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. Jumping in on the political discussion here. Like JC says, I refuse to pay attention to homeland issues. Homeland ignores my issues, I ignore their issues back.

   The way I currently see it: Clinton will be the Dem nominee, like it or not (and I don’t). Clinton is the worst possible choice for expats. Under her, we will see, at best, a continuation of the status quo. Or, more chilling, a “get tough” stance by her, in which she makes the IRS turn up the screws on all us expat “tax dodgers”.

   Trump, as I see him, is likely to be just as bad for us. His entire platform in life and politics is to react to the surface issues without examining them deeply. Hence, if expat tax issues ever even make it to his desk, he is more likely to want to get rid of the FEIE and FTC in one fell swoop to punish us “traitors” who deserted the homeland; after all, why should we be “rewarded” for leaving?

   How many times in the past have I voted for “the lesser of two evils” for president? What happens if they’re both equally evil? One of them will win, regardless of my vote. Therefore I’ve decided to join the anti-establishment bandwagon, and will vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson. He may not win, but things are looking as though he might be getting up to 15% of the national vote this year. Voting Libertarian squares neatly with my own expat-issues-only political orientation, and will at least allow me to sleep that night after I mail in my vote.

   On a separate note: some of you may recall that hubby and I were applying for local citizenship in order to renounce. We’ve hit a major snag, and it seems now it isn’t going to happen. I am in total despair. Those folks in Canada, Aus/NZ, and Europe who actually have a choice, yet are still hemming and hawing about whether to renounce because, “Aw shucks, I still feel American in my heart”, you have no idea how deeply I envy you.

2. @Barbara my position is to try and highlight the injustices. We are not going to get a majority to support us, yet we could grow the community, spread awareness, and therefore enlarge the financing base for the lawsuits.

   I get the impression that Clinton would not sign legislation more favorable to expats, while I might hope Trump might be more favorable to legislation put up by a Republican Congress.

   I am thinking a real possibility to change it all is kind of how FATCA got through, tacked onto an unrelated bill, undebated.

3. @Barbara – so sorry to hear that your plans have hit a snag.

4. @Barbara,
   I don’t know what I would have done is I was denied US citizenship.They basically made it so I couldn’t leave the US. I guess I would have started planning the slow exit were I work out how to look poor for the exit tax etc. Returning to the UK wouldn’t be something I would want to do but if I had no choice then so be it. If your resident country doesn’t want you then maybe you have to return to the US.
   Of course you can litigate I guess. Plenty of lawyers int he US fight to overcome citizenship problems here.

5. @Barbara
   Trump scares the shit out of me. He is a loose cannon. You don`t want somebody like that at the steering wheel.

6. http://ipolitics.ca/2016/06/02/canada-u-s-deal-would-be-scrapped-if-privacy-infringed-goodale/

7. @Neill: My country of residence is fine with me. I have permanent residence, never need to renew a visa. They just are making it basically impossible for me to become a full citizen. It could be pure chest-beating racism. Perhaps they sense my half-heartedness about wanting citizenship. It isn’t a place one would rate as a highly sought after nationality.

   I will never return to the USA. Period. What a terrible thought. Worst case scenario for me is the status quo: continue living outside the USA, filing taxes and FBARs and being denied various investment and loan services, worrying about things getting worse or being punished over some technicality, and seething with disgust and hatred toward the USA until my dying day (when the IRS then swoops in and taxes my estate).

   Clinton will never get my vote, especially if the rumors are true that she’ll pick I-heart-FATCA-pay-your-fair-share Elizabeth Warren as running mate in order to rope in the Bernie-droids. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Trump is my ugly, stupid friend. But like I said, I’ll probably vote Libertarian.

8. @ Barbara
   Sorry to hear about your passport application snag.
   Have you thought about a St Kitts & Nevis passport? It is a UK commonwealth protectorate with free access to the EU.
   The real estate investment was $250,000, it’s now $400,000 and sellable in 5 yrs.
   I may be a great investment now there is a huge demand for another passport!
   http://stkitts-citizenship.com/
   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/buying-your-st-kitts-citizenship-may-get-more-expensive-soon

9. @Heidi: I hate to hijack this thread for a discussion of second citizenships, but yes, of course we have looked at all the options, from dubious-seeming Caribbean passports to European Golden Visas. Only one snag: where to get half a million US dollars or euros in cash? We don’t have such resources. I’d consider selling my first-born child for the money, except that he’s an adult and no longer my property. Seriously, we looked at personal bank loans. But a 10-year loan of that amount–the longest period someone our age can get–would cost US$4500 a month in payments. We are trapped. I certainly understand the creepy feeling that many of you in Canada and elsewhere feel, who wish you could renounce, but are prevented by the compliance horrors. Different circumstances than ours, but similar feeling of being imprisoned without possibility of parole.

   Anyway, no point in continuing this discussion. There are no easy answers. I simply wanted to let all you kind and supportive people know the update to our situation.

10. @Barbara
    I am so sorry to hear about your difficulties. It has been known since at least the 1980s that one of the big problems with the “just renounce” argument is that there are countries which never give immigrants citizenship, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. I don’t suppose you have a grandmother or grandfather born in Ireland? They deeply miss their diaspora, so are very generous when it comes to citizenship. Lovely, warm people and a country well worth visiting, especially if you need to escape summer heat.

    @JC
    But FATCA was a measure ostensibly to increase revenue. Those ones are easy to pass as long as no one objects. Measures to decrease revenue; however, have faced an uphill battle ever since a bit of 1990s because they need to be offset.

    The New York Times has an article today “Panama Papers Show How Rich United States Clients Hid Millions Abroad” . These are all homelanders and I think that they are pretty indefensible for the most part. But that really big figure for tax revenues lost offshore is trotted out again and it might be good to point out that not everyone who owes tax on overseas accounts is a whiny heiress living in the U.S. complaining about the government taking her hard-earned inherited cash. Mossack Fonseca was apparently warning its U.S. clients in 2013 to come clean, undoubtedly in the wake of FATCA. The New York Times now provides the first names of posters.
    http://nyti.ms/1sZ2u4m

11. @Publius
    I did suggest Ireland to Barbara some time ago, but no go. I just thought that maybe her retirement funds may be safer in property with the bonus of a passport, than other vehicles like the stock market. Looks like St Kitts and Nevis property has already appreciated 33%…in a few year, not so much as the value of a CLN though.

12. Leadnow,ca is inviting people to start new petitions:
    https://you.leadnow.ca/petition/new?source=mead
    Anyone interested in petitioning the Canadian Government to (1) repeal the FATCA IGA and/or (2) urge the US to convert from CBT to RBT? How could it be worded briefly to achieve maximum support from people who don’t already know the issues involved?
    :

13. @Tricia;
    Great article,
    love the reliance on the “honour” system with the US access to and custody of Canadian data;
    “….“If we find that the information is being abused, we can withdraw from the arrangement,” Goodale responded when asked how Canada can prevent the U.S. from sharing information with other U.S. government departments such as the Internal Revenue Service.

    “We expect countries to behave honourably and if we find that our arrangements are being abused, we will exercise our authority to protect ourselves.”….”….
    http://ipolitics.ca/2016/06/02/canada-u-s-deal-would-be-scrapped-if-privacy-infringed-goodale/

    What an empty promise, and empty threat that Canada would; “exercise our authority to protect ourselves”. “IF we FIND that….” Right, as if the US would admit it, and as if Canada would bother to try and find out.

    We the people only know about some of this stuff because of people like Snowden http://www.cjfe.org/snowden , not because Canadian politicians stood on guard for thee Oh Canada;
    http://www.cjfe.org/snowden

14. The NY Times article about Mossack Fonseca is actually a fine article about shameful people, despite repeating the plucked-out-of-thin-air figure about the amount of tax revenue supposedly lost to overseas tax dodges. Yet I read it with deepening gloom, knowing that every time such scandals erupt, and are prolonged by such reports, it sets back our issues a few years, as we have to yet again explain explain explain to thick-skulled people the difference between the Homelanders in this article, who spend half their waking hours obsessing how to escape taxes, and US persons abroad, who maintain bank accounts in their countries of residence to pay their mortgages and utility bills. Once again I find myself wanting to shriek at my so-called ‘friends’ who commiserate with me that maybe I should just move back ‘home’, because reining in tax cheats is far too important and this article proves that we need to turn the screws even tighter and I must necessarily end up as collateral damage.

15. @Barbara https://twitter.com/JCDoubleTaxed/status/739964581091495936

16. So, re: ipolotics article above, sharing will be with the US, and other countries. I assume one database. I assume US has access to the whole database, no? So if I travel out of Canada to somewhere ither than the US, the US has access to that?

17. Although countless analyses have been devoted to the demographics each candidate needs to win, one demographic has not been part of the national conversation. Sanders won the first global Democratic Party primary by a landslide — 69% of the vote — that the media hardly noted and never analyzed. Democrats Abroad, the overseas arm of the Democratic Party, organized the election, which took place in March, to represent citizens who live outside the U.S., a group the Democratic National Committee considers the 51st state.

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-neiman-sanders-global-democratic-primary-20160603-snap-story.html
    The LA Times skirted right around the FATCA/FBAR/CBT issue. Maybe that 69% vote represents Democrats living overseas who are aware of Bernie’s more reasonable stand on RBT (compared to Hillary’s obfuscation). Judging from what I’ve read of the comments, the homelanders are as oblivious as always. When I do a “find” on FATCA there is not a single hit.

18. From the iPolitics article, it appears that is the long-term plan, similar to all the FATCA / GATCA sharing of tax information:

    While the deal being worked out at the moment would apply to Canada and the U.S., MaryAnn Mihychuk, minister of employment, workforce development and labour, told iPolitics that the government plans to extend that to other countries.

    “That’s the exit initiative,” she explained, adding the new system should be in place by 2018. “Right now, it’s only through the U.S. but we’re looking at extending that so we’re tracking exits from Canada in any measure, any way. That will be coming.”

    Goodale said entry information sharing deals could extend beyond the U.S.

    “The arrangements that we have worked on in Washington obviously apply directly to the relationship between Canada and the U.S. and that’s where the vast majority of the border transactions take place.”

    “At the moment, that’s as far as our planning goes but obviously there are issues in relation to the rest of the world that need to be addressed in due course.”

    Speaking to members of House of Commons Public Safety and National Security Committee Thursday, Goodale said the proposed exit information exchange system will improve security.
    …
    “The legislation that we will introduce in the House – when it applies to Canadians it does require legislation – that will lay out the parameters surrounding the use of the information and we will insist that the use be very strictly within the terms that are laid out in the legislation,” he later told reporters.

    “The arrangements between Canada and the U.S. will be very precise in terms of definitions and each country will agree that the information is used precisely for those purposes and no others.”

    Handled the same as the *promises* regarding the reciprocity of Canadian’s financial information and the use of that information once it is in US hands?
    
    From a Deckard 1138’s comment:

    I would bring your attention to the final section of the infamous letter that Senator Carl Levin wrote in 2012 to then IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman:

    (7) Treating FATCA Disclosures As Non Tax Return Information

    Finally, one additional issue is critical to successful implementation of FATCA’s disclosure obligations: treating FATCA offshore account information as non tax return information to ensure its accessibility to law enforcement and national security communities combating crimes other than tax evasion.

    Although FATCA is structured to address offshore tax abuse, offshore account information has significance far beyond the tax context, affecting cases involving money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorist financing, acts of corruption, financial fraud, and many other legal violations and crimes. Given the importance of offshore account disclosures, FATCA guidance and implementing rule[s] should create account FATCA forms that are not designated as tax return information but, like FBARs, may be provided to law enforcement, regulatory, and national security communities upon request. FFIs are not, after all, U.S. taxpayers, and will not be supplying tax information on behalf of their U.S. clients; they will instead be providing information about accounts opened by U.S. persons. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that bank account information is not inherently confidential but is subject to inspection by law enforcement and others in appropriate circumstances. Foreign account information is too important to a wide range of civil and criminal law enforcement and national security efforts to be designated as tax return information bound by Section 6103’s severe restrictions on access. FFI forms, like FBARs, provide account information rather than tax return information, and should be made available to the larger law enforcement and national security communities. Similarly, FFI Agreements, auditor verification forms, copies of actual account documentation, and similar materials should be treated as non tax return information available to the larger law enforcement, regulatory, and national security communities.

    I don’t see anything in here that would preclude the sharing of FATCA-related data with any branch of the U.S. military, including the Selective Service office. However, I do not believe we know which, if any, of the many recommendations in this letter may have made their way into official IRS policy – that would require further investigation, and perhaps a formal Freedom of Information Act request.

19. …and the marriage of the two from one of badger’s comments…

    The CRA is relying on the fact that we would never be able to find out or prove what the US did with the information they are now sending to the US. And so they can lie to us with impunity. There is no sanction, no recourse, not even a requirement that binds the CRA or the IRS to notify affected people whose data is transferred, (and even if in error)http://ipolitics.ca/2016/04/14/cra-should-notify-people-when-their-bank-records-are-shared-therrien/

    We know that forces in the US, and elsewhere seek to do what FATCA-father Dick Harvey advised, and that is to make it more politically palatable by tying FATCA to anti terrorrism efforts; “….Treasury and the IRS should vigorously pursue agreement with other major countries as to the proper customer due diligence procedures. In pursuing that goal, the tax arms of government should consider further joining forces with the anti-terrorist-financing/money laundering arms of government.

    The goals of each arm of government are similar,12 and it may be easier politically to justify detailed customer due diligence if it is being done for a joint purpose (that is, both tax reasons and anti-terrorist-financing/money-laundering reasons). ….”…
    http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/7FE9806866554F5985257A5500712E6D?OpenDocument

    Harvey said; “…..the tax arms of government should consider further joining forces with the anti-terrorist-financing/money laundering arms of government.” that is what Canada and other countries are moving towards – and using that argument to win more taxpayer money and erode our rights.

20. http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/goldstein-on-gelt/how-tax-laws-can-help-in-the-fight-against-terrorism/2016/06/06/

    Doug Goldstein, Goldstein on Gelt Show — Douglas Goldstein interview (link to interview at bottom of text) …

    American tax laws originally enacted to combat money laundering and terrorism adversely affect the millions of American citizens living abroad.

    Colleen Graffy, a former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Professor of International Law at Pepperdine University, explains why FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) restrictions are unfair to law-abiding U.S. expats. Did FATCA lower the value of U.S. citizenship?

    ***********

    Occurs to me that instead of this country’s (Canada) banks shutting out Americans, it is our government who bows to the US (Congress has spoken) while ineptly skirting around our Canadian rights as any other Canadian and giving window dressing by declaring *exempted accounts*, all the while defining us *US citizens who happen to abide in Canada*.

21. http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-time-to-end-the-honour-system-in-b-c-property-purchases
    Tracking exits from Canada would put an end to “loopholes” that allow tax evasion:

    “Some, for instance, are claiming to real estate officials they are Canadian residents to buy and sell houses (avoiding capital gains) and to maintain their status as permanent residents.

    But then some of the same people, at the same time, Kurland said, are claiming to Revenue Canada they are not residents under our tax law so they don’t have to declare their global income and property holdings and pay taxes in Canada.

    Solving such problems, says Hyman, would require no new Canadian tax laws, no new taxes and no new restrictions on ownership, domestic or foreign.

    The reforms would simply require more rigorous enforcement of claims by sellers and buyers about where they pay their taxes (regardless of whether they have a Canadian passport).

    The reforms, which mainly require better information sharing between governments, will illuminate “market forces pushed by tax evaders, money launderers and economic fugitives parking ill-gotten gains in B.C. real estate,” Hyman said.

    In short, Hyman’s proposed new rules would require any declaration that sellers make about where they live and pay taxes to be immediately cross-checked with Immigration Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency.”

22. @Barbara

    I fear the same, but then I met a dyed in the wool Democrat from California last night who thinks it’s ridiculous that anyone living in Canada would be obligated to pay the US government tax on the sale of their home in Canada.

    That said, she voiced her disapproval when I suggested I would vote for any US presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, who supports a change in how the US taxes its non-resident citizens. Unfortunately many sympathizer’s sensibilities stop along party lines.

23. FACT; In the UK, they record your place of birth when they assign a national insurance number.

    PROBLEM: The EU is now proposing an EU wide tax id number for people.

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2bREPORT%2bA8-2016-0189%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN

24. @bubblebustin, complications that will arise for ordinary Canadians due to this tracking proposition have already started being raised;
    https://openparliament.ca/debates/2016/5/2/dan-albas-1/
    https://openparliament.ca/debates/2016/5/2/ralph-goodale-2/

    What will happen if a person is contacted after the fact to prove that they exited out of the US to another destination other than Canada? And returned not via the US? How will they prove what their actual ‘presence’ was or wasn’t in the US? All sorts of horrific complications appear to be possible.

    And Goodale’s answer to one of the questions he was asked by a fellow MP refers Canadians to US Customs and Border Protection for answers;
    “….in response to (c), all questions regarding the paperwork required by the U.S. should be directed to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    In response to (d), Canada has no plans for such an initiative at this time. The CBSA cannot address current or potential arrangements between the U.S. and Mexico.”

25. And how does this http://ipolitics.ca/2016/06/02/canada-u-s-deal-would-be-scrapped-if-privacy-infringed-goodale/ enable or interact with this;
    https://tax-expatriation.com/2016/06/06/part-ii-neither-confirm-nor-deny-the-existence-of-the-tecs-data-irs-using-the-tecs-database-to-track-taxpayers-movements/ ?

    MP Goodale originally said of FATCA;

    “Mr. Speaker, there is concern across the country among many law-abiding Canadian citizens and taxpayers about the long arm of the U.S. tax collection department. Even the Canadian Bankers Association is upset. The Americans are trying to enforce their laws beyond their borders and are threatening Canadians to that effect.

    So far, the government has offered Canadians tea and sympathy. Will the government do something a little more tangible? Will it set up an advocacy centre to actively inform and assist Canadians who are unfairly being put upon by the extraterritorial excursions of the U.S. IRS?”
    https://openparliament.ca/debates/2011/9/30/ralph-goodale-1/
    September 30th, 2011 / 11:55 a.m.
    Liberal
    Ralph Goodale Wascana, SK

    And now he supports giving the US (and eventually other countries) the travel data of law abiding Canadians leaving and entering too?

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