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. @Fred: Mehta may have produced the second-funniest unintentional pun I’ve ever seen in the New York Times:

    Many Americans recoil at the idea that they should have to go abroad for anything more taxing than sightseeing.

    That’s the sole mention of “tax” in the piece, of course.

    For the record, the funniest unintentional pun was:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/nyregion/25bear.html

    BearVaults, one of several canister brands, are favored by many backpackers because they are light and can be opened with bare hands.

    (Yes, I have a very odd sense of humour)

  2. Another thing from the NYT last week:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/opinion/filing-taxes-in-japan-is-a-breeze-why-not-here.html

    What’s going on in these countries — and in many other developed democracies — is that government computers handle the tedious chore of filling out your tax return. The system is called “pre-filled forms,” or “pre-populated returns.” The taxpayer just has to check the numbers. If the agency got something wrong, there’s a mechanism for appeal.

    Our own Internal Revenue Service could do the same for tens of millions of taxpayers. For most families, the I.R.S. already knows all the numbers — wages, dividends and interest received, capital gains, mortgage interest paid, taxes withheld — that we are required to enter on Form 1040.

    One thing that occurs to me: US “ready returns” could end up as a wedge issue, with Homelanders who have foreign investments & temporary expats on one hand, and long-term emigrants on the other.

    Homelanders & Homelanders abroad would probably accept, and even be happy about, their foreign banks automatically provided all the information to the IRS to pre-populate all those complicated information returns. Long-term emigrants would be horrified at their local banks providing a foreign tax agency with all the information needed to bankrupt them.

  3. This article has nothing to do with our issues directly, but I still found it interesting in light of a strange argument I think several of us have run into once or twice when debating with Homelanders about CBT: they claim it’s unfair that we get a credit for foreign taxes but they only get a deduction for state taxes.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-18/gop-targets-trillion-dollar-tax-breaks-for-democratic-states

    Ever since the inception of the federal income tax in 1913, taxpayers have been allowed to deduct the state and local income taxes they pay from their taxable income. Anti-tax crusaders, including Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, say the deduction represents bad policy.

    “When you allow people to deduct their state and local taxes against the federal tax, you in effect subsidize tax increases at the state and local level,” Norquist said an interview. “The way to solve that is to get rid of the deduction. It’s good tax policy. It’s good tax reform.”

    The other tie to short-term expats: California, among others, is rather aggressive about trying to call you a resident when you’re out of the state. You only have to find some qualifying period of 330 days outside of the US (not necessarily the same as your tax year) in order to qualify for the FEIE, but California says you have to plan to be gone for 18 months in order to qualify for their “safe harbor”. Under current law, people who are hit by California state taxes can at least use those as a deduction against their remaining federal taxes.

  8. @Barbara:

    “If we can’t squeeze enough tax juice out of expats, start squeezing Mexican.”

    Or those the US thinks could be Mexicans:

    Sessions’ suggestion seems to be more or less that if it can’t get the Mexican government to pay for the wall, it will shift its focus to making sure individuals it thinks are Mexican do.

    Mexico, your John Doe summons is in the mail.

  11. @Barbara,

    We have a number of refundable (means you get the money as cash even if you have no tax bill) tax credits available to illegal immigrants. Stuff like the child tax credit. I would be very happy for the government to take these away. It’s time we stopped accepting the current drain on society from these super low skilled illegals. We have enough low skilled people of our own.

  12. @Bubblebustin – Are there any treaty protections for USPs in the Canadian IGA? There are none in the UK IGA.

    In the UK, the point of the IGA is to remove certain protections from USPs and US-born individuals: not treaty protections, but data protection rights.

    The IGA makes it legal for the FI to send accountholders’ information to HMRC (for onward transmission to the IRS) without first obtaining the accountholder’s permission.

    If the accountholder waives data protection rights, a FI doesn’t need the protection of the IGA and can send the information direct to the IRS without breaking any laws.

  13. “Here’s an IRS Contract With a Dark Web Intel Firm

    According to public records and a document obtained by Motherboard via the Freedom of Information Act, the IRS paid $65,000 for services from Flashpoint, a company focused on extracting intelligence from hard-to-reach areas of the internet inhabited by cybercriminals.”
    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/heres-an-irs-contract-with-a-dark-web-intel-firm

    But surely the IRS is just trying to track down those arch-criminals, US citizens who haven’t filed an FBAR…

  14. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/04/trump-signs-executive-order-rolling-back-obama-tax-regulations.html#more
    Well that’s his plan … perhaps a tangential swipe at FATCA but it’s not named specifically so who knows. OTOH lots of fixins (?) are on the Trump platter for corporations (inversions, earnings-stripping, yadayadayada). Oh well, at least his plan claims to be targetting complexity in the tax code. Gotta love that … unless this is just another thing Trump will pull a 180 on.

  15. @iota

    …”Whereas, the Parties desire to conclude an agreement to improve international tax compliance and provide for the implementation of FATCA based on domestic reporting and reciprocal automatic exchange pursuant to the Convention and subject to the confidentiality and other protections provided for therein, including the provisions limiting the use of the information exchanged under the Convention;”…

    https://www.fin.gc.ca/treaties-conventions/pdf/FATCA-eng.pdf

    Cute mention of reciprocity too.

  16. Too bad our local Canadian family bank savings are Canadian accounts and all Canadian vehicles like RDSPs and RESPs, and TFSAs and Canadian mutual funds instead of shingles and shakes. Then maybe our PM would choose to fight FOR us rather than fight AGAINST us – with his choice to continue abusing our local taxpayer revenues defending the imposition of a foreign nation’s laws on Canadian soil.

    Consider these statements from our Glib leader in the context of his government and party’s choice to take up the Con mantle defending the FATCA IGA imposed on ALL Canadian taxpayers and accountholders, and the persecution of those Canadian citizens and residents whose status in Canada apparently is that of second class – based on their US birthplace, parentage, national origin, etc.

    ”Softwood or software:’ Canadian interests come first, Trudeau tells Kitchener crowd’

    “”I want people to be able to choose Canada and know that if they do choose to build, to support, we will be there to support them,” Trudeau said Tuesday in Kitchener ….”…….

    “”Standing up for Canada’s interests is what my job is, whether it’s softwood or software,” Trudeau responded to applause.

    “What we have to know is that we are tremendously interconnected in our economy with that of the United States. But it’s not just a one-way relationship,” he added.”

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/justin-trudeau-softwood-software-vidyard-kitchener-1.4084482

    Apparently he’ll brag about being the champion for the interests of Canadians in the softwood lumber sector, but still has no problem being the 2nd PM in a row who threw Canadian citizens and residents – taxpayers and accountholders with no economic connection to the US , to the IRS wolves via FATCA. Even though it has meant a reversal of his pre-election stance on FATCA and the stance Liberal MPs took in Parliament BEFORE the gLibs won.
    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/liberal-party-canada-fatca-quotes/
    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/03/22/elizabeth-thompson-ipolitics-march-22-2016-brison-garneau-endorse-deal-to-share-canadian-banking-records-with-irs/comment-page-1/
    https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/30/the-liberal-privacy-campaign-that-died-with-the-election-tim-harper.html
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/taxes-internal-revenue-service-fatca-united-states-1.3954789

    Canada will oppose the US over the NAFTA issues of softwood lumber, ( ex. “…”Our government disagrees strongly with this decision,” the minister said. “It is unfounded and we will vigorously fight for the interests of the Canadian softwood lumber industry, its workers, and their communities.”…” http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-reaction-softwood-countervailing-tuesday-1.4084390 but not the obvious NAFTA issues of aiding in the implementation of FATCA by our financial sector, hobbling our local ordinary banking and saving, and abridgin our Charter and constitutional rights (ex. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2407264 http://www.tax-news.com/articles/_FATCA_Sea_Change__571885.html https://www.bcbusiness.ca/canada-capitulates-on-fatca-agreement .

  19. Further to the above;
    “Thousands of reports containing confidential Canadian banking information records have been sent directly to the U.S Internal Revenue Service, without the Canadian government’s knowledge.

    According to information obtained by CBC News under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request, 31,574 such reports have been sent directly to Internal Revenue Service over the past two years under the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

    That is in addition to about 469,827 reports that the Canada Revenue Agency has transferred to the IRS under a Canada-U.S. agreement negotiated in the wake of the adoption of FATCA.

    That means more than a half million Canadian banking information records have now been sent to the IRS.”……….

  20. @EmBee: Not certain — but IMHO better than even odds — that review will result in repeal of the Form 5472 filing requirement (i.e. single-member non-resident-alien-owned LLCs must disclose ownership to the IRS regardless if they are doing business in the US) that the Obama Treasury promulgated during his lame duck month.

    When foreign countries say they want FATCA reciprocity, this is what they mean: account balances and ownership of all those super-secret Wyoming LLC. None of them seriously care about Joe Bloggs earning 0.5% interest on his Bank of America deposit. They care about American shell companies being used to artificially reduce taxable profits of local companies by inflated invoices for non-existent services, and schemes like that.

    If Trump repeals the 5472 requirement then it looks to me like FATCA reciprocity is basically back to square one again: come 2018, Treasury will have no entity ownership info nor account balances to hand over, only individual-level interest payments data at best.

  21. Did anyone notice this paragraph in the article about Trump’s executive order (link from EmBee, emphasis from me)?
    But the major target of the outrage was the Pfizer-Allergan deal, by far the biggest effort by a company to give up its U.S. citizenship to cut its taxes.
    Brings up a few questions in my mind:
    Does a company get citizenship by being “born” in the US or does it get it from it’s “parents”?
    Does a company need a CLN? Does it pay $2350 to get one?
    Can a company relinquish or must it renounce?

  22. @Bubblebustin –

    If I’m not mistaken, that bit:

    Whereas, the Parties desire to conclude an agreement to improve international tax compliance and provide for the implementation of FATCA based on domestic reporting and reciprocal automatic exchange pursuant to the Convention and subject to the confidentiality and other protections provided for therein, including the provisions limiting the use of the information exchanged under the Convention

    is just the usual pre-emptive legal language, saying in effect, “you needn’t bother searching the treaty for grounds to challenge, because our lawyers already checked and what we’re doing here is not prohibited by the treaty.”

  23. Does anybody know if the new White House Tax Plan has anything of interest?
    I am not holding my breath.
    Meanwhile, as proof that the Democrats are more effective at governing, the border wall seems stuck, whereas the administrative Berlin wall (FATCA etc) remains in place. Was somehow hoping the reverse would be true (or even better, no walls at all).

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/politics/tax-plan-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

  24. Interesting that bank records have been forwarded directly by banks. Further documentation that banks cannot be trusted and that they are afraid of the US. Also that the IGA is useless. Wasn’t the IGA supposed to specifically prevent this?!
    If banks did this without informing their customers, will they have breached Canadian laws? Can they be sued for this? I hope they can and will be.
    Further, if they do this to unwitting clients, who have not provided or don’t have US SS numbers, what will the US do? Did they select people with US addresses, in which case this would be in keeping, somewhat, with CRS, which the US does not adhere to.
    One can imagine the havoc if they don’t have SS numbers and find homonyms. Jeez.
    One word comes to mind: WTF? And, has my EU bank sent the US something on me without my knowledge (and without my SS number)?

  25. @Fred(B) – “Interesting that bank records have been forwarded directly by banks…Wasn’t the IGA supposed to specifically prevent this?!”

    No. The point of the IGA is to protect the bank, not the accountholder.

    In the UK, and probably in many other countries, account information can be sent direct to the IRS if the accountholder waives data protection rights. If the information was sent direct to the IRS without the accountholder’s consent, that would indeed be illegal under (in the UK) the Data Protection Act.

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