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.
@Polly, re;
“GOOD GOD- Why dont they start with DELAWARE?????”
Here is one important reason; the previous VP in the FATCAnatic regime was Joe Biden, who “…represented Delaware as a United States Senator from 1973 until becoming Vice President in 2009.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
They are not interested in touching powerful US corporations or powerful political lobbies or those with the most lawyers on retainer. They demonstrated that they’ll go after the low hanging fruit and malign those ‘abroad’ who they can safely demonize without significant political or donor repercussions. They’d far rather go after those with little to no recourse.
The US aim is to be the last and biggest tax haven standing. This has nothing to do with logic, or justice or ethics. And they’ve already demonstrated that they don’t care about any incidental casualties like our legal local banking, family wellbeing, savings for education and disability and retirement, etc.
If they did care about the wellbeing of the many, they would have responded on issues like the US extraterritorial taxation of our registered savings plans, or the Australian Super, or the PFIC issues.
The unconscionable extortionate fees for renouncing and now relinquishing too shows us what they’re all about. And the stonewalling of the Taxpayer Advocate’s attempts to get the IRS to release info about the OVD and Streamlined programs and outcomes in order to subject those programs to scrutiny to see just how they’re treating the innocent and minnows vs. the sharks.
What can we expect from a country and Treasury Department that does this to residents?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2017/04/05/91-of-irs-seizures-for-structuring-involve-lawful-taxpayers/#3a17bf805123
@BAdger
I know Badger – but good of you to spell it out nonetheless. My comment was more like dripping with cynicism. And any country which ends up as a tax haven prospers quite well. But if we remember rightly- America is the very country which was screaming “Injustice” at tax havens altogether – just to become one themselves. The rhetoric- over and over again- is just fraught with such hypocrisy. The whole world should stop believing in this false prophet.
@Polly, I just like to underscore for the other silent invisible readers who may or may not be following this as closely as us the connection between the previous VP of the regime which brought us the OVDI/P and FATCA and extraterritorial CBT and FBAR penalty fundraisers and overall crusade against those living and banking and saving outside the US. I have never seen the Biden connection and hypocrisy and irony mentioned or highlighted in any of the articles that note Delaware’s tax haven status and the creation and imposition of FATCA. It is utterly galling that while the Dems and FATCAnatics were extorting the rest of the world and wielding the big stick of access to US markets, the VP had been presiding for decades over an internal tax haven state.
One would have thought that at least one journalist would have found the irony to good not to mention.
Another instance in the US claims and asserts control over Canadians even inside Canada – which the Canadian government is apparently very eager to collude with – and in another instance acts to deprive Canadians of our Charter and other rights on Canadian autonomous sovereign soil – bowing to US extraterritorial goals;
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pre-clearance-u-s-travellers-bill-c-23-reaction-1.4213797
FATCA, CBT, border ‘harmonization’ and US agents operatingon Canadian soil, it is all more movement to further US extraterritorial life control of the rest of the planet.
@Badger
I had actually never heard of the Biden connection before either. And what about all the taxes that America needs and cannot get out of Delaware? WE are supposed to pay for new roads and bridges and train tracks? Why doesn’t Delaware and Wyoming et al pay for it- at least they might actually USE those roads.
Galling ad nauseum.
Why more Americans are handing in their citizenship
JONATHAN BERR MONEYWATCH August 7, 2017, 8:49 AM
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-more-americans-are-handing-in-their-citizenship/
Here’s one reason why the this administration, post-Biden, will never crack down on Delaware-based tax evasion, and continue to go after expats instead:
“DTTM Operations LLC, a Delaware-based company responsible for handling the ownership of dozens of trademarks for the president, filed four applications in the world’s largest gaming hub under the brand name “Trump” in June. The local government made the requests public last week.”
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2105645/trademark-move-raises-suggestions-donald-trump-eyeing-macau
@Barbara
Under the brandname Trump? Doesnt that kind of annihilate any anonymity?
@Polly: True. But why would he register the company in Delaware unless it was a tax dodge? That’s the whole point. He and his buddies need Delaware to dodge taxes. And you and I get to fill in the gap with FBAR penalties and the like.
Link to infuriating homelander comments here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-more-americans-are-handing-in-their-citizenship/
Constitutionality analysis of FATCA:
http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1947&context=student_scholarship
Neill, thanks — I have made the article you found into a post.
Look for media and other opportunities to raise the link between FATCA AND NAFTA; abuse of our local Canadian personal and financial data – you can also raise these linked issues via current submissions to the federal government on NAFTA and by commenting on articles discussing US demands that Canada surrender data and privacy rights by dropping ‘data localization’ rules for governments, and public services such as hospitals, schools, etc.
Send a comment/submission here;
http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/consultations/nafta-alena/info.aspx?lang=eng
and, look for opportunities to comment in the media, such as;
Here are explanations of the issue of ‘data localization’ that the US has on its wishlist of NAFTA demands for Canada to surrender sovereignty in submission to the US Emperor.
ex.
http://www.humboldtjournal.ca/canadians-personal-data-on-the-table-in-nafta-negotiations-1.21559002
https://openmedia.org/en/nafta-our-digital-rights-are-not-sale-or-trade
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjm9a8/trumps-nafta-renegotiations-could-put-canadians-personal-data-at-risk
We already know that in the EU, MEP in’t Veld has made clear the link between the US FATCA demands and its commercial and government incursions which offend EU data and privacy protection laws and ‘data localization’.
http://www.sophieintveld.eu/in-t-veld-asks-the-commission-about-the-privacy-protection-of-european-citizens-data-by-the-usa/
Jack Townsend on Federaltaxcrimes has a new article out on a US citizen living in Canada and having to pay FBAR penalties.
it would be interesting to know if this gentleman, living in Toronto, was a Canadian citizen. CRA has stated they will not assist in the collection of penalties against Canadians.
Thanks for that, Polly – here’s the link for those interested: http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/court-sustains-10000-per-year-6038b.html
The penalties were for failure to file form 5471 (controlled foreign corporations) over a 12 year period, and apparently the related FBAR penalties were not assessed. Again this is a case of someone volunteering information to the IRS (by entering OVDP), then regretting it. If they don’t know you exist, then why wave a flag?
It stated that the IRS had CRA not pay a refund, in an effort to collect. It should be noted that the subject seems to be a US citizen only, so does not have the same protections as a Canada-US dual citizen would, against whom the IRS cannot collect.
Ouch.
Looks like he’s a U of T Economics prof.
The confiscatory and layered penalty regime is being used as a devious way to generate revenue for the US where no actual US tax is owed.
Doesn’t the Canadian government hear the sucking sound of the parasitic US Treasury feeding off Canadian generated, owned and sited legal local assets?
If the IRS has its way, you may have to ask your accountant if they know about things that you don’t know about (like FBARs):
https://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/cpa-advice-may-not-help-to-stop-fbar-penalties/
Re Dewees:
http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/court-sustains-10000-per-year-6038b.html
My thoughts after reading the court documents are as follows:
1. It is very obvious that the rules of 2009 OVDP were NOT explained to him prior to his entering the program.
2. He was dealing with a personal tragedy that made it difficult for him to analyze this (even if it had been explained to him).
3. By signing for OVDP he was agreeing to pay massive penalties in advance. I don’t think he understood this.
4. After having signed up to pay penalties (this was 2009 OVDP) and then withdrawing, the IRS interpreted this to mean that he was asking for penalties to be assessed in the normal way (remember he signed up to pay penalties).
5. The IRS did what Mr. Dewees asked for (they arranged for him to pay penalties at a reduced rate) by hitting him with 5471 violations.
6. The court documents make clear that the IRS offered him the chance to argue “reasonable cause”. Apparently (if I am reading the documents correctly) he declined to make reasonable cause arguments.
7. He then failed to pay the penalties that he had specifically signed up to pay by entering OVDP.
8. The IRS used the Tax Treaty to get collection assistance from the CRA. There is NO indication that Mr. Dewees was or is a Canadian citizen. Therefore, the IRS was able to override the Revenue rules and get the the CRA to do its dirty work (which the CRA was happy to do).
9. So, that’s where we are.
Moral of story: Stop signing up to pay penalties! I do feel very sorry for him. But, I think he is a victim of bad professional advice. At a minimum, his advisor did not explain the program to him.
Finally to answer the question about why no FBAR penalties were assigned by 12 years of 5471 penalties. This is just my speculation, but what I think is this:
The 5471 penalties were tax debts which CRA would help collect. FBAR penalties are NOT tax debts, which the CRA would NOT help collect.
One more day. One more life destroyed.
Oh yeah, and this guy probably thought he was “Just doing the right thing!”
The case reinforces for me what I know today that I did not know a few years ago when I had my OMG moment. The best course of action is to do nothing. This person was doing normal things that Canadian residents do and also dealing with a personal tragedy. The IRS is not coming after people like this. People like this are foolishly putting their heads in the Lion’s mouth.
Even with the new Streamlined program, in many cases the best thing is to do nothing. Of course everyone has to weight up their own risk factor but what is 100% true in all cases is that Renunciation is the only cure once you are in the system.
More about Dewees;
http://www.international-adviser.com/news/1037519/us-court-upholds-irs-penalty-us-expat-demanding-tax-refund
As we know, the IRS treatment of those who it exhorted, threatened and scared into the OVD programs – which it (with media and compliance condor collusion) deceptively advertised as the ONLY way to comply, and who came forward in the ‘noisy’ manner via the OVD/P/I programs was far more punitive than the IRS outcome for those who complied quietly or going forward. They punished those who tried to become compliant – even when NO US tax could be assessed or was owed. They treated those who waited – and entered the Streamlined programs more favourably than those who thought they were “doing the right thing”.
The IRS stonewalled the IRS Taxpayer Advocate on her requests for information on the results of the OVDI and OVDP and Streamlined programs, willfully redacted the most recent info on outcomes that she requested, and refused to allow what they did turn over to be shared with the public and taxpayers. Obviously they have something to hide.
What is the moral of this? All hammer/stick, no carrot – the IRS shows us that it doesn’t actually want ‘compliance’, it wants the greater revenues it can get via penalties – especially those layers and layers of incomprehensible, confiscatory punishments levied especially on our local, legal every day activities (ex. having a small consulting or any other type of business) where we live outside the US, all justified on the basis that anything outside the US is ‘foreign’, suspect and deserving of the hammer. It wants to hammer the low hanging fruit of minnows and small fry for not filing mere information forms – even in the absence of any US tax assessed, while it ignores those who have either gotten themselves favourable tax treatment via lobbying politicians, or who have the money, the savvy, etc. to get around the IRS.
This case is a case of the US levying penalty revenue on a non-resident whose only US connection is non-economic – only a place of birth.
When will Canada and all the rest of the world wake up and refuse to assist the US in extracting/extorting revenues from other countries, based solely on birthplace or parentage or acquired national origin?
@Badger – this should be a Brock feature because supposedly in the Canadian – U.S. tax treaty the CRA will not assist in the collection for the IRS. The excerpts below show otherwise. Was he a Canadian citizen during the years the penalties were lodged?
However, in May 2015 the CRA notified Dewees that it was holding his tax refund until his outstanding $120,000 debt to the IRS was paid in full.
It did so in conformity with the United States-Canada Income Tax Convention, a tax treaty in force between the two countries.
@USCitizenAbroad comment explains it. Interesting comment about FBAR.