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

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

1. @Bubblebustin
   Great “in-a-nutshell” summary. Thanks for sharing.
   One detail bothers me. He says one must file FBAR if an account has over $10.000 in it. My information says, if one has more than $10.000 in total in all accounts, which is much much worse. If he wants to really show how bad things are, he really should get this right.
   I would write a comment on the article page, but I only comment on IBS, never anywhere else in Internet.

2. Also that the penalties are for each account and that they are cumulative over 6 years.

3. @UnforgivenToo

   “This is largely because Americans abroad must file a FATCA report if one has a bank account outside the U.S. that has over $10,000 in it.”

   If they are referring to F8938 under FATCA, I believe the taxpayer reporting threshold is $200K in aggregate for non-residents.

4. IRS Medic interviews Solomon Yue: FATCA update
   

5. Shovel: Very positive talk with Solomon Yue. Thanks for posting the IRS Medic video!

6. About a week after the hearing, Solomon and his team proposed their Territorial Taxation plan for individuals. It was very well received and now has more focus than ever on it. Not only does Trump support the idea, it also fits into his Job Creations Agenda.

   https://www.irsmedic.com/blog/2017/06/fatca-updates-with-solomon-yue.html

7. I hadn’t realized they put the FBAR penalties up:

   http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/fbar-penalties-now-adjusted-for-47247/

8. Yet the reporting threshold has never been adjusted for inflation, which would be at $70 or $80 thousand today.

9. Latest Democrats Abroad email, titled “Re: Save Obamacare. The Republican plan hurts Americans abroad.”

   Text: “The Senate healthcare bill is a cruel bill, designed to cut taxes for the very wealthy while raising healthcare costs for the vast majority of Americans. It’s a bill that doesn’t just hurt our families and friends in the U.S. but also could put Americans abroad in an impossible situation as well — stuck outside the US as healthcare refugees.

   The Republican plan gives states the right to allow insurers to not cover even basic treatment for conditions such as diabetes or mental health problems, it drastically cuts women’s health care coverage, and eliminates all Planned Parenthood funding.

   Prior to Obamacare, if Americans with pre-existing conditions returned to the U.S. they had to pay extremely high premiums, buy insurance that didn’t cover their conditions, or even be denied coverage altogether. For many, that meant they couldn’t afford to move back home to the States.

   Now Republicans want to weaken the protections that Obamacare gave us. Their bill is a tax cut for the rich, and a cost increase for everyone else.

   We still have time to stop the bill…”

   I answered them:

   “Greetings,

   I support Obamacare. I vote(d) Democratic, including twice for Obama.

   Nevertheless, as an American Abroad, I’d like to say, PLEASE do not lecture on what hurts Americans Abroad. Democrats, my party, and Obama, whom I voted for twice, did much more to hurt us than the Republicans ever did. Indeed FATCA was an ill-conceived, arrogant law that has made life abroad very difficult for us, and made my US birthplace a scarlet letter, preventing me from banking normally in the country I live in. You speak of people who are prevented from moving back to the US. How about the thousands FORCED to renounce their US citizenship yearly, and pay an extortionate fee to do so, because of laws voted by the Democrats? How about those FORCED to move back to the US because they cannot live, bank, have a business, outside the US because of laws voted by Democrats?

   Think twice before you tell us what hurts Americans Abroad, and target us with information on how you will try to help us. The best way is to support a simple switch to Residency-based taxation. The second-best way is to make FATCA and FBARs applicable ONLY to US residents. I much preferred a previous email from DA about these issues.

   Best,”

10. @FredB
    Well said. Have you met with the shit storm yet?

11. A new post is up at fixthetaxtreaty.org – Investment Constraints 2: Real Property discusses the pitfalls of investing in real estate, either owning your own home or owning investment property, when you’re also a US taxpayer with a focus on the difference between US and Australian rules in this area. Comments welcome.

12. @Polly: not sure what you mean by shit storm, but they know what I think, and I’m not alone. Recent noises by DA about RBT are encouraging. I think DA is smart enough to recognize the magnitude of the problem.
    I lean liberal on many subjects (healthcare…) but in the end I have to realize that as shameful and embarrassing as they are neither George W. Bush nor Donald J. Trump nor the Republican party have ever attempted or achieved direct concrete harm to Americans Abroad in any way near as effective as Barack H. Obama and the Democrats have. If I vote Democratic, right now, I am voting directly against my own interests, as long as the party doesn’t listen to DA.

13. IRS Medic
    The futility of FATCA and FBAR
    

14. This is news to me even if I only heard it through the grapevine – but it seems that people entering the USA will now be asked about their birthplace if it is not printed in their passport.

15. @ Polly,

    I don’t know, but I think it might not be new.

    I can’t remember what they used to ask when flying into the US because I very rarely did. However, “Where were you born?” was a pretty routine question at land borders (both car and train) since I can remember.

    We didn’t need passports to enter the US (until 2009) and usually used driver’s licences. The script was usually – Where were you born? — Citizen of? — Where are you going? — Purpose of your trip? — How long do you plan to stay? — Are you bringing in any gifts or anything that will be left in the United States? — Have a good trip.

    Interestingly (seems unbelievable now) I recall when crossing by car up til the 1990s (or maybe it was up til 2001), they’d often question only the driver, and after “Citizen of?”, “Canada”, sweep their hand towards the other passengers and go “The rest of you Canadian?” and, getting an affirmative reply, not even ask anyone else for id (or ask anyone else anything). The border was considerably more casual in the 20th century.

    Anyway, I don’t know if asking place of birth is a new requirement, but it was a very common question before we had to use passports.

16. Taxpayer advocate complains about nicking passports and the fact that the IRS wants to keep details of the OVDP secret:

    https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2018ObjectivesReport

17. TA references this that I had not seen to complain about losses in OVDP being barred because of statute of limitations while taxes due are extended to expired years. I was nailed by this and it completely blindsided my lawyer. Of course it’s convenient for the IRS that the tax refunds are artificially create by the mark to market calcs they invented as well as the artificial gains which they still tax. This forced me to shift to PFIC calcs.

    https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/taxation/policy/101415comments.authcheckdam.pdf

18. IRS Medic
    I don’t see this video as fear mongering, though at the end they do solicit business.
    

19. I’d like to know whether those clients of theirs who’ve been audited under Streamlined are US residents or not.

20. Interesting, if unnerving message from IRS Medic regarding audits. Makes me wonder: if, in the unlikely-but-still-possible circumstance that CBT is done away with by this year’s Congress, will the IRS turn up the juice on retrospective audits of overseas taxpayers (who will now be ex-taxpayers), just to get in one last big squeeze?

21. We don’t even know of these audits are focussed on non-resident US taxpayers. I haven’t heard of one person living outside the US being contacted by the IRS as a result of FATCA. Their deputy FFI’s maybe, but not the IRS directly.

    We are not the ‘droids they’re looking for.

22. While IRS Medic usually steers away from fearmongering, I’m concerned about their emphasis on assistance in collection by foreign tax authorities. My understanding was that this was somewhat limited as there are only a few countries with mutual assistance clauses in their treaties, and those countries won’t collect for the IRS from their own citizens. Tricia wrote a great post on this last year (http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2016/11/01/dual-citizens-of-sweden-france-netherlands-denmark-canada-take-note-your-country-will-not-collect-for-the-u-s/).

    @Bubblebustin – yes, I would also like to know whether these audits are focused on residents or non-residents. If the IRS is trying to get the most money from its collection efforts, collecting from US assets is much easier.

    @Barbara – good question. Also, will they spend much effort auditing those former taxpayers who did their streamlined in order to be able to renounce without becoming covered expatriates?

23. This video is absolutely fear mongering.

    First, the video creates the impression that his firm has been receiving a large number of calls on Streamlined audits – I doubt that he has “all of sudden” received a lot of calls. Maybe he received one or two.

    Second, as Bubblebustin points out it is NOT clear whether these audit(s) are being done under the Offshore streamlined (Americans abroad) or the Domestic Streamlined (Homelanders). This makes a HUGE difference.

    Third, the video creates the impression that the a significant percentage of streamlined filings are missing information returns. He has NO evidence for that (unless he prepared the returns incorrectly himself). Obviously there are some. But, those who prepare streamlined submissions for Americans Abroad tend to err on the side of “If we don’t know whether an information return is required, then file it”

    Fourth, he misstates the provisions of the U.S. Canada tax treaty – which make it clear that Canada will NOT assist the IRS collect taxes on those who were Canadian citizens when the tax debt arose.

    Fifth, let’s assume that a 3520 was missing AND the IRS is certain that a 3520 was required (an area that is uncertain with respect to a number of things (example TFSA). The suggestion that the IRS would attempt to back to 1997 has NO basis in experience.

    Sixth, (although nobody can know this for sure) I strongly suspect that the people who make the effort to come into compliance make their best efforts to comply. What Parent does NOT say is that EVERY information return penalty is subject a a reasonable cause defence.

    Seventh, he does NOT mention the problem of a streamlined NOT being accepted because of a weak statement of non-willfulness (which is a far more likely scenario) and has NOTHING to do with information returns.

    I strongly disagree with the comments above suggesting that this is NOT fear mongering. I am going to stop now. Strongly suggest that you ignore this video.

24. USCA, thanks for that. This is a disappointment because I thought IRS Medic got it. It is most certainly NOT in US expat’s best interest to misrepresent the facts.

    The ‘condor’s conundrum’ is to befriend American expats and still earn a living by screwing them.

25. Anthony and Claudine DO get it, as demonstrated by their many other videos and their attendance at the recent hearings in Washington. This is not good news they are giving us and there are some things they are saying (as USCA points out) that don’t fit with what we have come to believe, but let’s just take this video as an affirmation of what we have always known. The IRS is there to take as much away as they can, from victims with the fewest resources to defend themselves, while expending as little time and effort as possible. It doesn’t surprise me that they’d choose to go after 30 minnows instead of one whale, even though that whale is 30 times more likely to be doing those dastardly deeds that the IRS claims it wants to stop. I wonder if the IRS is going after these easy pickings as a last ditch effort to try to justify FATCA and keep it from being repealed. Also they need to up the number of victims and increase the collections total so that all that extra training they gave their agents doesn’t go to waste. What a racket!

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