Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Tag Archives: U.S. tax compliance

FATCA Fact Finding Forum Report – Part III

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. FATCA Fact Finding Forum Report Part III

We took a break after Professor Christians’ presentation and began again with a brief talk by Anglican Archbishop Dorian Baxter who is the President of the Progressive Canadian Party. He related a very funny story of a conversation with an older member of his congregation who lamented that we no longer had Steve Jobs, nor Johnny Cash or Bob Hope. They talked a bit about this and then applied to current state of Canada – we have no jobs, no cash and no hope!

He emphasized that we need to hold the CDN govt accountable to the standard of the Westminster model of Parliamentary Democracy. This relates to a core principle of the Progressive Canadian Party and the illegal “merger” of the Canadian Alliance Reform Party (aka “CRAP”). This provoked much laughter. Then he applied the Westminster ideal to the fact that FATCA is an invasion of CDN Autonomy as well as the Canadian Treasury as it is a money grab of millions of dollars from Canadian families, their children and their children’s children.

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FATCA Fact Finding Forum Report – Part II

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Part II

We then started with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q9QoHXt6I4

The emphasis on how bizarrely the indicia rules could be interpreted began to be a framework of the discussion.

We then heard from Professor Allison Christians. She studied tax law in the US and has an LLM from New York City University. Point was made that this university has some sort of monopoly on producing international tax lawyers.

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FATCA Fact-Finding Forum Report – Part 1

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I’ve just returned from the program. I’m not sure I can really catch all of the most important aspects but the good news is, there were two people recording the proceedings and one plan is to post on YouTube, so you all will be able to hear the presentations as well as capture the spirit and intensity of the meeting. I was quite struck by the difference in how it feels to connect with others about this in the way we are accustomed to; i.e., in the sort of impersonal, anonymous feel to posts on the internet and how much stronger the impact of peoples’ words are, when you are actually experiencing them, face-to-face. Hopefully, this will be the first of many, many more meetings for those of us trying to get FATCA repealed.Please note that I am trying to paraphrase what was said and any mistakes or wrong impressions given are due to my failings. It is impossible to correctly quote everything that was said. I am refraining from mentioning any personal information that was given, though awareness of this during the meeting strongly influenced the impact each speaker had.

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June 15 has come and gone and IRS has failed to provide promised procedures – Does the IRS really want compliance?

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Introduction: This post applies only to people who are U.S. persons (citizens, green card holders, etc.). Those who are long term residents of other countries and who have become citizens of that country should first investigate whether they are a U.S. person before doing anything. This may be the best advice you will get. Investigate the status of your U.S. citizenship.

The Compliance Problem:

Many U.S. citizens abroad want to come into compliance with U.S. tax laws. As Steven Mopsick has so aptly noted: Continue reading →

U.S. citizens abroad are disabled from retirement planning, I think – Contribute to the knowledge

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Subject to applying for an extension, your U.S. tax return was due this past Friday June 15. During tax season, the discussion of the problems of citizenship-based taxation have become louder and louder. After many discussions with U.S. citizens abroad, I have concluded that:

There is not a single investment vehicle outside the United States that will not plant the seeds of future U.S. tax problems. These problems if not attended to early (translation they must be eradicated) will eventually grow so big that: Continue reading →

Almost no U.S. Persons abroad properly report their foreign retirement accounts on Form 3520

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Through a recent post at TaxProf Blog, I learned about the IRS’ Statistics of Income Bulletin. This finally gave me the lead on a figure in which I’d been interested for a long time: the number of Form 3520 filers. Unfortunately, the statistics are only released once every few years, and the next set aren’t scheduled for publication until December 2012. But you can see the figures for 1998, 2002, and 2006 here on the IRS website. The latest number: U.S. Persons filed a grand total of 1,952 Form 3520s and 3,819 Form 3520-As in 2006.

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"There are alternative approaches to remedying past non-compliance" says KPMG

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badger

@all, the article below just appeared in the Hamilton Spectator re ‘voluntary disclosures’ . with a glancing mention of FATCA. The authors are from KPMG.
http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/694426–americans-in-canada-beware-of-irs-bloodhounds
Tue Mar 27 2012
by Jeffrey Brown and Elena Hanson
(“Jeffrey Brown is a partner and Elena Hanson is a senior manager with KPMG’s US and Cross-Border Tax Group in Hamilton.”)

“Americans in Canada beware of IRS bloodhounds”
“Whether they know it or not, most of the roughly one million “United States persons” who reside in Canada remain subject to US income tax. US persons include US citizens, green card holders and even some “accidental Americans” who don’t realize they are subject to US tax. Non-compliance with US tax laws among US persons in Canada remains widespread, according to analysis by accounting firm KPMG, and has recently become subject to intense enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). While the time has come for US persons to “get back into the US tax system”, there are alternative approaches to remedy past non-compliance……………” Continue reading →