Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)

You can access all years at this link: Media and Blog Articles – Links for All Years

 If clicking on a comment link brings you to the wrong comment, click here  to get on the most recent page of comments.(alternatively, to reach the most recent comment page, go to  the url in the bar at the top of your browser and delete everything after http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments-part-4-of-4)

Media and Blog Articles

EmBee suggested that it would be good if there was a thread for new articles, so that people would be aware of where to comment.   So, I created this permanent page.   I’ll make a permanent list of links posted here and keep adding to it,  but not deleting, so we’ll end up having sort of a  “bibliography” of FATCA/CBT articles.  [Note:  Some articles are not open for comments]

For more articles on FATCA, enter FATCA into Google then click on the link “more news for fatca” just below the most recent featured article.

Notes:

From JC:   To see #FATCA on Twitter for latest breaking news.  JC finds that is quite a good source and there even are some international articles that one may read using Google Translate.   Others may help certain tweets and articles remain in elevated position by retweeting them.

From Badger:   On an important archival note, please use the Internet Archive Wayback machine https://archive.org/web/ (see bottom right ‘Save Page Now’ box to enter URLs of webpages you want saved for posterity, and try to save backup copies of articles and other items of interest in some other form – such as a datastick or external drive. Some important and very significant webpages and the fulltexts of articles are no longer available (although some can be retrieved if someone using the Wayback machine saved them).

Be sure to read the comment stream for this thread — there are usually very recent articles mentioned there that aren’t on this list yet.

2017.12.28
It’s time to address the double standard about tax havens, Angela Wrights, Macleans, Canada.
The US Is Becoming the World’s New Tax Haven, The Editors, Bloomberg View, US.
2017.12.21
Rep. Dina Titus Supports Americans Abroad Tax Reform, Democrats Abroad, US. 
Now That The GOP Tax Bill Is Approved, The IRS Gets Busy, Brian Naylor, NPR, US.
2017.12.20
Taxpayers will have to wait to find out how they fare under new legislation , Renae Merle and Aaron Gregg, Denver Post (reprint from Washington Post), US.
U.S. Shareholders –Take Action by December 31, KPMG.
2017.12.18
Have You Ever Felt Sorry for the I.R.S? Now Might Be the Time, Patricia Cohen, New York Times, US.
2017.12.12
EU finance ministers issue warning to Trump over tax reforms, RTÉ, Ireland.
2017.12.11
Banque: les consequences étonnantes de l’accord FATCA, Edouard Lederer, Les Echos, France.
2017.12.10
As Australia ousts MPs with dual citizenship, Canada’s Parliament embraces many in its ranks, Kathleen Harris, Canada. (mentions MP who “assumed his U.S. citizenship was automatically rescinded because he did not meet several requirements for continued citizenship. [But when travelling to Washington] was told he was ineligible to enter the U.S. on a Canadian passport because he was a U.S. citizen. He was . . . allowed in on a one-time basis . . . it cost him $3,000 to later sort out the administrative requirements.”)
2017.12.09
The American Diaspora: Outreach and Organization, Victoria Ferauge, The Franco-American Flophouse, Japan.
2017.12.08
Foreign-owned banks to be hit by US tax rules, Financial Times, UK.
Trump Tax Plan Worries Europe, Christian Reiermann, Der Spiegel, Germany.

For articles earlier in 2017, click here.

1,720 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)”

  1. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/01/06/bruce-heyman-us-ambassador-to-canada_n_14002158.html

    The U.S. ambassador to Canada has confirmed that he is stepping down from his position later this month after an order from president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team.

    “As requested, I have resigned as US ambassador to Canada effective 1/20,” Bruce Heyman wrote on Twitter on Friday, adding that he and his wife will be moving from Ottawa “on or around that date.”

    May new US Ambassadors around the world have some regard for the US extra-territorial issues of *US-deemed US Citizens Abroad*.

  4. @Haydon, a sincere Happy New Year to you and yours with thanks for your support. Deep down you are one of us but working on the inside. I am glad you “get” our concerns.

    Cheers, George

  9. @Haydon Perryman
    As the Brock saying goes, “All roads lead to renunciation.” Either the expensive kind (consulate visit and CLN fee, accountant fees, IRS filings) with all the bells and whistles or the cost concious Do It Yourself kind (shred the blue book with the eagle on the front and deny any and all ties with the Homeland). I’m a DIYer. Cheers and a belated happy new year to all my fellow Brockers. Here’s hoping for a court room victory by our plaintiffs in 2017!

  10. @Haydon –

    “My apologies to those I gave false hope.” – No apologies needed. The only way this problem is going to be fixed is for everyone to throw out their ideas for public scrutiny and discussion. Together we can do much more than any of us can do on our own.

    Too many “professionals” find a “loophole” and sit tight on it so they can profit from the “intellectual property”. (I can think of one case of this with regard to US treatment of superannuation, and it burns me up that the only people who can use “their” position are those who can afford their high fees).

    So keep the ideas coming. Many ideas may have to be shot down before a real solution emerges.

  12. @Karen

    Long ago I set forth the idea of signing up to work at the polls on election day, which counts as relinquishing U.S. citizenship because the employee accepted employment under a foreign (non-USA) government.

  13. “U.S. citizens targeted after extradition of Haiti ex-coup leader

    Haitian police have evacuated some 50 U.S. citizens to safety after attempted attacks by supporters of Haitian Senator-elect Guy Philippe, who was arrested and extradited to the United States last week, a police official said on Monday.

    Philippe, long wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and remembered for his role in a 2004 coup against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected senator for the southwestern Grand’Anse region in polls on Nov. 20.

    But on Thursday, days before he was supposed to be sworn in, police arrested him outside of a radio station and flew him to the United States, where a Miami court charged him with money laundering and drug trafficking. Philippe denies the charges.

    Philippe supporters are also believed to have attacked two U.S. citizens who ran an orphanage and stole their passports and other belongings from their home, police officials said.

    Police have evacuated more than 50 U.S. citizens to safer places in Haiti since Friday, Soljour said, who advised those who chose to stay not to leave their residences. Higher than usual numbers of U.S. citizens are in the region helping with hurricane recovery.

    U.S. citizens were evacuated to a police station before moving to a United Nations base, where they waited for preparations to fly them to Port-au-Prince, Soljour said. Some have been flown to the capital, while others are still waiting.

    “There are groups linked to Guy Philippe that were actively seeking to attack or capture U.S. citizens following (his) arrest and extradition,” Soljour said.

    A spokesman for the U.S. embassy, Karl Adam, said the embassy was aware of the threats and has sent messages to citizens to advise them to avoid certain areas and to be particularly careful.”

    Which raises the question, could a Haitian senator obtain access to the Fatca data identifying US citizens resident in Haiti? I suspect the answer would be yes.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-usa-idUSKBN14U09A

  14. http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2017/01/07/fatca-drama-continues-in-trinidad-tobago/
    ‘FATCA Drama Continues in Trinidad & Tobago’
    January 7, 2017

    “….The Opposition has insisted that the FATCA legislation be sent to a joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament over its concerns that the legislation is overreaching and violates certain fundamental rights. Trinidad & Tobago Finance Minister Colm Imbert opposed this demand, but just yesterday it was reported the government caved in to the pressure. The JSC must return to Parliament in 3 weeks for a final vote. ….”……

    It is 2017, and still ittle T&T can hold out implementing their FATCA IGA, yet Canada rushed to abrogate its own sovereignty, autonomy, rights and laws as fast as the traitorous little CONs could push it through in a big fat Omnibus bill – against the advice of opposition MPs, legal experts like Peter Hogg, Allison Christians and Arthur Cockfield, and against the express wishes of Canadian citizens like Lynne Swanson – who appeared before Parliament, or who sent submissions to Finance, to warn them of the unconstitutional and other serious problems with Canada implementing an IGA.

    T&T has bigger gonads and sense of the rights of its citizens and legal resident taxpayers and more regard for its sovereignty and autonomy as a nation than Canada apparently.

  16. Here is the last sentence of the Taxpayer Advocate’s latest report: “The IRS could achieve better results and reduce burdens placed on taxpayers and FFIs if it followed a collaborative model of taxation that sought to identify and focus on the relatively few bad actors while at the same time recognizing the good faith efforts of the compliant majority.”

    So if we’re not members of the “compliant majority” I guess we’re bad actors. The TA doesn’t supply any other possibility.

    And how does she know that the majority is actually compliant? Presumably a compliant individual is also filing his FBARs. How many FBAR’s were said to have been filed a few years ago? … 400,000? Or are we up to a million now? Out of a population of between 8 and 9 million? Doesn’t sound like the majority to me.

  17. @MNM

    Also her SCE proposal doesn’t require the account holder be US tax compliant.

    It would appear that the NTA would like to have those millions of non-compliant US taxpayers become compliant through better IRS practices than through FATCA.

    Could a “collaborative model of taxation” mean RBT?

  18. @Neill, Well, as far as different melanin levels go; those of us with greater melanin levels are at a greater advantage of being identified as to where their origins are. It’s just the variety. ~evil grin~. Then again, those of less melanin tend to range over a greater span of the globe (You are on practically ALL continents). So hence the reason we have to ask. 😀

  19. The majority of the report https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/reports/2016-annual-report-to-congress/full-report doesn’t mention or acknowledge those outside the US at all. No effort to survey them, no effort to highlight how the same groups outside the US also have the same problems with internet access, literacy, low income, etc. – but exacerbated even more by greater IRS demands, greater complexity, and greater cost of compliance help, less access to affordable assistance, no ability for walk in service at all, no tollfree contact, etc. Even less likelihood that the IRS person on the phone knows about the issues in questions, etc. No effort to highlight how lack of IRS service, access, etc. impacts those outside the US, while the US demands compliance and imposes layers upon layer of confiscatory penalties for each form, each error – plus the significant compliance costs. That makes it seem as if those outside the US are a privileged group who don’t suffer from any of the barriers or problems that US homelanders do – in addition to the problem of being deemed a US ‘taxable person’ – and being a taxpayer to two jurisdictions – merely because of birthplace or parentage, etc.

    What makes the TA and IRS think that merely living outside the US means those with a US birthplace or parent don’t live in poverty (which the US does nothing to allay) or be unable to read, or lack internet access, etc. ? What makes Olson or the IRS think there are no seniors among those living ‘abroad’? What makes the TA or the IRS think those outside the US are all fluent English speakers?

    Seems to me that even Nina Olson appears to be blind, or chooses to ignore those realities as they apply to people living outside the US – who of course are also already grappling with being a taxpayer where they actually live – and so face a double compliance burden by definition.

    That is an essential injustice. And though I know that Nina is an IRS employee, I can’t forgive that she won’t ever acknowledge that all of us pay as individuals in the rest of the world to implement FATCA even if we are NOT US taxable persons and many never were and never will be – we pay through our non-US taxes, and our non-US accountholder fees. And through our own public resources redirected to satisfy the demands of the US rather than the needs of our own society – all due to US extortion.

    I applaud what Nina Olson does right – probably at significant cost due to major IRS and political opposition, but I can’t ignore the glaring gaping holes in what isn’t being said.

    US extraterritorial CBT has to go. Anything else is untenable.

  20. All of us pay as individuals in the rest of the world to implement FATCA even if we are NOT US taxable persons – and the majority of those on this globe never were and never will be – we pay through our non-US taxes, and our non-US accountholder fees. We pay through the loss of our national sovereignty and autonomy, and through the insult to our own local laws and rights and constitution. We pay through the burden and lack of freedom imposed on our minors and those with disabilities who are not allowed by the US to renounce.

    And we all lose through our own public resources redirected to satisfy the demands of the US – a foreign country, rather than the needs of our own society – all due to US extortion.

    This is another reason why the SCE would never suffice. This is why those of us who are not US persons are still participating here. We are suffering an unacceptable insult and incursion from the US, and that cannot be allowed to stand.

    F US extraterritorial life control.

  24. @Neill “Anybody know what this is about?”
    The answer is on p. 2 of your link:
    Type of request: Extension of a Currently Approved [Information] Collection

    All they are doing is asking for approval to extend what State has long been doing… using Form DS-4079 to evaluate loss of citizenship cases. Every expat who has asked for recognition of their relinquishment will have encountered the DS-4079.

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