For those of you who are not members of ACA, and not on their email list, I wanted to alert you to the April edition of the ACA News Update for some interesting new information. The top item on the list is this:
Monthly Archives: May 2012
The Pale King
Especially since my attention unnecessarily spiralled into the vortex of the latter stages of 2011 OVDI, I have been wanting to read The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Even without the IRS theme, I would have gravitated in that direction because (1) the book is a sizeable unfinished novel (2) the author committed suicide.
New Zealand Bankers Association on FATCA
Good comments:
Violation of NZ Human Rights Law
Violation of NZ Privacy Law
No Ability under NZ law to withold tax
Cannot comply with FATCA under NZ law
Suggest “Intergovernmental Agreement” (I am getting tired of this)
http://bsmlegal.com/PDFs/NZBA.pdf
There is an insert in the middle from the Australian Bankers Association
Over half-a-million hits and counting!
In case you haven’t noticed, our ticker surpassed 500,000 hits some time last evening! Not bad for a blog that just started on December 12th. Here’s to everyone who has contributed and/or dropped-by since that time. Cheers!
Go back to Canada, you hoser
Vancouver pastor Samuel Lee identified as man hassled by rude Seattle residents
It used to be that Canadians were more of a curiosity to Americans than anything else, but as the US loses ground and Canada manages to keep afloat, we may see more of this if only on a more subtle level. Those in US tourism know what’s at stake here, but as the average person there flounders it will be harder for those people to see the forest for the trees.
US taxman's long Arm Threatens Costly Kiwi Headaches
This isn’t much, but it is the first popular media story on FATCA that I have seen in NZ. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any opportunity for Kiwis to provide comment feedback. I have sent an email to the Editor to see if contact with the journalist is possible, and see if additional news reporting is in the offing. They have barely cracked a window open on the story, but as I found out when I did a search for FATCA on the Seattle Times today, there was nothing there either! So maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on my Kiwi friends. They now know more than Seattlites do! Thanks to Moby for drawing my attention to it.
Your U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network: hard at work Enforcing Crime
By any reasonable estimate, there’s millions of U.S. persons living overseas, while only 400,000 FBARs get filed per year — but in 2011, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had the audacity to pretend they were getting nearly 100% compliance. The surprisingly-humourous Federal Register has the full story: “Amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act Regulations — Reports of Foreign Financial Accounts”. 36 Federal Register 37: 10234–10246, 24 February 2011. Relevant section begins at page ten thousand, two hundred and forty-four:
One More Free
Well today one of my children was able to renounce U.S. citizenship. The monkey of U.S. citizenship is now off the back of one more Canadian citizen.
Obama brings Romney's offshore accounts into the campaign
https://twitter.com/#!/davjolly/status/197967762587533315
https://twitter.com/#!/davjolly/status/198046445251727360
On December 6, 2011, Barack Obama began his campaign for re-election with a speech in Kansas. That speech made it clear that this campaign will be about “class warfare”. Obama refined this theme in January 2012 State of The Union Address. Obama’s strategy is simple and clear. It’s to tell the people of America that they can use the democratic process to elect Obama, who will in turn transfer wealth to them. Continue reading
Transcript of the one and only Congressional hearing ever held on FATCA
I wanted to finally provide the transcript of the one and only Congressional hearing ever held on FATCA before it passed into law.
http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings/transcript.aspx?NewsID=10411
Observations:
Even in 2009 there was significant opposition to the law
Congress really didn’t know what the hell they were voting on there were almost no witnesses invited other than from Treasury. ACA for example wasn’t invited to attend. Almost none of the committee members asked any relevant questions.
The public service of the US Treasury Department badly wanted this legislation however, by not informing Congress that much about it I suspect it will be public servants who will walk the plank when the you know what hits the fan.