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.
London’s Reluctant Expat Mayor: Boris Johnson Faces a U.S. Tax Quandary
LAURA SAUNDERS
http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2014/12/05/londons-reluctant-expat-mayor-boris-johnson-faces-a-u-s-tax-quandary/
@Bubblebustin
Basically they are saying… people who know about the program… get in before u get knifed hard… people who have no clue about any of this… are the ones the gov’t will rob of every dime they have… everyone will be treated like criminals… I chat with lots of different people… alot of them do not know about any of this crap… they have the same mindset as me… I ain’t a citizen… what crap I own outside of the US is not their business… they think I am bsing them when I tell them… I direct them to this web site… Sometimes I wonder if it had been better off not knowning anything… because everything I do now with my investments/funds… I hesitate… worry… have deep anxiety… on top of my obsession…. this has also created a large mis-trust of any gov’t… which I never had before because I was raised to believe that the gov’t was there to protect me… boy… was I wrong…
We should be able to trust our governments, US_Foreign_Person. Once trust is lost, it cannot easily be regained.
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
― Thomas Paine
“We’re paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
@ US_Foreign_Person, re: ” Sometimes I wonder if it had been better off not knowing anything”
I suspect that many/most of us associated with Brock, have had this very same thought. Often, when I find myself socializing amongst a group of people, they appear to me to be totally in their own space and time, as though nothing outside can hurt them, and I feel like I have lost some kind of innocence that they still have.
Did any of us know what persecution was before this? For most of us, it’s uncharted territory. It changes a person. You can’t unring the bell.
@Bubble and Kat
Agree. I have never in my life experienced this level of sustained rage combined with terror. On the up side, I certainly have more compassion and understanding of other groups suffering from grossly unfair, undeserved, unwarranted discrimination and the frustration of no one giving a damn. It is difficult for me to move in my former life with the “innocents” as Kat describes. Their concerns just seem trivial, I am just not interested. I find it impossible to “chill”, this mess has consumed every inch of my being and the rage ever present just thinly under the surface. I don’t get to my chores, have gained an appalling amount of weight and, although unjust on my behalf, hate everything American. The only place I can talk about it is with the folks from here, everyone else is sick of hearing about it, they don’t care. Unfortunately it is the ONLY thing I want to talk about. This is actually making me insane.
@Charl
I understand your anger…. but u can not let this be the end all be all of your life… if u let this run your life… the only person u can hurt is yourself… take a step back… take a breath… go for a walk… anything to distract yourself… all this can do is make u a bitter person that no one will want to deal with… what does that solve? Do u want this to define your life? I know I don’t… Having this hang over your head like a dark cloud will solve nothing… we only live once… we do what we can in life… but please… don’t let this consume your life… let it make u have a purpose in life instead… to do better for the next generation… that is how I am choosing to see it…
@US_Foreign_Person and @Whitecat, sometimes I also wonder if it’s actually better to know everything. I fear that knowledge also brings accountability. I also feel that I have lost a certain innocence about the world.
@Charl, I know how you feel. Others have gotten sick of me going on about all this stuff and it’s only really here that I can express all my fears. I will always be grateful to Brock for that.
@Charl
Same here. Exactly the same.
Charl – not insane, just feeling the power of deep emotions which we, civilized folk that we are supposed to be, have been taught to VERY deeply submerge so we will be seen as “polite”.
Breathe deeply for short periods of time several times a day every day, drink lots of water, get out if you can or sit by a window and get some bright sunshine in your life, and – – lastly – – buy lots of celery and carrots (something to use your bare and barred teeth on – – LOL) so you don’t feel you are in the midst of a tsunami of rage 24-7. Just keep up your great work and know that you are not alone (remember, we all have met some amazing articulate dedicated people through this process).
I send you a bouquet of cyber-hugs.
So Lebanese banks say they have bank secrecy still. Though if your an American they ship your stuff out after making you sign saying it’s OK:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Local/2014/Dec-06/280075-banking-secrecy-to-remain-despite-fatca.ashx
@ charl and everybody else
i to know what you are talking about and find myself having to make a consious decision to not bring the subject up when i am around certain people. this issue is in the back of my mind 24-7 and i know people around me just glaze over when i bring it up now after a year of talking about it.
on the up side i have taken the rage i feel and use it productivly at the gym to push myself harder in each workout. at 53 i have discovered that i enjoy powerlifting because at the end of a workout i am totaly exhausted and it gets my mind off of this situation for a couple of hours.
weird i know but hey it works for me and is better for me than drugs or booze…. 🙂
How can anyone ever hope to heal when the US government’s strategy used in dealing with it’s citizens abroad seems to be to increase the beatings until they see an improvement in our morale?
@Bubblebustin,
To be fair we have gone from OVDP (big honking stick they beat you with to streamlined (a stick no bigger than your thumb). Of course the rules are different and streamlined takes your money over a potentially larger base.
@Mettleman, before FATCA, I was an avid fitness freak. Now I am doing well if I get out and walk the dog a couple times a week. But I just cannot find that ‘thing’ to motivate me to get back into to it again, yet I know I would feel so much better if I did…like you say, better than ‘booze and drugs’ which only help you forget the world for a short while.
Charl and others,
I / we absolutely relate to how you are feeling — thank goodness for that understanding here. Now that you *do know* and are no longer cocooned in *not knowing*, this site and your fighting back by standing up for your and others’ rights has likely really kept you sane.
The emotional up’s and down’s to all with this are staggering. This is something I have in my back pocket to read and re-read when I’m feeling least strong — as usual it has come from one person here whose wisdom has sustained me throughout my years at this — USCitizenAbroad:
And, you may find this trivial, but it has helped keep me in the real world each day — the stray, lost dog gentle part-Lab dog we fostered during the Calgary / southern Alberta floods a couple years ago. I know she is one of my therapies for she gets me out for long walks in all kinds of weather for those simple dog needs. She makes me laugh when nothing else does — just digging her nose into the cold, snowy Calgary winter and, with delight, rolling in and tunneling into it or her joy with swimming in the river to fetch a stick in the summer. She asks so little of me but gives me so much. Talk about trust — she has that and returns it significantly. Lucy the Lab, my husband and kids (and a sister in the US), and this site with all the supportive people here who I respect so much are my sanity. I know that and am forever grateful as I plod along to exercise what my free speech and rights for all Canadians and other-country US-defined persons subjected abroad to the injustice of US citizenship-based taxation consequences.
It’s OK, too, to pull back for a short time and catch your breath and regain some perspective. That is good for all of us from time to time.
Thanks for all you have and, hopefully, will continue to add to this fight. To be able to do that effectively, it is important to also take care of yourself the best you can. Expressing, as we so often do here, our strong feelings will help. You / we are NOT insane — you / we are in reality that just needs a bit more balance. Please take special care.
Donating as much as I can (which is not as significant as I wish it could be) as regularly as I can to the Canadian litigation, which I feel is the only real solution, is the other way I can feel I am fighting this injustice. So important for me — http://www.adcs-adsc.ca/
@Calgary, re: ” And, you may find this trivial, but it has helped keep me in the real world each day — the stray, lost dog gentle part-Lab dog we fostered during the Calgary / southern Alberta floods a couple years ago. I know she is one of my therapies for she gets me out for long walks in all kinds of weather for those simple dog needs. She makes me laugh when nothing else does — just digging her nose into the cold, snowy Calgary winter and, with delight, rolling in and tunneling into it or her joy with swimming in the river to fetch a stick in the summer. She asks so little of me but gives me so much”
…not trivial at all, as I am sure Char can attest having furry friends of her own. A year ago, our family adopted a Lab/Shepard/who knows what, from a Quebec animal shelter. She is so sweet, and has a way of keeping us grounded in the here and now. Everyone in our family has benefited emotionally by having her around (except for Lucifur the cat).
@Neill
I did consider the offering of Streamlined as an improvement in the situation and decided that it doesn’t do anything for people with easily discoverable tax liabilities, liabilities that could have been easily avoided had we known about our tax-filing obligations. Yes, the IRS seems willing to forgive you for the penalties for not knowing, but the tax some people will be in the hook for could actually be bankrupting. Streamlined only works for those who actually have nothing to lose (other than thousands to the condors) and is far from being a panacae for what ails the majority of those who fail to be in compliance.
The only thing that would even possibly make CBT work would be to completely eliminate it’s effects through our tax treaties. Then what’ll be the point in keeping it?
@Neill
Streamlined is really just OVDI-lite. The most deadly words someone with a past tax liability being scrutinized for Streamlined could hear would be what the IRS agent asked us:
“Where did the funds come from in your FBAR’s?”
@ Bubblebustin: your phrase:
US government’s strategy used in dealing with it’s citizens abroad seems to be to increase the beatings until they see an improvement in our morale?
It’s so spot on!!! This should be widely copied in media comments!!!
@LM
Can’t take full credit for that, as it’s a simple rephrase of what others have said, “the beatings will continue until morale improves”. Yes, either way, it’s a good one to repeat, thanks.
@ Charl and others I feel the same. Charl, you might as well be speaking for me. I haven’t slept well since I became aware of my situation a few months ago. I never dreamed that I would feel so persecuted living in Canada as a Canadian citizen. Our government is hiding behind the words “we recognize the right of the US to tax its citizens”, they ignore the punishing draconian penalties and life control that the US dishes out in the guise of CBT. This is not about taxation, it is about not being able to get rid of a citizenship imposed on us that we don’t want that comes with tax obligations to a country we consider foreign. This is an absolute nightmare that we should rightly have been able to look to our government for help, instead we have been betrayed.
@Bubblebustin,
There is a constant chant here that we need CBT. CBT will solve everything. It won’t. It’s better. Your foreign non-pension accounts can still be ravaged by PFIC and a bunch of other stuff if you ever want to return to the US. Immigrants with foreign accounts aren’t helped by CBT at all.
Some of us who paid the 27.5% balance penalty sure think it would have helped us a lot if that was 5%. I paid this on top of PFIC and a bunch of other taxes. Can you imagine 27.5% balance + PFIC taxes + 20% accuracy penalty + interest on a bunch of this stuff?
Streamlines is a walk in the park compared to what I had. Sorry.
The Cola Party has been established.
On December 16, 2014 and every year thereafter, American ships shall be boarded and their Cola shall be dumped in the Sea.
Join now and help establish the appropriate candidates and leadership
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1565563347009106/
@Neill
I understand how you got burned as a resident US taxpayer on the accounts you had before living in the US, and I also understand that had you entered Streamlined now, you’d be subject to drastically reduced penalties for the same. That doesn’t change the fact that for USP’s living abroad, Streamlined and OVDP represent the same thing, the taxation of earnings of people who do not enjoy the services that their tax dollars pay for. RBT would change all that. What do you propose that would improve the situation for people like you?