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.
@calgary411,
Russell Brand is a nutter. He has exactly the same mindset as the people who want to take your stuff with FATCA, Fincen 114, PFIC and the like.
The pope likely want to take your stuff as well but I am not sure of that.
Russell Brand is most likely ADHD and on the end of some spectrum from little old me — but I’m not so sure he is a nutter. He may want to take my stuff and yours but perhaps he would see the absurdity of it. Has he been diagnosed? He even stands up for the 92 year-old who has received arrest summons from the city of Fort Lauderdale for feeding the homeless. I connect with people who have the guts to speak out about that — or else what is this world at all?
Rand Paul and Martin Short (born in Hamilton and still a Canadian, but became a naturalized US citizen) are on Bill Maher tonight. Anybody who wants to take a shot at an Overtime question can post it here:
Remember to keep them short!
RE: Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfellel Johnson is a Conservative, and will be standing as a Conservative Party candidate for Parliament in the upcoming UK elections in 2015.
It was the Conservatives who silently pushed the US/UK IGA through Parliament in 2013, although at the time, Boris was not a member of Parliament.
It is my understanding that Boris can trace his direct lineage back to King George II. King George II was the grandfather of King George III, who is therefore a distant relative of Boris.
Ironic?
@ calgary411& Neill
RE: Russell Brand — I found him strange at first but then I actually started to listen to him (his accent intrigues me). Now I’m quite impressed with the degree of empathy he has for what the elites consider to be the untermenschen and I rather like his sense of humour. Guess if he’s a “nutter” then I am too. He is a bit fidgety so ADHD might just be a possibility but no matter. The world needs all kinds of people, maybe even the more benign of the psychopaths. I was reading awhile back that psychopathy is on a sliding scale and some of this nature are beneficial because they can stay detached in an emotionally charged situation and produce good outcomes. Can’t believe I just showed some empathy for psychopathy. Hmmmm.
Swiss banker not held responsible for his client’s decisions to evade US taxes. I would think that FATCA could be fought in the same grounds!
http://taxconnections.com/taxblog/the-weil-not-guilty-verdict-road-map-for-future-criminal-defense-strategies/#.VGZz9Ig76rU
Thanks, EmBee. I agree.
And, I actually KNOW I am perceived a nutter by those formerly close to me — I’ve come out to say what I need to say on this subject and out of my introversion more than I ever thought possible — perhaps my age now excuses me for some of my nutter behaviour. I don’t gotta please no one (as one good friend used to tell me: “everyone thinks Carol is such a “nice” person” — as she listened to some of my rants before all this US stuff. Unfortunately, that very special friend is no longer alive but, if she were, I know she’d be cheering me and all of us here on. She lived in many parts of the world – luckily she could never have been deemed a *US Person*.
Calgary 411: RE “Dear America” image
LOVE IT!!!!!
LOVE IT!!!!!
@Neill,
thanks for finding and posting that treasure trove of the FOIA results obtained by Brager;
http://www.bragertaxlaw.com/previously-unreleased-irs-guidelines-for-fbar-audits.html
Lots to read and ponder. Hope Just Me gets a look at it – I’ll put a duplicate link on his thread here, in case it might help anyone looking at that thread http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/01/28/the-ovdi-drudgery-for-minnows/
@Bubblebustin
I never understood how a banker was responsible… if he went to the US & carried the money out… ok.. that I get… but to blame someone who didn’t do that… makes no sense to me… This maybe stupid logic… so jail a doctor who gives u legal medicine… cause the medicine didn’t work but since he was in charge… it was his fault… ok… I am reaching…
@calgary411
I rather be known as a nutter then a person who was screwed by the system & was broke… u are helping… everyone u school learns about the mistakes…. I have learned a great deal from everyone’s experience & thoughts… I thank u…
@Badger
Unfortunately Just Me disengaged from several threads because of spam, maybe even that one. I will tweet it to him for back-up 🙂
@Neill
That is a great find. I thought I had sent you a big thumbs up about it, but it doesn’t seem to have posted.
Is there anyway of organizing the discussion of the various documents, so it doesn’t clog up the media thread?
@LM
The idea of the taxes being a tariff was an interesting one. It made me think again about a possible WTO angle. The norm at the WTO is residence-based taxation and they can enforce rules against hidden protectionist angles. They are the one international organization with teeth it can use on the U.S.
Thanks, US_Foreign_Person,
Me too — I’ve certainly learned from the generosity of the expertise, experiences and thoughts of the people who hang out at this site.
Publius and Neill,
I’ll put up a post of the find in order to keep comments together as people digest and report on the documents they read at that link. Thanks!!
@badger @Neill
There is a lot of interesting information in those documents released to Brager. There are a couple that refer to amended Quiet Disclosures and how they are being instructed to look for penalty revenue on unfile information returns and FBARs. So much for the so-called “low risk” route of filing amended returns to get into compliance.
On german TV the other night, there was a program about the fallout after the stock market crash in 1939. The fallout in GERMANY. It showed all the people who went bankrupt, the interconnectedness, and the resulting poverty with their own recession – all a result of the depression in America…. with the well-known rise of Hitler in the aftermath.
Could it be that the whole world wants America to remain afloat for their own survival, and if the expats have to finance them, thats Ok with everybody else to save their own economies? This would mean that cries for RBT will fall on deaf ears everywhere in the world.
And I wonder what percentage of all taxes collected are the result of penalties paid by expats (because as we know- it isn’t the taxes). How much revenue do the expats actually generate for America in comparison to the rest of the taxes they take in? 5 billion from expats – how much does America take in in all?
Pingback: The Isaac Brock Society | Can anyone review documentation obtained by a law firm in their Freedom of Information (FOI) Request ?
@Kathy @All
There were a few posts regarding FATCA/CBT and Americans no longer being able to survive financially outside the US borders on Maher’s Overtime question board. He had Rand Paul on and never asked him one question about this. A few weeks ago Elizabeth Warren was on, again many questions submitted, no questions asked.
This is what I do NOT understand: Is this concept so unbelievable that they think we are conspiracists and just dismissed as lunes? Or do Americans just not care that they are basically no longer free to leave their country and survive financially abroad? Students unable to study abroad? Do they not care about exports? Do they not care about their nation extorting other nations? I simply do not get it. None of the media programs I have written to have paid one iota of attention to this. Really, is it not that big of a deal to them? Maybe so. Am I being overly dramatic in approach in begging them to listen therefore get shut out? Every US TV news media show I have written to I have included credible references. What am I missing here?
I know they don’t give one fig about us so my approach toward these venues is always US centric. They still don’t seem to care. What might be a new approach to garner some attention to this within the US TV media? (Grrrrr, I just watched the Overtime segment, again ever hopeful, again diminished into a rant of very naughty words. This mess has changed me from a quiet refined old lady to a ranting potty mouthed lunatic. The rage I hold just below the surface is palpable and unleashed all too readily these days.) I am now starting to understand why Snowden did what he had to do to get some attention. No one is listening!
@Charl
There is a meeting of the big bosses in Australia right now and one of their main topics is tax evasion.
How to manage taxes in a global economy is a huge topic. They don`t care about collateral damage, and the use of CBT by America doesn’t seem to bother anybody else either.
@Charl & all
Has anyone tried to contact Glenn Greenwald? His connection with Edward Snowden is deep and broad and he REALLY “gets it” about the US’s paranoid pension for surveilling it’s own people without warrant, information fishing expeditions and data-building, criminalizing, etc. Doesn’t FATCA fall into the exact same category of serious privacy intrusion on their own citizens (despite the public facade of “catching tax cheats”)?
We have so much information about the REAL reasons for FATCA and (and the REAL effect). Charl (and others with great articulation skills), I think you should give this a try; certainly he would be an ally and even if he has no time, he may be willing to connect us with other investigative journalists who might try to blow this open inside the US of A.
As to the topic being absent on US TV and radio talk shows, I guess it is just easier to look at violence somewhere afar in the Middle East or Asia or Africa (NOT ON MY SHORES, we’re # 1, you know…..) or well-trod within-US issues such as race relations, economic problems & gun-control (that never change so it can be discussed again and again next week after another local crisis before they move on to the next local crisis). Maybe FATCA needs a “Million-Expat March” and convergence on the Washington Mall?
Charl,
I relate to the Jekyl and Hyde all this brings out in little old ladies.
As we see over and over in the media and comments to articles, the *homelander* thinks those of us “leaving” (in fact we left long ago — they don’t get that we are NOT in the U.S. and leaving in the here and now, present, from that country) is just a small trickle compared to the vast numbers of those knocking on the entrance door to the USA.
Proper investigative journalism (and what I was taught and thought as the freedom of the press) instead of the PR of press releases and press meetings telling journalists what they can report is a thing of the past.
Take care!
Here’s one in Reason, a libertarian magazine:
http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/17/kiss-your-financial-privacy-go
@Charl
I believe Snowden’s complaint is everyone’s listening! 🙂
Another new one:
“I Am Canada, Hear Me Roar”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/11/15/i-am-canada-hear-me-roar-mr-president/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/11/15/i-am-canada-hear-me-roar-mr-president/
Robert W. Wood, Contributor 1 hour ago
You’re right, it is sad. I find the accidental citizen who thought they were no longer American one of the most disturbing situations. I have seen no suggestion that the U.S. would truly go after such an individual. But there is also no indication that they would not.
Is this an opening? Mr. Wood usually seems more sympathetic in the comments than in his articles. At least he published this letter.