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. What leadership if Canada courts were to uphold that statement of sovereignty, *A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian* — all of us, no discrimination by national origin or the national origin of our parent(s) to be affected by another country’s taxation citizenship.

  2. If the court says they have no standing because FATCA does not harm them, then CBT is what is harming them!
    TAX REFORM!

  4. Calgary: Thanks so much for the information on “standing” from the Canadian legal perspective. I don’t think the Canadian Court would dare tell our plaintiffs they didn’t have standing!

    EmBee: Thanks for the quote from John Gaver. I suspected as much, although it was still shocking to read that the courts actually have a “legal” procedure that they follow to throw out cases they don’t want setting a precedent. Really, is there any wonder that people riot in the streets when their voices are suppressed like this?

    Does anyone know if Mr. Bopp and the plaintiffs in the U.S. case plan to take it to the Supreme Court?

  5. I actually don’t search for FATCA articles very much but I was wondering if those who do (like our Badger for sure) have noticed any changes in the nature of search engine results. I can remember several years ago that Brock would almost always appear on the first page of hits and today I tried a few search engines and found that it isn’t the case right now. It’s almost all IRS and IRS colluder sites that pop up. Just wondering if anyone has any general observations about this. Here’s what I came up with today (search word – FATCA):
    startpage.com — first 5 pages — no Brock
    yahoo — ditto
    google — ditto
    yandex — ditto
    duckduckgo — ditto
    goodgopher — ditto BUT rather than IRS and IRS colluder sites almost all of the hits were articles written from the perspective of FATCA being a bad law — Good gopher! Good good gopher!

  7. @EmBee: When I search “FATCA” in Google, I see almost entirely government sites (US, Jamaica, etc.) on page 1 and bank sites on pages 2 and 3. If you’re finding mainly compliance condors, it’s because they have learned to use (or at least paying srvices to use) search engine optimization techniques, with keywords and backlinks, which is why they appear at the top of any search. It also has to do with your location and your browsing history. And it also might be that Google is penalizing blog sites that use ancient, prehistoric (and therefore less SEO friendly) blog templates, such as IBS.

  8. @ Barbara
    When I mentioned IRS colluders I meant governments, banks and other financial institutions, as well as compliance condors of course. It used to be rather nice to see Brock articles on the first page of a search but now “the others” are flooding the FATCA field.

  9. I searched Google for FATCA and didn’t see Brock mentioned , but when I clicked on their suggested link to FATCA Canada I found Brock on the second page, 8 links down.

  11. @Eric
    I always cringe when I read most expats dont owe any taxes anyway. I think this makes people turn away from an article like this as irrelevant. Any article on this subject has to make it clear how financially ((( RUINOUS ))) FATCA can be for expats. Also, one never mentions the currency fluctuations which can bring a pensioner to his knees.

  14. Re: my post two above this. IRSMedic says that the standing for the FATCA lawsuit was at a higher level than the standing for Roe v Wade, thus that is why he says the 6th court undercuts the Supreme Court.

    For those not on Twitter, this was out 9 hours ago on Twitter.

    Making ex-Americans out of expats
    Why Congress must stop taxing income that U.S. citizens earn in foreign lands
    Thursday, August 24, 2017

    http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/24/ex-patriots-should-not-be-taxed-in-foreign-lands/

    Comments open on Disqus.

  16. @plaxy
    Bopp: “coercive more than determinative” Whoa. Above my head. All of it actually. Hope it makes sense to the judges.

  18. Trying to figure the IRS medic Standing comment. Is it part of the Supreme Court Roe v Wade determination is that SCOTUS recognised Standing of theoretical unborn fetus and granted protection before harm/injury?

    This case of Standing is of a lower bar as there is no actual harm/injury, where in the case of those impacted by FATCA that there is both actual and theoretical/threatened harm/injury.

  19. Faves on the Washington Times article:

    @SwissTechie
    You chose to live in America. Thus, you need to pay double-taxation on your US earnings to the country where I live. Stop being a tax-cheat and pay your fair share or renounce your US citizenship, you 1%er.

    @Had enough of this crap
    In that case, YOU better study up on UK tax laws so you can start paying tax where I live as well as where you live. It is your choice not to live where I live so you better get cracking with your UK HMRC self assessment tax forms on top of all your IRS forms. And by the way, sorry, UK tax is way higher than US tax. Cough up. And you better report your US bank account balances to the UK government, because US accounts are foreign where I live. Can’t have you hiding your money in foreign accounts! You want to keep your ‘wealth’ and good job? Then you need to report ALL of your financial activity and pay your fair share of double tax to a country you don’t live in, by your very own logic.

  20. JC: I think the standing issue in the Roe case was whether a woman who was not pregnant had standing in a case challenging the constitutionality of a Texas anti-abortion law.

  21. She had standing on her own account as a person who could be affected by the law if she got pregnant and sought an abortion.

  22. “Roe involved a Texas law banning abortion in most circumstances, but penalties for violation only applied to abortionists, not women seeking abortion. Yet Jane Roe, who was not an abortionist, had standing to challenge the law since doctors would not perform an abortion she said she wanted because of the existence of the law. She had standing because a “‘determinative or coercive effect’ upon a third party (such as the injury of inability to obtain an abortion, produced by the determinative effect of the challenged law in Roe upon abortionists) may suffice for standing . . . .’” Op. at 21 (quoting Bennet v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 169 (1977)). Of course, the abortionists could have actually performed abortions and suffered the penalties if they chose, so the abortion provision was coercive more than determinative. In the present case—based on the experience of Plaintiffs and numerous others identified in a Democrats Abroad study—foreign financial institutions (“FFIs”) are declining to provide financial services to Americans abroad because of the burdens and coercive effect of FATCA and the IGAs, which together impose burdensome requirements and a substantial penalty for noncompliance—unless FFIs comply by not serving Americans. That is clearly coercive and should suffice for standing.”

  23. Bopp talks about Roe directly:

    Roe stands for the legal doctrine that coercion against a third party gives a person affected by that coercion standing to challenge the law causing the coercion even if the burdens and/or penalties of the law don’t directly apply to the person asserting standing.

    FBAR is downplayed so far. Bopp’s opinion talks about Zell not filling FBAR as required. I think FBAR could have its own opinion letter. Not just for excessive fines but also signature authority of employer accounts, causing harm and reducing employment and promotion prospects, as identified by research by Democrats Abroad.

  24. FBAR is not involved in the standing issue, which seems to be what the petition for certiorari is going to be about.

  25. This IRS Medic video:
    -outlines 6th Circuit decision & Bopp response in plain language
    -contains no solicitation
    -contains no fear mongering

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