Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

1,012 thoughts on “FATCA Discussion Thread (Ask your questions) Part One”

  1. bubblebustin,

    Perhaps…

    bubblebustin
    Submitted on 2012/06/29 at 11:47 am

    @just me

    I just listened to the Planet Money podcast. The prognostication firm ‘Eurasia Group’ really intrigued me, so I checked out their “Top Risks for 2012″

    http://eurasiagroup.net/pages/top-risks-2012

    I see they have a sense of humour:

    “Mayan apocalypse

    Just isn’t happening. And if it does, well, sorry.”

    LOL! Between them and the CDC, we’ve got that and zombie apocalypse covered. What is the world coming to?

    I haven’t scoured their website, but I can find no mention of FATCA. Either they didn’t know about it when they we making their predictions or don’t find the ‘neutron bomb of the global financial system’ to be that much of a negative factor in 2012. I’ll keep looking, maybe even drop them an email asking about it.

  2. @calgary 411

    BINGO, Eurasiagroup! That’s who Just Me told me about. I remember their Mayan apocalypse reference, but couldn’t recall when they came out with the prediction. Apparently they do it early in the year they are referring to. Bookmark having another look in early 2013 to see if they mention FATCA, as I suggested they research it in my letter to them some months ago. Here’s a funny piece on the impending Mayan Apocalypse:

    http://www.dailynews.com/entertainment/ci_22091512/hicks-remember-that-mayan-calendar-doomsday-thing-tick?source=most_emailed

  4. IGA flurry shows US is locking down on FATCAA recent flurry of signed IGAs and press releases on ongoing negotiations suggests the US is acting tremendously quickly and even brazenly on FATCA. Almost as if they are trying to get this all nailed down before anyone outside the US government has time to study it and think it through. This is absurd, considering the enormity of what FATCA is trying to do–an enormity that is acknowledged in the IGAs themselves merely as “issues”–issues involving taxpayers’ inability to comply with US law because it would involve breaking the law in their own country. The hubris is breathtaking. But it is virtually invisible as a policy matter because it is all wrapped up in the idea that we are cracking down on the world’s tax cheats, and who could be against that?

  8. @Just Me, bubblebustin,

    Not prognostication, but preview…
    http://www.finextra.com/Community/FullBlog.aspx?blogid=7211

    It’s December 2012 and getting ever closer to that dreaded date….

    No, not the Mayan-calendar ending, but rather the time when ever-increasing due-diligence requirements—BSA/AML, Dodd-Frank, FATCA, and constantly changing implementation rules for these laws—make it impossible to manage without a comprehensive system. This is a fact made all the more urgent given that every enforcement action we’ve seen the last two years has been rooted in due-diligence shortcomings.

  9. @Calgary

    Jonathan Almeida and Allan Bell are among the growing chorus of FATCAnatics who view FATCA as a panacea for all the ails the financial world when it comes to due-diligence. 

  10. Along with Micah Willbrand who posted the Risk.net article about FATCA creating value for FFIs, now is the theme “Opportunity” to get your data house in order.  

     …..the ability to interface into different databases to create a link between the data sets is an essential first step in the cleansing and remediation process. With a more complete picture, you may even be able to conduct a pre-classification of the client, potentially limiting the number of clients your institution has to contact for self-certification or declaration (through W-8 and W-9 forms). It also helps to reduce the potential of a client receiving numerous information requests from different parts of your institution based on the different types of accounts they hold.

    Many of the conference delegates claimed that FATCA was the ideal opportunity – there’s that word again – to collect more information for other areas of the compliance function such as Know Your Customer (KYC) or Customer Due Diligence (CDD). This makes perfect sense – after all, it will cost the same amount of time, effort and budget to collect FATCA-specific information as it would to collect information to comply with both FATCA and CDD / KYC regulations. In this way, financial institutions not only future-proof themselves against more stringent KYC regulations, but they also benefit from a deeper, more insightful Know Your Risk (KYR) process – armed with a richer, more complete, accurate risk profile of their clients and potential reputational exposure.

  11. Crikey, Just Me

    “Of course, all of this is just talk at the moment. Actually putting it into operation is a whole different story. To make this a reality, financial institutions will need to get more acquainted with KYT and KYP – Know Your Technology and Know Your Processes – because to do all of this, you need to automate as much as you can and ensure you have the workflow and processes underpinning it to make it as smooth and efficient as possible.”

    All of this might be splendid if it didn’t involve grinding minnows in the process. Is this Nazi Germany where efficiency in destroying human lives is admirable?

  12. @bubblebustin   re Isle of Man,

    I don’t know about a wing-nut!  That would allow me to be too dismissive.  He is just making his argument for why he had to accept a “cram down”  He is right, as much as I don’t like it!  FATCA is the “tip of the spear” to force a GATCA on the world!

    Honourable Members, the U.S. FATCA is a game changer in relation to transparency and the automatic exchange of information agenda. It will be used as the lever and model by many countries for equivalent information to be provided to them.

    Such is its reach and effect, FATCA may even overtake the proposed changes in the EU Savings Directive. This Government considers, therefore, that automatic exchange of tax information in something like the volume and form required by the USA under FATCA will become part of the international standard.

  14. FATCA Expected to Make a Big Impact on the IRS’s Efforts to Bring U.S. Taxpayers with Undisclosed Offshore Accounts Back into Compliance, Thorn Comments

    Read more: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/12/13/fatca-expected-make-big-impact-irs%E2%80%99s-efforts-bring-us-taxpayers-undisclosed-offshore-acco#ixzz2EyDzx8VZ

    Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Stephen Miller, speaking at the Institute on Current Issues in International Taxation, recently stated that in addition to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the IRS will continue to use all of the enforcement tools available to the IRS to gather information on U.S. taxpayer’s with undisclosed offshore bank accounts, including, but not limited to, treaty requests, John Doe summonses, foreign bank account reports, and other informants

  15. @bubblebustin

    It is a strange mindset of the FCC.  Efficiency of processing the victims is all they concern themselves with!

  16. Son of FATCA Tax agreement with UK defended by Allan Bell @BBCNEWS

    The agreement with the UK government follows the introduction of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the Unites States.

    FATCA was implemented by the US government to clamp down on the growing number of US citizens who were discovered trying to avoid tax by holding bank and wealth accounts overseas.

    Mr Bell admitted the Isle of Man had been under intense pressure to adjust its tax regime for more than a decade.

  17. Channel Islands Rebuff UK’s FATCA-Style Plans. http://bit.ly/TZFbSJ  A crack in the FATCANTICs juggernaut for a global GATCA? FATCASTIC!   Maybe not!

    Jersey and Guernsey have released a joint statement indicating that they will not sign an enhanced Tax Information Exchange Agreement with British authorities unless the UK’s proposed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)-style initiative targets global adoption.

  19. A new headline around the  narrative of “operational and infrastructural efficiency” 

    This is the 3rd in so many days.  I think these FCC types must attend the same compliance complex conferences to receive their “talking points” 

    Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FATCA): Achieving Operational and Infrastructural Efficiency

    Quote:  ”blah, blah, blah, blah” and then this…

    Question: In the case that FATCA sets a global standard for information sharing agreements, what are the risks associated with this?

    SM: Identity theft is the biggest and most prominent risk of information sharing,whether within the USA or at a global level. In today’s world of electronic exchange of sensitive information, a customer’s personal information is ever at risk of being hacked into when moved between systems and institutions. Proper procedures must be developed by financial institutions to guard against such scenarios.

    Also, even though the global financial sphere is more cohesive now than ever before, there still exists many discrepancies in information collection, storage rules and procedures in different countries. Also, several countries have unique privacy laws that forbid personal customer information collection. In light of this, globalized standards threaten creation of multiple standards of information collection and can result in inconsistent application of FATCA regulations. This is already visible through amended information collection and certification requirements spelled out in the recently released FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement models (IGAs), where financial institutions in certain countries can avoid levels of scrutiny while others are not so fortunate.

  20. Nigel Green is blogging again about FATCA…

    FATCA Cost

    It would be interesting to see how much FATCA implementation has cost around the World.  

    Next week sees the publication by HM Treasury of legislation which has already cost the City of London hundreds of millions of pounds and is likely to see the UK financial services industry landed with a massive annual bill for years to come.

    The draft legislation will detail how hundreds of UK financial firms from the biggest banks to the smallest broking houses will be expected to implement the United States’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca).

  21. New York Post: “FATCA the matter is, expat$ will take a hit”

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/fatca_the_matter_is_expat_will_take_WS5XWOkOahL2ABzfnRvzDO

    From the article:

    “Anecdotal evidence suggests that FATCA is already making financial life difficult for overseas Americans, over and above the possible tax bite. Some smaller banks are rejecting new and canceling old expatriate accounts, rather than spend the money to comply with the law. Mortgages are reportedly being denied or called in.”

  22. @John Brown.

    Notice that this article quote Nigel Green who has been blogging on FATCA, and I had just posted his most recent above your link to the New York Post story

  24. @John Brown

    Do you have a face book account?  I don’t, so could not comment. I hate it when they assume everyone must have one, so it is the only alternative they provide.

    I was going to do this quick little comment.

    FATCA a good intention badly applied with many unintended negative consequences.  They never learn, those in Congress with cement between their ears! (credits to @Arrow) 

    The impacts to Americans Abroad is significant, and many have yet to wake up to the fact, that the U.S Passport represents membership in a “Tax, Form and Penalty Club”.  Can you afford it anymore? Time for a serious cost vs benefit analysis of what it means to be a U.S citizen living far away from the Homeland.

    Maybe it is time to pack the bags and move back to Kansas and get on welfare, or ask for divorce so you can be free of the abuser. No other country in the world treats its Citizens the way the US has been been doing during the past 3 years of IRS offshore jihad. It might be time to give it up.  Sad, really.  

    To get rid of a little ingrown toenail of homeland offshore tax evasion, the IRS is shooting off its foot with a FATCA shot gun. 

    This is the most under reported story of the past two years!

    Emailed the web editor and letters to the editor, instead.

  25. I know this has been posted somewhere else, but couldn’t find it quickly, so decided to put it up again.

    This is a new blog that I just became aware of.

    Kenneth Rijock’s Financial Crime Blog

    He wrote this…

    PANAMANIAN BANKS CLOSE FOREIGN COMPANY ACCOUNTS

    I was unable to comment, so emailed him instead.  He did respond, and if I can find where the original post of this is, I will put the response there..

    Found it… Duh! keeping track where all this ‘good stuff’ is stretches my ability to jump between threads.. 🙂

    http://bit.ly/Zb9ACG

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