Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Media and Blog Articles – Part 1 of 11 (to 26 May 2015)

You can access all years at this link:

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-links-for-all-years/

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.  You could mention such articles in the comment stream for this page, or if I see one on another thread, I can copy the link to here. I’ll keep adding to the list, but not deleting, so we’ll end up having sort of a “bibliography” too.  [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.

Note also: JC suggests 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.

26 May 2015:  This thread is now closed.  It continues at Media and Blog Articles Open for Comment, Part 2 of 2.

2015.05.26

New Survey finds US expat voting could impact 2016 Presidential Election, Greenback Expat Tax Services, NASDAQ GlobeNewswire.

This congressional committee wants to hear all your FOIA gripes, Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, US.

The black money recovery skills of IT department are nothing to write home about, Vivek Kaul, The Daily Reckoning.

2015.05.25

The Intersection of US Federal Tax Law with Collection of International Information- – Including Other  Federal Agencies, Patrick W. Martin, TaxExpatriaation, US.

2015.05.23

America the not so brave:  America has led the global assault on tax dodgers and their enablers.  But the reality still lags behind the rhetoric, The Economist, UK.

Cash Banned from Chase Safe Deposit Boxes, Matt Chilliak, Live and Invest News.

2015.05.22

US Steuergesetz hat unerwartete globale Konsequenzen, Colleen Graffy, Geopolitical Information Service.  Also at Consequences of US widening net to catch tax dodgers, Colleen Graffy, World Review.

The horse may have bolted … but, Angelo Venardos, Asia Asset Management.

Important Correction:  Passports Required to Enter and Leave US — but SSNs May be Optional, Patrick W. Martin, Tax Expatriation, US.

2015.05.21

Americans working abroad face unexpected financial issues, Sarah O’Brien, NBC, US.

Senate tax reform groups get more time, Bernie Becker, The Hill, US.

2015.05.20

Malaysia will defer FATCA reporting, FSI Tax Posts.

America’s Self-Inflicted Wound, Moises Naim, The Atlantic, US.

Janice Mays:  The Tax Guru Who Guides House Democrats, Alex Brown, National Journal, US.

Sen. Rand Paul Launches Filibuster in Protest of Patriot Act Renewal, C-SPAN, US.

Articles from earlier in 2015 are at this link

Articles from 2014 are at this link

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comment, Part 2, is at this link

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comment, Part 3, is at this link

3,971 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles – Part 1 of 11 (to 26 May 2015)”

  3. @JC Well, thanks. You ain’t doing so bad yourself buddy! (I think we make a great team. You go for the logic and I do the emotional guilt trippy stuff).

    RE Mr Woods and contacting the legislators. It seems NONE of the journalists will do this, I wonder why. I would have certainly thought someone like Laura Saunders might have taken this on. Also none of the US TV media is covering this at all. I have written to quite a few news anchors at MSNBC and FOX many times to no avail. WHY? In desperation I have also written to Greenwald and Hedges thinking surely they would be interested. I guess we are just not that interesting.

  5. @ Duke of Devon
    Those pesky arrow thingies always mess up an explanation of html tagging. I think JC has it though, despite our attempts to explain.

    @ JC and Charl
    I’m a fan of both your styles.

  6. @JC Game on!

    I could be so wrong here but I THINK there is a difference between journalists and columnists. I would have thought Saunders was a journalist and I get the impression Woods is a columnist and this out of his realm. Am I wrong thinking? Are they one in the same?

  7. Charl,

    RE Mr Woods and contacting the legislators. It seems NONE of the journalists will do this, I wonder why. I would have certainly thought someone like Laura Saunders might have taken this on. Also none of the US TV media is covering this at all. I have written to quite a few news anchors at MSNBC and FOX many times to no avail. WHY? In desperation I have also written to Greenwald and Hedges thinking surely they would be interested. I guess we are just not that interesting.

    Perhaps part of the reason: http://index.rsf.org/#!/ (U.S. #49 in World Press Freedom Index). US media, sometimes also known as presstitutes that practice stenographic journalism (http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/02/13/tim-fernholz-invites-former-us-persons-to-email-him/comment-page-2/#comment-5579190).

  8. @Charl Journalists vs Columnists. While Robert Wood may be a Columnist he has quite a concentration of articles on the same subject matter. One might imagine on FATCA and CBT that he go for some interviews.

  9. Glenn Greenwald has a very interesting description regarding journalists, their relationship to the DC scene and so on. I will try to scan it and post it.

    I think there is a difference between say, Laura Saunders and Robert Wood. Robert is a career tax lawyer who writes a blog and gets paid by the number of views the blog receives. Laura is a career journalist. I know from personal experience how much work, time and research goes into her articles. I also know the editors exert a huge influence on what gets published and when. I don’t get the impression the writers have as much freedom to do as what is generally being suggested here.

  10. @Tricia I just Tweeted Solomon Yue and Laura Saunders: To stir the pot a bit. Maybe should be IBS feature.

    JC Double Taxed ‏@JCDoubleTaxed 4m4 minutes ago
    @Saunderswsj ? why architects of #FATCA not interviewed for harms of OS US citizens b/c suppression of press freedom? http://tiny.cc/NotFREE

  11. MoneyBeat: WSJ’s Laura Saunders and Industry Experts Discuss Changes in International Taxes for Individuals

    Join us for a discussion on how changes in international tax law and enforcement are affecting Americans with international links: New York: On March 3, 2015 at 6:30 PM

    http://www.wsjplus.com/invites/moneybeat-tax

    The above appears to be about the law and legal compliance. So how may Laura talk about injustices with compliancers?

  13. I like this one from @Bob on The Atlantic article.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/boris-Johnson-renounces-us-citizenship-tax-bill-mayor-london/385554/

    American tax law is incompatible with tax law in our adopted countries. For Americans abroad, US tax law restricts how we can invest for retirement on income that we earned entirely abroad, considers normal tax-free instruments in our adopted countries as foreign trusts, prevents us from saving for our children’s education, causes enormous everyday banking problems, and is so complex that it requires expensive cross-border tax experts that cost us thousands per year. It criminalizes us with penalties that are far in excess of what homeland Americans face. As a nation of immigrants, America was founded on the principle that those who came to the US seeking a better life should not have to pay taxes to the nations they left behind. Citizen-based taxation goes against the very foundations on which the Republic was formed. It is discriminatory, un-American and amoral. Sure, we can vote, but it is meaningless. France has elected members of its National Assembly that represent the interests of French citizens abroad. France values its expats more than America. This is shameful.

  15. Wow- that`s CNBC – that should reach a lot of people. Wish they would play this on CNN too. One of the biggest problems we have is that too few people know the real story.

  18. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000354916&play=1

    Why are Americans giving up their citizenship?
    Sunday, 15 Feb 2015 | 7:00 PM ET
    Is a new law driving Americans to renounce their US citizenship?

    A Video with no opportunity to comment in print but great for forwarding. Perhaps it should be sent to all members of the US congress and journalists and members of the IRS and (add as you wish)

  19. Thanks, Orwell.

    The ugly processes of the US era of *McCarthyism* pointed out in the article regarding UMass ARE the same as we see for how US Persons Abroad are treated. And our own countries allow it. You saw that clearly and so do I.

    Back during the McCarthy years, institutions like UMass—and outside academe as well; in Hollywood and other parts of the culture industry; and throughout the economy as a whole—were often run by nervous administrators and managers and CEOs who wanted to be in compliance with the government. These weren’t the true-believer anticommunist types, of which there were many; these were just run of the mill, apolitical or even liberal, apparatchiks whose first duty, they felt, was to their job and their institution.

    Uncertain about the law and government rules, fearful that if they broke them they or their institutions would suffer, these administrators turned to outside consultants—often, lawyers—for “advice.” Except that the advice industry was itself stacked with two types: either true-believing anticommunists, who had a vested interest in purging the country of reds and leftists and liberals and more, or bottom-liners (and bottom-feeders) whose livelihood depended upon institutions like UMass needing their “advice.”

    The combination of this advice industry and nervous administrators was lethal: through some elaborate dance of advice and consent, repressive policies were propounded. Not by force, not by threat, but voluntarily, consensually. The advice-givers would just offer a neutral-sounding statement of the facts, making sense of a byzantine and elaborate set of rules and procedures to harried and overworked administrators; and then the harried and overworked, and fearful, administrators would take the most conservative reading of that advice, playing it safe, and propound the most draconian version of the rules.

    A “clearance industry”—seriously, that was what it was called—was set up, in which individuals would go through elaborate rituals of repentance, to prove they were no longer communists or even sympathizers; and if they didn’t go through the rituals, which were institutionalized and regularized everywhere, they were blacklisted and purged. That’s how McCarthyism worked; that’s how it touched so many millions of lives.

    Amazing correlations that can only be stopped by Residence-Based Taxation for the US as for the countries of the rest of this world.

  22. Same questions apply, Orwell. Right on — Senators, … have you no sense of decency?

    The questions of history repeat themselves.

  24. Orwell, regarding “a sense of decency”…..
    I feel these US legislators have about as much of that as the guy who calls you on the phone and says he’s from “Windows” and your computer has been affected, or the ones who promise you millions from a deposed African leader if you just forward a few hundred dollars etc etc…..
    NO, they have no sense of decency, nor any empathy at all.

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