Australia Treasury is seeking submissions from stakeholders on Australia’s Tax Treaties. Deadline 31 October. More details at:
Fix the Tax Treaty: Treasury Tax Treaty Consultation
Fix the Tax Treaty: Treasury Submission
The Australia Treasury site;
and in this article by Helen Burggraf in AmericanExpatFinance.
Thanks, JC, for informing us of this.
Thanks to Mike for finding this article.
As reported by the National Review, a U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that it is ok for the U.S. Department of State to revoke a U.S. passport (to be used e.g., for international travel) if the IRS has certified that the person owes more than $50,000 in federal taxes.
As the Court says: “…the passport revocation serves only to incentivize repayment of the tax debt.”
See the July 20, 2021 ruling.
Do US persons have a right to international travel?
Fabien Lehagre, founder of l’Association des’Américains Accidentels/ the Association of Accidental Americans is instituting a lawsuit, aiming to force the State Department to reopen the services of the US Embassy that handle renunciation / relinquishment requests.
The lawsuit’s purposes are:
➡️ Because this action will allow us to publicize the fact that the State Department is depriving tens of thousands of people of a fundamental right.
➡️ Because this action will allow us to make the link with our first complaint which aims to make it free to obtain a certificate of loss of nationality.
➡️ Because this action will allow us to shed light on the reasons why tens of thousands of citizens who have American nationality want to renounce American nationality: discrimination induced by FATCA, impact of Citizenship Based Taxation, difficulty in investing as a US Citizen.
➡️ Because the fees necessary to finance this litigation are very low compared to the real cost of a lawsuit in the United States.
PLEDGE SUPPORT and/or CONTACT Fabien for further information at this link!
EndFATCA is fighting to end FATCA and discrimination against EU/US duals citizens and US citizens in Europe, as well as remove barriers to renunciation.
They have previously submitted a petition and appeared several times before the EU Parliament in the past five years. They are now presenting a supplemental petition to the European Parliament on September 2nd. Any resident of the EU, or any person with EU citizenship who resides anywhere in the world, can sign the petition. Please add your support! (You can also read about the Petition on the EU Parliament’s wehsite: Petition No 0323/2021)
The 13 requests in the Petition are also briefly described at this link
As well as Europeans, EndFATCA’s website is of interest and use to US persons and FATCA fighters around the world, as it also includes access to 1300 supporting documents and a list of all important initiatives around the world against FATCA.
Perhaps all Canadian banks routinely send out requests, at online account sign-in, to their customers to obtain info on tax residency — and this is old news.
Anyway, this morning I received this online request, for the first time, while trying to sign into my online account at my Canadian bank. I am a long-term customer at the bank:
“Hello STEPHEN,
Request to validate your tax residency information
To comply with Canadian tax law, we’re required to have clients validate that their tax residency information we have on file is correct and complete.
Our records show that your tax residency information needs to be confirmed.
Here are the next steps you need to take
• Online Banking: Select Customer Services > Change your tax residency
• Mobile Banking: Select Customer Services > Personal information > Change your tax residencyPlease review your tax residency information now and update as required.
I understand
Tax residency is a method used by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and by other countries to determine how much tax you should pay. Most countries, including Canada, determine taxes based on the amount of time you spend in the country, rather than your citizenship. For instance, some Canadians spend the winter months outside of Canada. The U.S., however, taxes all U.S. citizens as U.S. residents. It is your responsibility to determine your tax residency status in other countries.
[Customer clicks on "I understand" and is then asked three questions:]
Are you a tax resident of Canada? Yes/No
Are you a U.S. person for tax purposes? Yes/No
Do you pay taxes in any other country? Yes/No
By selecting continue I declare, as required by Canadian law, that the tax residency information and U.S. person status (including my Tax ID number) are to the best of my knowledge and belief, correct and complete. Failure to provide may result in my account information being reported to the relevant authority and I may be subject to a penalty under the Income Tax Act.”
The Institute of Tax Law at Queen Mary University’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies in London, UK, will host a panel discussion, via Zoom, on the topic of “the Taxation of Expatriate and Cross-Border Individuals,” featuring a number of experts on the subject, including QMUL’s Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in International Tax Law, Bernard Schneider, Edoardo Traversa, a tax and European law criminology professor at Belgium’s Université Catholique de Louvain, as well as three of SEAT’s co-founders: John Richardson, Karen Alpert and Laura Snyder.
The Discussion will be June 29th, 4 to 6 pm British Summer Time (5 to 7pm Central European Summer Time, 11am to 1 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time). This online discussion is free and open to all. Registration is required. Full information at Stop Extraterritorial American Taxation (SEAT).
Excellent podcast today, in which Peter Paulsen interviews international tax lawyer John Richardson on “The Challenges Faced by [Americans Abroad] and the Prospects for Change.” John explains the various interlocking reasons why the difficulties of US citizens abroad worsened critically with FATCA, and gives specifics of the problems facing US citizens abroad as a result.
This following statement, regarding the Isaac Brock Society, really stuck me because it reminded me of how each of us, by adding pieces of information, not to mention some very serious original research, have built a really big and useful repository. I want to thank everyone who’s contributed to the site — even if you only made one comment, that may have been a very useful addition to the compendium.
“To this date, there is no site that contains the volume of research, the sort of meticulousness of discussion on these issues . . . . And so, it has been a very, very good source of education … comfort .. meeting place .. for people whose lives have been turned up and down by these issues.”
Isaac Brock Society is mentioned between approximately 22.30 and 25.00.
BUT this podcast is really worth a full listen – concisely and clearly covers the egregious situation as it is in May 2021.
Laura Snyder, Karen Alpert and John Richardson point out the disparities between domestic and overseas persons in US tax policies and procedures in a detailed new paper in TaxNotes Federal, Mission Impossible: Extraterritorial Taxation and the IRS. It covers a lot of ground very clearly and also includes a terrific chart, “Comparison of IRS Services for Domestic and International Taxpayers,” illustrating these disparities at a glance. This paper is also featured in an article in AmericanExpatFinance.
[BTW, THANKS for the Thursday afternoon donation!]
The below is a Notice of Constitutional Question” just sent by Appellants Gwen and Kazia to alert Attorney Generals in all of the Canadian Provinces and Territories of our upcoming trial in Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal.
It provides a very brief summary of the arguments and the remedy our appellants want.
If you don’t like Canada’s FATCA IGA legislation, please DONATE to help pay our legal expenses.
“NOTICE OF CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
The applicants challenge the constitutional validity of:
1. Sections 263-269 of the Income Tax Act R.S.C. 1985, c.1 (5th Supp.) and
2. The Canada-United-States Enhanced Tax Information Exchange Agreement Implementation Act, which is s. 99 and Schedule 3 of the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No1, S.C. 2014, c.20
(Collectively the “Impugned Provisions”)
Further, the Applicants seek a remedy pursuant to s.52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada ACT (U.K.), 1982, c. 11 that the Impugned provisions are of no force or effect to the extent that they violate s. 8 of the Charter and cannot be saved by s.1.
The question is to be argued on a date to be set [Court is now deciding on the date]
The following are the material facts giving rise to the constitutional question:
1. The impugned provisions operate to compel banks to act as agents for the government in the collection of private information from people who the banks believe have indicia of US citizenship.
2. Those same people are compelled to provide private information to the banks.
3. That information is transmitted from the banks to the CRA and from the CRA to the IRS.
4. The IRS can use that information for the enforcement of its tax laws including for the prosecution of tax evasion.
5. The compelled collection and dissemination of this information is from persons who might never have lived in the United States, who might have citizenship to another country, and who might have no economic, social, familial, cultural or moral ties to the United States.
6. The purpose of the Impugned Provisions is simply to facilitate the interests of the US tax authority.
The following is the legal basis for the constitutional question, as elaborated in the Appellants’ Memorandum of Fact and Law attached to this Notice of Constitutional Question as Schedule A:
1. The privacy in the compelled information is constitutionally protected through section 8 of the Charter and the compelled collection and dissemination of that information constitutes an unreasonable seizure under section 8.
2. The trial judge erred in law in finding that the Impugned Provisions do not violate the rights guaranteed by section 8 of the Charter.
3. The trial judge erred in law by considering factors under the section 8 Charter determination which were irrelevant to that section and, instead, to be properly considered under section 1 of the Charter.”
Dated: March 22, 2021; sent to Attorney General of Canada (who we are suing) and the Attorney Generals of all of the Provinces and Territories of Canada
