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.
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.
@ Charl
No, it’s this one (from late Feb.) titled “Big steps towards curbing overseas tax evasion”:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101452453
As for the one you provided (thanks): Glitches? We’ll show you glitches Mr. Koskinen!
Just wanted to put this someplace, here is as good as any.
Speaking of media, of journalism, I just listened to this once again and, of course, in my mind, Chris Hedges has it absolutely correct: Taken from a longer interview, Chris Hedge`s Grim Media Assessment
This video might be worth a watch
http://my.entertainment.yahoo.com/video/whoknew-renouncing-citizenship-060000962.html?.tsrc=samsungwn
Thanks, Tim. I`m going to slip it into this post: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/03/24/shedding-citizenship-the-canadian-and-uk-experiences-compared-to-the-shedding-of-an-extraneous-us-citizenship/
@Tim
Video is good, kind of funny at the end. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE”. I sure am staying in Canada, easy choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/us/obama-to-seek-nsa-curb-on-call-data.html?_r=0
Could be a chance to comment in NYT re giving up bulk data collection, really? How would FATCA be described? I am afraid to post there…don’t know the name that will come up. Anyone have more courage than I?
Picked this up somewhere else on Brock (I think). IRS cutbacks force FATCA data to be stored:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-24/irs-budget-crunch-limiting-use-of-foreign-government-data.html
@Bubblebustin
Lovely… Forever being held by the US government in their vault
…or rail box cars (as, facetiously, the FBARs) or in Utah’s NSA facility, until information further needed?
here is news release for today from NDP
http://charlieangus.ndp.ca/canadians-deserve-answers-on-fatca
Tweet it northernstar!
This would be an opportune moment for the good Mr. Arvay to table his opinion and provide a concrete timetable for launching the court challenge. I expect he will have to wait for the bill to be tabled and go through committee (a bit tough to get a ruling striking out a law that hasn’t been passed yet), but a press release with a credible analyis of why this nonsense is a flagrant Charter breach would be a good backdrop to the debate (and provide something for people to forward to their MP’s).
PS – I reviewed the CRA draft guidelines to industry in some depth yesterday. My take on them is definitely one of institutional resistance rather than enthusiastic co-operation. If implemented as described in the guidelines, the IGA will do more gumming than biting. Their heart is clearly not in this thing – getting a good court challenge threat out there will help galvanize the will to kill this or gut it to the point of irrelevance.
I know I’m wandering a bit OT here, but I come back to Jatras’ comments: the banks really don’t care about whether the data of one victim or a million is handed over. if I’m right about the CRA guidelines, then I suspect we may be closer to handing almost no data over than a wholesale download. The cost to the banks, though, is the same. The effort of looking – and the requirement to do so forever – is a costly, permanent addition to their overhead. You would think that the present value of eliminating even a few years of that nonsense would make the cost of a proper lobbying effort to defeat this thing seem cheap at twice the price. I honestly don’t think the thought of vigorous resistance has even occurred to them. Not in the interests of their clients, but in their OWN self-interest (the only one I expect them to follow, after all).
I think the banks are simply too interested in protecting their access to the US financial markets and also too afraid of being put into the meat grinder like the Swiss banks have been stuck in for the past several years.
The banks don’t care about people, they only care about profits.
“IRS on the trail of Britons” printed 15 March 2014 in The Times (British newspaper founded in 1785).
My copy was cut from the print edition, but I’ve found an online version (only partially behind their paywall) here:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/money/article4034017.ece.
This article draws from several named sources. Beginning with the existence of CBT and of “accidentals”, and naming a couple of famous Britons from history who would have been affected, it then quotes a wealth manager on green card issues, and another source who expects FATCA to reveal many accidentals, adding that their bills could be huge. Accountants then suggest owning up now, rather than being detected, and a tax specialist goes on to describe the OVDI and its penalties.
My impression of the article was one of absolute restraint from editiorializing, so that a penalty of “27.5 percent of net worth” is spoken as calmly as if it had been “going with one less glass of wine per day”….
[Perhaps one cannot fear starvation who has never faced it!!?]
For all the neutrality of its tone, [which is perhaps not surprising given a readership that includes much of the British legal and accounting professions…] think the article does announce the existence of this our devastating situation, and includes assessments such as “potentially be very costly” and “anyone hoping for leniency is likely to be disappointed”.
Don’t know if any of us will have access to commenting, but I thought you’d like to know of its existence.
I just LOVE how they never consider the possibility of civil disobedience and just filing the “penalties imposed” by the FOREIGN entity IRS into the round file. WHAT are they going to DO exactly? Send SWAT teams all over the world to force accidentals to pay up? How exactly? They don’t even have the budget to carry out their usual duties.
And in the first place how are “they” going to “detect” the accidentals who aren’t even in the system? No SSN and you don’t exist. How are they even going to assess what you supposedly owe? Even IF your bank sends your information to the IRS what can they figure out? All that does is show your bank balance at that time.
Even better, take all your money out of the bank and put it into a credit union…no report, no detection, no nothing!
@GwEvil
So true…. I think it is dawning on me that the US government is acting like a frustrated parent and is threatening “Dickie and Janey” with punishment if they don’t start paying their taxes. Congress is not realizing that only some “kids” are going to tremble and pay up, because they want to come back and visit their parents or may want to move back. A great majority of the Dickies and Janeys will not go back and soon they will realize what you just wrote and do it.
I’m getting a dedicated shredder for brown paper envelopes (and contents) which might or might not arrive from a certain address. I’m a naughty Janey. (gwevil grin)
@Em haha!
IF I ever got a letter from a “certain address” saying something like “it has come to our attention that you were born in the US…blah blah blah blah” I would respond with “So? and your point is….?” just like I have at the border when that has been pointed out. They always look at me like “uhhhhh…” and then I say “I am CANADIAN and I live in CANADA!” end of story. Buh byyyyyyyye.
Here’s a fairly good FATCA article in the Examiner, although I disagree with the Muslim meme which no doubt was only used to attract attention:
http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-tax-gives-muslim-brotherhood-control
This article mentions Isaac Brock Society:
http://www.advisor.ca/tax/tax-news/cra-may-ignore-fatca-trust-rules-147928
“A leaked document appears to reveal the Department of Finance and CRA may deviate from a tax deal struck with the U.S.
Leaked by the Isaac Brock Society yesterday, the document purportedly presents the agency’s interpretation of draft legislation which, if passed, would give force to the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on FATCA signed between Canada and the U.S. on February 5.
Advisor.ca has contacted CRA but has not been able to confirm the document’s authenticity.”…….
IRS Budget Crunch Limiting Use of Foreign Government Data
Patric made a very good comment in a letter to his Representative…
RE: IRS ASKS FOR MORE MONEY FOR FATCA THAN FATCA WILL BRING IN.
Dear Representative Himes,
First, it was a pleasure to have witnessed your Town Hall meeting this past week-end in Stamford and to have participated in it. Thank you for permitting me to vent my passion on the rise of the surveillance state. I was heartened by your response. I remain adamant that there must be a “Congressional Whistleblowers Program”, however, so that we aren’t faced with another Snowden or – more importantly – you and your fellow members of Congress, on whose shoulders all 316 million Americans depend, are no longer lied to or are dealt with in “legalese”.
This email, however, is again about FATCA. Below is a report where the IRS has asked for an additional $1.5 billion to pay for the technology “necessary” to control and regulate the avalanche of documentation from the world’s banks that is required for FATCA to be implemented.
Jim – The JCT only scored FATCA at $800 million! This is another case where the IRS did not follow standing EOs requiring a cost-benefit analysis of legislation/regulations prior to moving ahead. As you know, all of the members of Congress had no idea what this legislation was when it was slipped into the HIRE Act of 2010, because it had absolutely nothing to do with creating jobs (except for IRS bureaucrats).
To date, some 40,000 “delinquent” taxpayers came forward in the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program. The IRS – and Sen. Levin, the Grand Inquisitor behind this whole scheme – claims they collected some $6 billion from it. What they don’t say is that $4 billion of it was for penalties, fees, and interest, leaving some $2 billion in “lost revenue”. Of course, they also don’t say that MOST of these delinquents were actually base INSIDE THE USA, not outside at all! Finally, now that we have these $2 billion in “lost” revenue, it was a windfall and not likely to repeat at all. Hence JCT’s original forecast of only $800 million in “new” revenue (and most of this is pegged for penalties!).
Now the below report that the IRS has actually requested $1.6 billion to manage just the information flow. Add the analysis, compliance, and other overhead and administrative costs and there is NO WAY FATCA will deliver one penny in revenue over its costs.
In the meantime, however, FATCA has already forced families to move back to America, forced more Americans permanently abroad to give up their citizenship rather than face the inevitable harassment of the IRS, seen many Americans lose their jobs, and people kicked out of banks and had mortgages called. AND FOR WHAT?? Nothing!
Jim, you were born, grew up, and then lived overseas as an adult – these things aren’t “theoretic” to you. This is no way for the US government to treat its expatriate community which is in the process of now being decimated as a result. I urge you to bring this up with Speaker Pelosi and stop this nonsense! As you may know, the Republicans have already put “Repeal FATCA” as part of their platform for the Fall. This should NOT be a partisan issue – it is simply common sense to repeal it and engage with overseas Americans in a more constructive, positive way to resolve any concern.
Thank you and your staff, as always, for your kind consideration.
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/03/26/vern-krishna-u-s-steps-up-tax-enforcement-beyond-its-borders/
‘Vern Krishna: U.S. steps up tax enforcement beyond its borders’
March 26, 2014
@Badger
I’m flying out the door, but sent Mr Krishna an email correcting him on a couple of things, namely the 8938 reporting threshold for non-resident USP’s as $200k not $50k, and the fact that RDSP’s, etc are only exempt on reporting for Canadian banks but remain reportable for individuals. The Finance Department has created a lot of confusion over this.
Is the confusion deliberate, so that we’ll keep buying those investments?
Another mistake is that he said CU’s of $75 million in assets are exempt but it should be $175 million.