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. @Walt and @Neill;
   A bit about the group https://www.atr.org/about whose website is the source of that article, and their founder;
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist .

2. Can’t comment on this, and can’t read whole article without subscription or access to database that includes TaxNotes (ex. LexisNexis in academic libraries). But if anyone does, wondering about the details of this:

   “ILM 201623010: IRS Has No Discretion to Abate Penalty in Mental Incompetence Cases”
   Jun. 6, 2016
   http://www.taxnotes.com/federal-research-library

3. Washington Post accuses the anti-FATCA Center for Freedom and Prosperity of protecting tax havens, and includes the effort it made to stop FATCA as evidence the organization’s aim is “to protect the players of the offshore world, where hundreds of thousands of shell companies had been created, often to hide money and evade taxes.”

   “Following the 2008 election, with a Democrat in the White House, efforts to regulate the offshore world gained momentum.

   In 2010, President Obama signed into law a significant tax haven reform. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires U.S. citizens to report overseas holdings.Foreign financial institutions must disclose the existence of American-held accounts or face stiff financial penalties. The center argued unsuccessfully against the measure.”

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-an-obscure-nonprofit-in-washington-protects-tax-havens-for-the-rich/2016/06/09/ab03e70a-2908-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_panama-1020a-top%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

4. http://lawsociety.ab.ca/law-society-today/articles/articles-list/2016/06/10/the-impact-of-the-american-foreign-account-tax-compliance-on-lawyers-trust-accounts

   From the Law Society of Alberta, referring to FATCA and to FBAR;

   ” The Impact of the American Foreign Account Tax Compliance on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts
   By Jennifer Freund, Policy Counsel | Jun 10, 2016

5. Rachel Heller has an article up over at Medium.com: Why I renounced my US citizenship (Hint: it’s not because I’m avoiding taxes!)
   https://medium.com/@RachelHeller/https-medium-com-rachelheller-why-i-renounced-my-us-citizenship-e1f77b1969ce

6. That Washington Post article is interesting. From what I can see, the co-founders of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity do indeed lobby in favour of the protection of tax havens, in the interests of encouraging tax competition and low taxes.

   Previous (2013) Post article on an earlier leak:
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/piercing-the-secrecy-of-offshore-tax-havens/2013/04/06/1551806c-7d50-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html

   Riposte (also 2013) from Daniel J. Mitchell, CFP co-founder:
   https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/according-to-washington-post-expose-people-who-utilize-tax-havens-are-far-more-honest-than-politicians/

   Article (2013) from Andrew Quinlan, the other CFP co-founder: http://www.eduardomorgan.com/blog/?p=2450
   This article includes the following statement, which seems to set out the CFP’s position very clearly:

   The OECD has served since the 1990’s as the chosen vehicle of attack by large nations against their , would-be competitors. There they formed the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, which under the guise of eliminating tax evasion has unfairly and hypocritically targeted low-tax jurisdictions with demands that they adopt uncompetitive practices. Far from promoting an even playing field, the OECD has served instead as a cartel formed to protect the interests of its membership.

   For instance, the Global Forum initiated a “peer review” process where member nations would sit in judgment not only of their fellow members, but also of non-member states. An unfavorable review would result in various economics sanctions. But during the reviews, certain countries were given special treatment.

   The United States is the world’s biggest tax haven, attracting more foreign capital than any other nation, in part because it does not tax passive foreign investments or report any information beyond basic deposits – itself a very recent development – to foreign governments. These are good polices on both economic and human rights grounds, but they are clearly in opposition to the stated goals of the OECD. Nevertheless, the U.S. peer review failed to acknowledge the practices.

   Contrary to its policies at home, the United States has ruthlessly pursued elimination of similar practices abroad. In addition to being a major power behind the OECD cartel, the U.S. has also unilaterally passed laws like the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a supposed effort to target tax evasion which demands that every foreign financial institution in the world engage in a costly process of identifying and reporting on every single U.S. client, while promising stiff withholding penalties on U.S. source payments for non-compliance. The result has been international chaos, as the rest of the world scrambles to accommodate a law which even the U.S. government acknowledges will bring in a mere $800 million in new revenues per year – a measly sum compared to the nation’s $3 trillion yearly budget.

   And finally, an article (2016) from Mitchell on the Panama Papers leak:
   https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/another-attack-on-tax-competition-panama-papers-is-a-non-controversy-controversy/

   Personally I don’t like tax competition. It’s the ordinary taxpayers who end up paying the price when taxes get driven down to the floor by the struggle to attract foreign capital, as far as I can see. I do agree the OECD has in the past been a developed-countries’ club, which isn’t altogether surprising considering its origins in the efforts made by those very same countries to put Europe back together again following the devastation of the Second World War. OECD membership is expanding, nowadays, and I for one am hopeful that the OECD can and does help to put pressure on the US to co-operate with other nations rather than seeing TROTW, and even its own citizens and former citizens living in TROTW, always as the enemy or the prey.

7. Daniel Mitchell responds to the Washington Post’s accusations that defending tax competition is akin to trading with the enemy.

   https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/is-defending-tax-competition-akin-to-trading-with-the-enemy/

8. @Bubblebustin – Thanks for that link. And I see there’s an excellent comment there from JCDoubleTaxed. 🙂

9. Savings clause trips up U.S. citizen permanently resident in Israel: https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/u-s-citizens-capital-gains-taxable-under-u-s-israel-treaty/?

10. @Bubblebustin,
    I posted about the Mitchell article 2 days ago.

11. @Neill

    I post a lot of things that others repost, like the one Publius just posted. It happens.

12. Update on the French Commission Hearing from @USAccidental on 8 June., re #FATCA & CBT

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/AARO.Open.Forum/permalink/10150647280399950/

13. Israeli Supreme Court to hear #FATCA Challenge

    https://www.facebook.com/marc.zell/posts/10153507095891813

14. @Publius, some with greater brain power is going to need to tackle this but the savings clause of the 20th century frankly no longer works in the 21st century.

    In the example, could/should the savings clause been applied to that person had he been an Israeli Citizen and resident in Israel?

    I would love to see a case where a so called “dual” has been ruled against in the country of their other nationality.

    Whilst I can go along with the premise that a country has the sovereign right to determine who are its citizens, they do not have the right to determine who are its citizens when said person is in another country.

    A better hypothetical example, does the US have the right to automatically confer US Citizenship on a child born in Ireland) to a US Citizen born mother who is an Irish national, with said child now an adult and then to confer the savings clause of the US Ireland tax treaty against said child? George says that flies in the face of all morality.

15. JC: Thank you for posting the updates on the French inquiry and the Israeli court action. Much appreciated!

16. Many of the same objections to FATCA are now being raised in the context of the CRS:
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/674c854a-2cd6-11e6-a18d-a96ab29e3c95.html#axzz4BTeeZxRM

    Comments open.

    Will perhaps provide broader support for the anti-FATCA arguments we have made?

17. This is the article I link to above;
    June 9, 2016 11:53 pm
    ‘OECD information exchange puts personal data security at risk’

    Apologies if already posted.

18. Very hopeful updates re France and Israel. Thanks @JC!

19. I missed this news. It seems Rangel is retiring.
    Remember he was one of the people to bring us some of the legislation we hate. Also remember that he failed to declare the foreign income his house generated. In the OVDP you would lose 27.5% of the house value but I doubt Rangel lost anything by the taxes and interest.

    http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/as-race-for-seat-held-by-rangel-heats-up-hopefuls-debate-social-security-future-300283896.html

20. @George
    I put this case up because I think it raises interesting questions. Taxing someone like your child, particularly on money they earned in Ireland, does strike me as something very different than taxing a very long-term U.S. resident who has only recently moved to Israel (or anywhere else) on an investment funded with U.S.-earned dollars.

    @Bubblebustin
    Sorry, I have been full of cold all week and really struggling.

21. @Neill

    I had missed that about Rangel too. The phrase career barnacle seems pretty appropriate here.

    As he was the primary architect of the execrable ‘exit tax’, something that turned my life entirely on its head a few years ago, I have personally been hoping to see notice of Rangel’s complete demise, rather than merely his retirement. The joy I will experience at his passing will however be tempered by the realisation that I must forego the opportunity to dance a happy little jig on his grave, due to my unwillingness to ever travel to the US again…

22. No need to apologize, Publius. I merely wanted to say that oversights are made and no one should take it too personally if their posts are occasionally overlooked.

    I hope you feel better soon.

23. @Watcher,
    Are you a covered expat or did you manage to rearrange your affairs. I would be covered and hence I had to become a citizen.

24. @Neill

    Former green card holder. Covered, but under the old and pre-exit tax rules. The exit tax is why I left the US when I did. I saw it coming, and got out a few short weeks before it passed into law, hence governed by the older and less punishing — though still frustrating — rules. As a result I avoided the choice between losing more than $100k in unrecoverable double-tax from my retirement savings and becoming a citizen with all the lifelong tax issues this entails. That’s a strong motivator. On its own the exit tax is bad enough, but when it comes to retirement savings it really is highly obnoxious.

    I suspect that Rangel is composed of equal quantities of hypocrisy and spite. Perhaps you can dance my happy jig on his grave for me by proxy when he finally croaks his last. I doubt I will be visiting the US again even once my ten year ‘shadow period’ is done and it gets easier. The 93% of the earth’s land mass that is not the US contains sufficient interest to last me out, I think.

25. @Watcher,
    The guy is a crook. He used his rent controlled apartment in his business. It’s got to be the highest level of hypocrisy to call for higher taxes to make people pay their ‘fair share’ at the same time not declaring all your income.

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