obama-administration-announces-steps-strengthen-financial

5. Wood on renunciations. Already 141 comments!

   http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/05/06/many-americans-renounce-citizenship-even-before-president-trump/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix&ref=yfp#4771f4312b66

6. Obama tells Rand Paul to let his treaties go!
   It;s just quirky to expect those same protection you have on domestic accounts on foreign ones.

   http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-calls-sen-paul-drop-objections-tax-treaties-38934013

   My voting choice is Trump. What a shame it’s not Rand Paul.

7. @Neill “My voting choice is Trump.”

   For expats that are still US Voters, I think Trump is the sole choice for two reasons.

   1. Everyone else in the pack up to this point were/are politicians who had dirty hands on expat issues.

   2. Secretary Clinton by virtue of her position should have been representing American Citizens Abroad and failed to do so.

   But as someone who did relinquish, I largely remain silent on matters of elections be they in any foreign country of which the USA is simply another foreign country.

8. Clinton will give Americans abroad the same old BS turned up to 11. She’s said so already. And of course she’s directly responsible for some of that BS, both from her time in the Senate and from being the Secretary of State who approved the original renunciation fee which has since ballooned to the present $2350 monstrosity.

   Trump will give Americans abroad a whole new variety of BS. He’s said so already too (e.g. threatening to impose a tax on money being moved abroad in order to pay for a Homeland infrastructure project), but some people don’t want to listen. (“But we’re not the targets of that, we’re not Mexican illegals!”, they say. Yeah, and “Canada is not a tax haven” either, so what?)

   Have fun making that choice!

9. @Eric,@George,
   I would never give Clinton my vote. I know what that side wants to do to me. Trump I don’t like but I do like many in the party. I have no idea what Trump will do.

10. @Neill

    I don’t think anyone knows what Trump will do, including Trump himself. Hopefully he won’t be doing it anywhere near the nuclear codes on one of his bad hair days.

11. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian front runner is gaining momentum.

12. Article suggest Obama wants reciprocal reporting via FATCA:

    http://nreionline.com/investment/obama-administration-cracks-down-foreign-tax-evasion

13. Jacob Lew’s recent letter to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell glorifying FATCA and describing the purpose of FATCA as follows:

    “FATCA allows us to gain insight into the accounts of US citizens abroad…”

    So much for the Democrats’ BS lie that FATCA was not being aimed at Americans who live abroad. Meanwhile the renunciations of expats continue to pile up.

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2824376-US-transparency-announcement-Secretary-Lew.html

14. Re: Letter from Jacob Lew

    “Reciprocity with other jurisdictions is a key component of any successful strategy of combating international tax evasion and ensuring future collaboration with our partners overseas.”

    This sounds like recognition of weakness in the FATCA IGA agreements in that there is reciprocity as part of them. If the US does not reciprocate then that does leave an out for existing FATCA countries to complying. Also, an excuse for countries not yet signed up to not join.

15. I honestly think that FATCA is here to stay. They are so proud of this “accomplishment” and all the GOOD it brings to the world.
    What needs to go is CBT. That way America would really get in line with the rest of the world.
    But seeing that expats are financing the roads and railways refurbishment….I think Trump can count and he wont let go of such a source of revenue for the treasury. What arguments could one bring to a debate with Trump ( or Hillary) for them to want to let go of badly needed monies for the homeland? IMHO- none.

16. @polly
    Well once they have collected and maxed out on all their penalties and their are no Americans left abroad to bring into compliance, their source of revenue will dry up. In fact it should cost them more in irs admin than they can collect.

17. @Heidi
    Yeah- if they are not after the offspring and the offspring`s offspring by then….
    At any rate- I`ll be long dead….:(

18. Polly: I believe that Jacquie Bugnion calculated that the money the US Treasury collects from expats amounts to 0.2% of all monies collected. The federal budget is so big they’d never miss us. But we’re little guys and the same amount of money in or out of *our* pockets can cause us to either live well or live poorly.

19. @Muzzled
    Don’t forget- we are paying for the roads and train tracks! it is money the treasury does not have.

20. Interesting article on China’s view of some of their dual nationals. I wonder what the U.S. thinks if this.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-long-reach-of-beijing/article29930527/

    “Much has been said about China’s growing nationalism but little attention has been paid to its increasing assertion of something akin to sovereignty over ethnic-Chinese who are citizens of other countries. While this is particularly noteworthy in Hong Kong, it is also true in the United States, Australia and other countries.”

    “What all of this means is that China is trying very hard to extend its influence abroad by using ethnic-Chinese overseas, appealing to their sense of being Chinese, even though they are foreign citizens and have left the country of their birth.”

21. @Cheryl: Well, China doesn’t have a giant soft power machine like Hollywood to generate some fantasy image of a Land of Milk and Honey that’s totally divorced from reality, so they rely on other tactics to spread their influence overseas, like direct cultural appeals to their emigrants and emigrants’ kids. This is generally not very effective.

    As for his comments about citizenship, they’re complete BS. A dual citizen in HK can easily opt out of Chinese citizenship: go to the immigration department, sign the form for change of nationality, and they process it on the same day for less than twenty bucks US. And you can keep your permanent residence after giving up Chinese citizenship, i.e. you can still come and go from Hong Kong as you please even if you have a past criminal record.

    Renouncing U.S. citizenship, in contrast, is literally a hundred times more time consuming and a hundred times more expensive, even before you count the effort of tax paperwork, and if you ever committed any crime you’re likely to get denied a US visa in the future.

22. http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/05/09/record-number-of-americans-ditch-their-us-passports/

    Record Number of Americans Ditch Their US Passports

23. No More Hiding in U.S. Disregarded Entities Under IRS Rules

    http://www.bna.com/no-hiding-us-n57982070858/

24. Turning up the PFIC heat on non-resident USP’s.

    https://tax-expatriation.com/2016/05/09/part-i-pfic-minutiae-why-the-devil-is-in-the-details/

25. Voice of America article on the latest honour roll:
    http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/05/09/record-numbers-of-americans-ditch-us-passports/

    However, a complicated tax system appears to be motivating many of these defectors.

    The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is global tax law enacted in 2010 after being in the works for a number of years. The law requires that banks in foreign countries disclose all Americans with accounts containing more than $50,000.

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