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. @Eric,
   While the article may seem bland and lightweight to those of us in the firing line, anything that provides a reasonably balanced view to an audience based mainly inside the US is a plus. The mainstream US media is ignoring the plight of US expats, or worse.

2. Republican Party Platform released.

   https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5b1%5d-ben_1468872234.pdf

   The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
   (FATCA) and the Foreign Bank and Asset Reporting
   Requirements result in government’s warrantless
   seizure of personal financial information without
   reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Americans
   overseas should enjoy the same rights as Americans
   residing in the United States, whose private
   financial information is not subject to disclosure
   to the government except as to interest earned.
   The requirement for all banks around the world
   to provide detailed information to the IRS about
   American account holders outside the United States
   has resulted in banks refusing service to them. Thus,
   FATCA not only allows “unreasonable search and
   seizures” but also threatens the ability of overseas
   Americans to lead normal lives. We call for its repeal
   and for a change to residency-based taxation for
   U.S. citizens overseas

   Not even a full sentence on change to residency-based taxation. Yet it is in there as well as repeal of FATCA. It does not say repeal of FBAR but wraps it with the evils of fatca.

3. @ Innocente
   Ambassador Levine is cut from the same cloth as her predecessor Donald Beyer, whom I see is now a Congressman in Virginia. He also recommended Vontobel bank to me 4 yrs ago with their CHF 1,000,000 requirement, when all I needed was a ‘simple’ bank to pay my electricity bills. He also told me that ‘unfortunately’ I was co-lateral damage, but then the US knows well how to achieve that in all spheres.

4. Don’t really understand the import of this, but the extract below looks important:

   IRS Proposes New QI Agreement for Foreign Banks to Comply with FATCA
   Washington, D.C. (July 20, 2016)

   By Michael Cohn
   Accounting Today

   “…The new revenue procedure covers the due diligence procedures for QIs and includes some new tweaks to the old rules. “The two key changes are they’ve provided a lot more detail and guidance around what the compliance program and the periodic reviews need to look like,” said Hintzke. “They’ve made it clear now that when the responsible officer for the qualified intermediary is going to have to do a periodic certification as to compliance that they can rely on a review that has been done by an external party. That party can be a law firm, an accounting firm, or any other type of organization that is capable of doing such a review. The responsible officer can then rely on that review for purposes of certifying back to the IRS that they’re in compliance.”

   Another key change in the IRS’s new QI agreement allows banks to claim treaty benefits. “It’s in line with the changes that they’ve made to the new W-8 forms, where going forward anybody that’s going to claim a treaty benefit is going to need to provide a more detailed explanation of what limitations of benefits clause they are relying on within the particular treaty,” said Hintzke. “They also made it clear that the financial institutions—the QI in this particular situation—will have some responsibility for making sure that claim is reasonable. There will be certain cases where they actually are held to what’s called a ‘reason to know standard,’ meaning that unless a reasonable person would have knowledge based on the facts they have that this could not be correct that they would have to act on it. Then in some situations there’s an actual knowledge standard, meaning they actually know the person would not be entitled.”….”

5. I wait with bated breath:

   Will Boris de Pfeffel Johnson now show up in the 2016 Q2 ‘Liberty List’ due this month, or predictably late – sometime in August?

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3693725/Love-s-Labour-s-Lost-Boris-faces-bill-500-000-New-Foreign-Secretary-pay-advance-no-longer-time-write-book-Shakespeare.html

6. Ha. Good comment on Facebook about Boris Johnson and his £500,000 advance. If the money went into his bank account for even a second, then he’d better report it on his FBAR–at the exchange rate of that specific time of day (lately it fluctuates hugely every hour)–or face up to 5 years in a USA prison. Can you imagine the British Foreign Secretary coming into JFK airport and being led away in chains by US Treasury agents?

7. @Bubblebustin
   Glad to see he is no longer a US citizen. No man can serve two masters.

8. Sounds like IRS says 1 July (2017) deadline for FFI to submit else 30% penalties.

   US FATCA Laws Pass A Final Milestone
   July 21, 2016 By David Vaughan
   http://www.moneyinternational.com/tax/us-fatca-laws-pass-final-milestone/#comment-191

   my comment is awaiting moderation (no urls in it).

9. https://twitter.com/asalexanderdesk/status/756364365352341504

10. OECD tweaks tax blacklist criteria so U.S. can cheat CRS but still be “cooperating jurisdiction”
    https://franhendy.com/2016/07/21/the-oecd-reveals-the-g20-blacklist-criteria-for-uncooperative-jurisdctions/

11. Note here that Guya a tax pro with extensive foreign US tax knowledge basically says leave the FBAR to the client because it’s very complicated, uncertain, time consuming and the work is not valued by clients.
    So let them do it and assume all the risk:

    http://www.taxprotalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2964

    Really there can be no argument from the IRS that you need to have your taxes done by a pro for this stuff when the pros don’t want to touch it.

12. Dear Ms DelBene,
    Myself and my wife are US citizen immigrants from the UK. We have had successful careers in the UK as well as with Google and Microsoft in the states.
    As I have written to you previously we find the burden of obtaining the information, record keeping and form filling for FinCen 114 and 8938 intolerable. We have trouble talking to our UK pension providers as they do not wish to deal with US persons because the US rules are so punitive. Tax paperers want large sums of money to prepare our taxes because of the excessive forms and inordinate risk of penalties.
    We can’t talk to financial advisers in the UK easily because once again they don’t want to deal with US persons. We can’t do anything with our UK pensions by law until we are 55.
    I include a link below showing professional tax providers struggling with these complex laws and pushing decisions to no-tax pros to reduce their own risk in this area.
    Now much to our delight we see the GOP platform contains explicit statements that these problems will be addressed. FATCA will be repealed as well as FBAR.
    Much as I dislike Trump this issue is of such overriding importance to us and the Democrat repose so ineffective (same country exception is a poor tool even for expats but it’s worthless for immigrants) that this is a no brainer.
    I am telling all our immigrant friends and co workers of this glimmer of hope from the GOP.
    Thanks.
    Neill

    http://www.taxprotalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2964

13. Anyone with better internet access than me at present (I am at my parents int he UK) should search this stuff to see if there are any references to foreign accounts etc:

    https://news.fastcompany.com/wikileaks-latest-dump-is-full-of-peoples-social-security-numbers-phone-numbers-and-addresses-4014812

14. IRS eNews for tax professionals 2016-29:

    2) Webinar for U.S. Taxpayers Overseas Now Available On Demand
    Practitioners who missed the recent IRS webinar, Foreign Earned Income for U.S. Overseas Taxpayers, can now view it online.
    http://www.irsvideos.gov/ForeignEarnedIncomeForUS_OverseasTaxpayers_Webinar20160629/

    I assume it’s very poor. Anyone want to comment.

15. US Customs and Border Patrol has submitted a proposed rule to collect social media “handles” from persons entering the US. This rule is open for comment until 22 August. Here’s a quick way to lodge your opinion: SURVEY: Your views on US Customs’ plan to search your social media at the border.

16. ‘ “Nonwillfulness”: American Citizens Abroad Educates the IRS’
    July 20, 2016
    http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2016/07/20/nonwillfulness-american-citizens-abroad-educates-the-irs/

    “The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) got an earful in May 2016 and learned a lot about the community of US persons living abroad who are struggling with the complexity of the US tax system.

    IRS “Future State”

    The American Citizens Abroad Inc., (ACA) a non-profit organization, presented testimony at the National Taxpayer Advocate Forum on May 17, alongside other community groups to educate the IRS, the public and the media on certain key topics involving overseas Americans. The topics included how the IRS Future State might impact these Americans and the considerations the agency should take into account to best serve this group’s distinct needs………”

    For the transcript of the ACA May 17th presentation, see starting on page 21;
    http://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/Media/Default/Documents/PublicForums/Transcripts/WashingtonDC_Transcript_051716.pdf

    For transcripts of other presentations at the Taxpayer Advocate’s public forums held in several locations over several months, see;
    http://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-public-forums

    Unfortunately there is no indexing of each session, you simply have to read through the transcripts.

    Too bad the TAS didn’t think it necessary to hold a forum in Canada or elsewhere around the world to see what the 7-9 million ‘abroad’ think of the IRS and its ‘Future State’ plans ( sound ominous to you?) since according to the US definition of citizens=taxpayers, there are millions of US citzens, and hence US taxpayers ‘abroad’ https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/travel/CA_By_the_Numbers.pdf http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/counting-uncountable-overseas-americans .

    I’m sure that those ‘abroad’ would have plenty of illuminating things to say about the IRS and its ‘Future State’.

17. Thank you for this, badger.

    Gratitude to Marylouise Serrato, Executive Director, American Citizens Abroad, for taking part and representing US-deemed US Persons Abroad. I also appreciate the summary post by Virginia LaTorre Jeker, JD.

    It boggles the mind how the identified issues can be effectively addressed by the IRS and, then, what would be the cost? When will the US and its IRS comes to its senses with a change to RBT as the rest of this world?

    IRS Future State? What’s next – the End State?

18. @calgary411, I think that even those ‘abroad’ who still incline (if they have a choice and can afford it) towards remaining a US citizen and intend to come into/maintain ‘compliance’ will find it increasingly difficult, if not impossible to do.

    The ‘Future State’ in the IRS vision sounds like an ominous development for US residents, as well as for those ‘abroad’. They have already deliberatedly cut services and walk in tax help clinics for the poor, seniors, those with limited education, etc. inside the US. Which means that the most vulnerable will be at even more enhanced risk of paying taxes and penalties which they incurred only due to lack of resources, and lack of understanding of the law and rules.

    For those ‘abroad’ who can, it appears to continue to be ever clearer that renouncing/relinquishing is the only remedy. There will be no improvement in what we have seen coming and already experienced. All signs point to less services, and more punitive enforcement and emphasis on ways for the IRS to create and enhance the pitfalls and quicksand, hoping to generate penalty revenues even where no US tax can be assessed.

19. Hillary Clinton has chose Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Some remember him from this letter he wrote to Treasury Secretary Lew concerning FATCA:

    FATCA Causes ‘Turmoil’ for Americans Living Abroad, Senator Says:

    http://www.taxmuseum.org/taxbase/itrmagsample.nsf/ConNavLink/0050ITR0533-0001?OpenDocument

20. BB: Well, *that’s* interesting! I would like to think that Senator Kaine is a ray of hope on the Democratic side of this issue. However, we’ve all seen how people can take one view when not in a position to actually change anything and then flip to the opposite view when they *are*. In any regard, I think the Democrats, if elected, will do little more than try to stick bandaids on a wound that requires major surgery.

21. Kind of shocking. Anyone can search the latest Wikileaks dump of emails from the Democratic Party, and come up with the names, addresses, phone numbers, and passport numbers of hundreds of people who donated specifically to Democrats Abroad. I used “abroad” as the search term.

    https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/?q=abroad&mfrom=&mto=&title=&notitle=&date_from=&date_to=&nofrom=&noto=&count=50&sort=0#searchresult

22. @Barbara,

    i posted here about this a few days ago and suggest we search the mails for anything about foreign to see if they are talking about the problem.

23. @Neill, sorry I missed your earlier message. Today I did the best search I could, using all sorts of terms, and found nothing of interest other than the identities of people giving money to Democrats Abroad. There was also one message with a fairly long list of donations that were rejected for being fraudulent or deleted by the user. Otherwise, I was not surprised to discover no discussion whatsoever about how to win over the expat vote. Discussions about winning over the Kentucky vote, sure, but not the 9 million Americans abroad. We simply do not matter.

24. Americans abroad are not a homogeneous group. Some would vote for a candidate who promised FATCA repeal, some have other priorities. And some won’t vote at all.

25. Compared to the general US population, voter turnout among expatriates is low, lower even than among that most notoriously unengaged demographic: the young. In the 2012 cycle, some 876,362 ballots were sent to overseas voters (51% of these were to those in the armed services, and 44.4%, or 388,917 individual ballots, to ‘overseas civilians’). Of these, 69.2% (or 606,425) were returned. Of the ballots counted, 278,212 (45.9%) came from civilians.
    [..]
    One of the most contentious issues for Americans living overseas has been the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Passed in 2010, the act was designed to counteract tax evasion by US citizens who maintain overseas accounts. Its acronym is a deliberate allusion to ‘fat cat.’ FATCA requires that US citizens report all financial holdings outside of the US in excess of $200,000 to the IRS. Co- ownership of any company must also be reported. In addition, foreign banks must report information on American account holders to the IRS. The complexity of the reporting requirements, combined with onerous penalties for non-compliance, has led to many foreign banks refusing American customers.35 FATCA has been identified as one of the leading causes of expatriate Americans renouncing their citizenship, which has climbed to record levels in recent years.36
    Democrats Abroad seeks reform of the law. It contends that FATCA was passed ‘to bring an end to illegal tax avoidance by Americans in the US who use overseas financial accounts to secret [sic] untaxed earnings out of the country.’ DA proposes instead a ‘Safe Harbor for Americans abroad’ (also known as the ‘Same Country Exemption’) which would free Americans living abroad, and paying taxes in their host country, from reporting their accounts to the IRS.37 Republicans Overseas, by contrast, favours full repeal of FATCA. A petition supported by RO describes FATCA as a violation of the US Constitution, ‘morally reprehensible,’ and imposing a ‘horrible choice [on Americans living overseas] between citizenship and livelihood.’38 In this they have the support of former presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the act in an Ohio district court.39
    [..]
    In the 2008 and 2012 elections, there was much commentary about the superiority of the President Obama’s ‘ground game’ over that of his Republican rivals. In 2012, the Obama campaign could boast that its field offices outnumbered those of the GOP by a two-to-one margin – three-to-one in some battleground states.43 It seems clear that this logistical edge is reflected in the relative strength and vitality of the overseas wings of the political parties. Of the UK respondents in von Koppenfels’s surveys, 42% belong to Democrats Abroad, as opposed to only 0.6% who belong to Republicans Abroad (as was).44
    However, it is easy to overstate the Democratic organisational advantage. In fact, as Vox’s Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, the Democratic Party is in a difficult condition below the presidential level.45 And the problem of low voter turnout remains stubbornly intractable, despite initiatives undertaken by both DA and RO. Bill Barnard believes that in terms of reaching those ‘people who are politically active, who are interested in identifying with a party, the Democratic Party, and who wish for their involvement to be in Democrats Abroad,’ the organisation has ‘probably penetrated about as much as [it is] going to do.’46

    “AMERICA’S OVERSEAS VOTERS: HOW THEY COULD DECIDE THE US PRESIDENCY IN 2016”, https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/RAI%20–%20VOTE%202016%20FULL%20REPORT.pdf (Feb 2016)

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