Media and Blog Articles – Part 8 of 11 (Year 2021)
You can access all years at this link: Media and Blog Articles – Links for All Year
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 often very recent articles mentioned since this list was updated.
Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship are stuck with it for now, Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, UK.2021.12.29
Tax Court Upholds Rejection of Whistleblower Claim, Tax Notes, US.
2021.12.28
Voxbank is not allowed to ‘accidentally’ close American accounts, Alfred Airaldii, Taylor Daily Press.
How the IRS Prioritizes Compliance Work on High Income Non-Filers Through National and International Enforcement, IRS, Tax Connections.
2020.12.02
Constitutional lawyer Joseph Arvay remembered as tireless defender of the underdog, Bethany Lindsay, CBC, Canada. (Mr. Arvay was lead counsel for the ADCS constitutional challenge of the FATCA IGA legislation at Federal Court (Trial Division), 2014-2019.
Another from PurpleExpat about the ACA proposal: If they were concerned about revenue neutrality, they would recommend citizen dues of $500 per year and get rid of sec 911. But all they are recommending is an open-end FEIE like we had in the 60s. This is nothing close to RBT. This keeps us all in the system and does nothing for PFIC. Luckily, they also do not seem to have a Congressperson to write a Bill.
I believe John Richardson first proposed the $500 per year passport tax – to replace the rest of it. He said that a fixed fee is more equitable, because the U.S. tax code overlays of the tax codes of the various countries means that the amount owed may be widely different, for the same financial circumstances, ** no matter that the U.S. citizenship “benefit” may be called the same.
Then that also sounds like an opt in system every year, rather than a co-opted system, quite detrimental to Accidentals.
Also $500 fixed much more reasonable to the $1K – $2K annual filing fees, all the agnst, and unknown unknowns of over-regulation and double taxation.
While our very own Canada Revenue Agency isn’t disturbed at all by sharing more Canadian owned and sited information than FATCA even requires (and has to date still refused to tell Canadians how much additional information the US provides us than we were already getting under the Canada/US tax treaty pre-FATCA);
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tax-fatca-canada-us-1.5957194
The US demands its tax cake and to eat it too;
“…A Pillar 1 agreement redrawing international taxing rights should be based on clearly articulated and well-established tax principles. No agreement should be based on the United States ceding taxing rights without comparable cessions on the part of other jurisdictions. “…
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/crapo_letter_on_oecd_negotations.pdf
Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary; “….any international tax agreement reached at the OECD must neither harm US businesses and workers nor undermine the United States’ tax sovereignty.”
https://www.ft.com/content/6c98b271-bd13-4517-81bb-6ef7f1798085
Why doesn’t the US Treasury look closer to home for their ‘tax gap’?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/propublica-rich-americans-tax-1.6058757
Oh, that’s because those outside the US don’t have highly paid, high powered lobbyists on tap https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/362796-analysis-more-than-6000-lobbyists-have-worked-on .
And because the US forced the rest of the globe – via extortion and the threat of sanctions, to subvert their own laws and interests, and force their own taxpayers to underwrite the costs of FATCA . Costs that the CRA and other non-US revenue agencies refuse to disclose to their own taxpayers.
FATCA is a shell game and classic misdirection – massively scapegoating those the US claims as citizen serfs living outside the US with ordinary legal local savings.
It’s convenient and politically expedient for government to deflect from US domestic tax problems and trying to tax powerful influencers at home. How many of the people in the ProPublica material are the ordinary people with legal local bank accounts living outside the US who just happen to have US citizenship by birth or parentage? How many are US residents with US and global business interests?
ex.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-propublica-revelations-show-why-we-need-to-tax-wealth-more-effectively
I still see misleading information that states or implies that US tax compliance as a necessary precondition in order to renounce/relinquish;
ex. https://www.investmentexecutive.com/newspaper_/news-newspaper/fatca-10-years-on/
That Investment Executive piece contains the usual nonsense. I won’t bother, given that it’s a year old, but as a rule when I see something like this containing obvious falsehoods about compliance and renunciation, I do make a point of politely submitting a correction to the author or anyone quoted. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Although he’s not too far off the mark in this one, Mr. Nightingale is dodgy so be careful with anything he says.
Mr. Nightingale is a well known compliance condor and snake oil salesman.
He doesn’t make mistakes, he knows what he is doing.
He and I have had dealings in the past.
Speaking of “10 years on,” it was 10 years ago today that I had the (mis)fortune of reading Barry McKenna’s article in the Globe and Mail which was the first time I’d ever heard of CBT. I haven’t been the same since. Although my participation at Brock has dwindled recently, as a senior citizen my daily activities are still motivated entirely by my situation as someone with a U.S. “brand;” I may be able to hide it now, but I won’t be able to hide it when I die. For that reason, I am currently devoting my time to “getting my house in order” which, as the last of a line of creative people, is no small task. Although, for now, I am unable to take a more active role in our common goal to rid the world of the FATCA/CBT curse, I think about it, and all of you, each and every day.
Pls RT/Like on twitter my Twitter July 4th message to the Homeland. This one is the last of a series of 11 tweets.
https://twitter.com/JCDoubleTaxed/status/1411632818518589445?s=20
Replying to
@JCDoubleTaxed
@PurpleExpatOrg
and 49 others
END: U.S. over-regulation of U.S. family members resident in other countries.
SHIFT: to Residence Based Taxation via a new category: non-resident Americans.
END: U.S. bank discrimination of U.S. persons overseas.
Repeal #FATCA
#July4th Independence Day
See that “49 Others” that is the maximum addresses allowed by Twitter for what FATCA Twitter calls a “Twitter Tree”. That Tweet went to 49. Pls boost by RT/Like
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/named-shamed-irs-lists-record-number-wealthy-americans-becoming-ex-americans-2020
Does anyone have the strength or willpower to comment on this?
Sent by a US relative.
I think I have lost the will to live !
There’s no point, one or two minds might think twice about their prejudice and about believing this but but 350 million to go.
I notice that the profiteer David Lesperance is in there again. He and I just had another discussion where he suggested the full time ordinary residents and citizens of other nations need be very afraid of the IRS, and suggested he had provided many examples of why to me in the past.
He never has.
So I suggested I must have a bad memory but by all means remind me, and McAfee and Russian billionaires did not count.
He came up with McAfee as an example.
Zero Hedge isn’t a news source, it’s an alt-right disinfo source.
So I imagine the comments are extra stupid.
There’s a relatively lucid Axios article from 5 August that I totally missed:
https://www.axios.com/wealthy-people-are-renouncing-american-citizenship-67fbada4-e2e4-4699-b106-c986839f209d.html
The first sentence of the Zero Hedge piece intrigued me:
“The number of wealthy Americans with assets over $2 million who renounced their citizenship has surged…”
Now either the author just pulled that out of his ass – most likely – or it’s a reference to the $2 million net worth cut off for covered expatriate status. I vaguely recall some seeing once some discussion of the published lists being intended for covered expatriates only – which would imply that the true number is much higher – but then also people who are clearly not have seen their names published. Can anyone provide any clarity on this subject?
If you’re asking whether the list only includes covered expatriates, my name appeared six months after renouncing, but as I never filed a single bit of US tax paperwork, the US has no way of knowing whether I’m covered or not.
The renunciation list is just that . As for the figures given , do you believe that they would give actual stats ?
As a footnote,I don’t suggest for one minute that I support islamists and their idealogy,but I must say they do have the balls to tell the US and company where to go and have done it successfuly. For that I admire them.
Post discussions on Brock from renunciants have shown that the list contains both covered and uncovered names, is full of omissions and mis-spellings. Some have never appeared and some ( like my uncovered spouse) have appeared twice 4 years apart! Maybe It fell behind the desk?! As far as I know it does not contain any green card surrenders.
It is not ‘name and shame’ but the numbers now are a source of embarrassment for the US government .
A regular Quoran (might have been David Lesperance, not sure) put in a freedom of information request to find out how many CLN had been issued in previous years. Last time I saw mention of this, the government had taken years to respond and said they would come up with a number in several more years.
That was several years ago, I have seen no mention of it since.
“Now either the author just pulled that out of his ass…”.
I agree. There are only three things we know for sure about the people who appear on that list:
1. They all were lucky to get an appointment. Demand has outstripped supply for years but COVID has made the situation immeasurably worse.
2. They all paid the $2350 fee. Maybe they were rich and the fee was a minor inconvenience, or maybe they were poor and had to borrow the money. We’ll never know.
3. They all got tired of the unending bullshit and decided to do something about it.
Anything else is pure speculation based on nothing.
https://dailycaller.com/2021/08/11/democrats-internal-revenue-service-banking-information-mike-crapo-irs/
Looks like demanding banking data on outlanders was so much fun the US gov’t is proposing to do the same to homelanders. The overreach is astounding but not unpredictable.
And they plan to fund this data grab rather generously.
Data, data, data … they just can’t get enough of it! I would have liked to read the comments but for whatever reason they don’t appear on my computer.
Daily Caller isn’t necessarily a credible source either – closet to an alt-right disinfo rag like Zero Hedge.
@ Ron
Well I suppose admin can just delete my comment then, if only leftwing sources are allowed.
Does Forbes pass muster?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/irswatch/2021/04/28/banks-will-be-required-to-report-account-balances-account-outflows-and-inflows-to-irs-under-new-biden-plan/?sh=256bca3c12bf
I believe the UK government has just dropped similar plans, though I don’t know much about it.
Jenny’s lawyer in the UK FATCA action, Mr. Nosada, has written asking why such a domestic action was dropped on the basis of not being cost effective while up to £1.6 billion has been spent on FATCA with ongoing costs £600 million a year, for which the UK gets nothing.
Answers on a post card please.
Speaking of which, my wife got a FATCA letter yesterday, “provide this information or your personal data goes to the US.” Not sure what to do with it yet, other than write back asking how this is possible as it clearly breaches the GDPR.
Forbes definitely passes muster. This isn’t a left vs right thing, by the way, it’s a disinfo vs real journalism thing.
The bank reporting plan is a trial balloon at this point. Given that the GOP is likely to gerrymander itself into permanent control of congress, likely not going to get very far. But interesting that they’d consider it – probably reflects their awareness of the size of the domestic tax evasion problem.
Recent news on the Association of Accidental Americans’ lawsuit against the Department of State re the ‘astronomical’ renunciation fee as a barrier to the right of expatriation in an article by Helen Burgrraf in AmericanExpatFinance:
The lawsuit against the DOS makes for some very interesting reading. While paying extortion may solve one’s personal situation, it certainly doesn’t solve the problem for others ,as the extortion continues.The people filing this suit deserve all the credit in the world for what they are doing. They are doing what their respective countries lack the courage to do.