This reminds me of the t-shirt that I used to wear as a kid to protest the war in Iraq. It had all of the flags of the world with the US flag crossed out. Not much has changed since, apparently. But, what more can one expect from a two-party system?
Robert W. Wood
10/25/2012 @ 11:05PM |141 views
It’s cute to see movie portrayals of clumsy but good-natured Americans not fitting into some über sophisticated situation. But hearing big banks say thanks but no thanks to opening a checking, savings or investment account? Not cute. Being turned down for a mortgage because you’re American? That’s even worse. See Wary Swiss Banks Shun Yanks.
Sure, we might think a South American drug lord who is turned down is getting his just desserts. But these days, anyone but Americans seems likely to be welcomed into foreign banks. Welcome to FATCA, the global U.S. law that applies in earnest in 2013. Americans everywhere are facing ostracism and some are voting with their feet…
Read more Forbes
Show your support to the contributor and comment away. The article currently only has one comment from American abroad:
It is unbelievable that Americans living and working overseas are now being refused bank accounts and even mortgages, all over the world. The US system of citizenship taxation is completely wrong and has extremely negative effects, not only on Americans living overseas but on the US economy itself.
Imagine if California taxed every person ever born in the state of California, even those who had long ago moved to New York, Louisiana or Texas. That’s citizenship-based taxation.
And if California made every bank in every state of the whole country report directly to the California authorities the names and addresses of any client of that bank who had been born in California. That’s FATCA.
And if California imposed heavy fines and penalties on anyone who they discovered had NOT been reporting their income and their bank accounts to California, even if that person didn’t owe any taxes to California because they were paying hefty taxes to, say, New York. That’s the FBAR scandal.FATCA should be repealed as quickly as possible before it blows up the world financial sector and even worse, has an extremely negative impact on the US economy overall, as foreigners pull out of US ventures and investments and take their money elsewhere.
*I have posted the following comment on the Forbes article directly on that website:
Three words describe FATCA: American Fiscal Imperialism. It directs that financial institutions outside of the United States shall violate the privacy laws of the nations where they are located and reveal, not only to a third party, but to a foreign power, the private details of all their accounts held by persons wit US citizenship. This incoludes dual nationals born in the US with foreign citizenshp at birth as well as persons born outside of the US to one or more US parents, even though they have never held a US passport, do not have US Social Security numbers, have never visited the US, speak no English and have no knowledge that they are considered by the US to be its citizens.
All such persons are subject to US taxation on their world-wide income therefore obligated to sbmit FBAR and FATCA resports disclosing their financial assets outside of the US. The penalties for failure to comply and for submitting reports that are not 100% accurate, are so massive as to totally destroy such persons, thus making it impossible for them to survive living abroad
@all, may I suggest you check out today’s Franco American Flophouse, “The Tax Implications of a Life Lived Abroad”:
http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.fr/2012/10/the-tax-implications-of-life-lived.html
Posted is a video of a stage dramatization of what a US person may experience throughout his life abroad.
Some good comments on this Robert Wood’s article…
Read Julian Hudson’s, which you will have to expand to find, as Robert has not called it out, but it is right on point, in my opinion.
And Bubble Bustin, that video has also been posted on IBS
Here it is again. Maybe I should make it a separate post…
Hot off the press from Swissinfo.ch: “More Americans give up passports over tax”
Quoted from the article:
“The US embassy to Switzerland told swissinfo.ch that it had processed 411 renunciations in the first nine months of this year. This compares to 180 Americans giving up their passports in 2011.”
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/More_Americans_give_up_passports_over_tax.html?cid=33824180
Another article on FATCA pushing expats to renounce:
From Reason.com: “U.S. Law Pushes Overseas Americans To Renounce Citizenship”
Quoted from the article:
“The majority of these US expats are being prompted to consider this due to the complexity of the reporting process to the IRS, plus the threats of heavy penalties, including for previous, inadvertent non-compliance.”
http://reason.com/24-7/2012/10/23/us-law-pushes-overseas-americans-to-reno
@John Brown.
Thanks for the alert to those.
One of the links in the Swissinfo article was to an interview back in February with the US ambassador to Switzerland, where he reveals that 100 US citizens renounced there in 2011.
‘There were enormous concerns around the world initially [about Fatca]. The Swiss get credit for being the very first – the canary in the coal mine – to pay attention to the possible unintended consequences. I have a number of times fed back to the State Department specific concerns raised by Swiss bankers and members of Swiss government about Fatca. And the good news is the US government is taking it seriously.’
Serious enough to stay the course, it seems.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/expat_woes/Ambassador_believes_worst_may_be_over_in_tax_row.html?cid=32123062
*Bubblebustin, Swissinfo says that 180 renounced in 2011.
Bloomberg wrote that 500 renounced in 2011:
Who is right, who is wrong? It is said that the embassy increased its staff and reduced the wait time. If there were 1700 renunciations and most of these occurred in Switzerland, wouldn’t the 500 number sound a bit more realistic? At this point, I’m not sure if reality and FATCA are compatible.
*I congratulate Mr. Wood on bringing these issues in front of the readers of Forbes. I sincerely hope it helps. I live and work outside the United States, and I know from my day-to-day experience that the number of expatriations is increasing rapidly all over Europe. I do have one further observation about the hopeless plight of US persons living outside the US. While I don’t expect there will be much sympathy, do have a thought for the persons who have been living and working abroad for many years and whose homes and pensions mean they have a net worth in excess of $2m. Not only are they subject to the “exit” tax if they give up their citizenship, but this always gives them pause: Their US citizen or resident children or grandchildren will pay a special tax if they receive a gift or inheritance from a parent or grandparent who expatriated with a net worth in excess of $2m. It doesn’t matter that the expatriate paid the “exit” tax, it doesn’t matter how many years have passed since the expatriation, and it doesn’t matter if the inheritance represents money the expatriate earned after giving up US citizenship. Congress considers it right and proper to punish the children for the lawful acts of their parents and grandparents.
@Londoner,
Might as well add the Financial News story out yesterday with some insights I have not seen published elsewhere…
Fatca faces delay after bilateral disagreements
The IGAs and the FATCA delays might be an Achilles heel we are looking for. We can Hope! 🙂
If you haven’t read James Jatras comments, I would encourage you to read them ALL 🙂
.
@SwissPinoy:
In a July 2012 interview with “Der Bund” newspaper, the US Ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer, stated that fewer than one-half the 500 dual-citizen number mentioned by Bloomberg gave up their US citizenship in Switzerland in 2011. Although the US Ambassador may indeed be correct with his approximate figure, this does not distract from the general lack of credibility of the Federal Register reported renunciations. The question with the Federal Register renunciation figures is the degree to which they are incorrect. Is it only 10 or 20%, or is it a factor of 2 or 5, i.e., gross underreporting. Excerpt from the “Der Bund” interview follows:
Der Bund: “Wie viele schweizerisch-amerikanische Doppelbürger haben die
US-Staatsbürgerschaft aufgegeben, weil sie auch in den USA
steuerpflichtig sind?
Beyer: Weniger als die Hälfte der 500, die kürzlich von der Agentur Bloomberg genannt wurden.”
http://www.derbund.ch/ausland/amerika/In-den-USA-ist-man-auf-viele-Arten-frei-zu-tun-was-man-will/story/23305769
In an interview with the “Weltwoche” weekly newspaper dated 24 October 2012, the US Ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer, is quoted as saying: “I’m proud of my Swiss bank account.” (See quote under his image).
http://www.weltwoche.ch/weiche/hinweisgesperrt.html?hidID=546259
It would indeed be a slap in the face and perhaps a diplomatic provocation to cancel his bank account here while he’s still the US Ambassador to Switzerland. On the other hand, he would then know first-hand the pain and suffering of his fellow citizens who have had long-standing bank relationships unceremoniously cancelled due simply to the fact that they were born in the USA and not in Somalia or any other country in the world.
I’ll plan to obtain a copy of the printed interview and advise of any relevant passages in the coming days.
*Innocente, if the embassador lied, as possibly ordered by the Department of State, so the numbers were smaller to better match the possibly smaller numbers reported by the Federal Register renunciation figures, for the benefit of FATCA and demorepublican election prospects, then nobody would be able to prove otherwise since the data is confidential.
On the other hand, some people cannot afford to renounce due to the exit tax and others are waiting for a miracle, making the 1700 figure from last year a reasonable possibility.
If the slaves of the demorepublican monarchy vote for Romney with the hope that he’ll wage a costly war against Iran to increase the national debt further, then Donald Beyer’s account with Credit Suisse will be closed when he leaves Switzerland, unless the monarchy helped him to earn millions that he can stash away in it. Some argue that dishonesty pays big money, while honest, hardworking Americans in Switzerland are getting their accounts closed for stating that they are still US persons.
By the way, would you be willing to have an Isaac beer at a local pub one of these days?
Wow, I never knew Beyer was such a douchebag:
Silence, slave. If you complain you will just make it worse.
*ConfederateH, some don’t like it that we renounced either. They don’t seem happy no matter what we do. But, that’s fine. I’m currently using the time I used to spend trying to figure out how to do US taxes to explore securities instead, and that’s one heck of a lot more fun!
Indonesian equity prices increased 917%. Are those off-limits to US persons?
Does anyone have some solid information for FATCA implementation in Canada? It seems every banking institution has been told ‘mums the word’ when it comes to questions from there clients (me) regarding there involvement.
The last date I heard was Jan 01, 2013….so it is slightly over a month away and still not documentation that I could take to a lawyer to see how to better protect myself.
Or…..is this not going to affect Canada as we are considered an IGA and will be handled between the Governments?
@mach73,
We have seen nothing in the media, but this has been posted by Arrow on the subject (on this very informative, encouraging post):
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/10/24/jim-jatras-responds-to-isaac-brock-society-on-fatca/
I tend to agree with Hazy’s conclusions on the Maple site to these *once again* delays:
@SP: I have been looking for some Asian ETF’s, but the majority of them are priced in dollars and managed by US financial institutions. Maybe FATCA will put an end to that and also all the SWIFT transactions flowing through New York and thus the IRS, DHS, CIA, etc.
Thanks to everyone…this answers my question along with the most recent post!
*The following article has some interesting facts and comments.
The Swiss ambassador told a different tale. Which one is accurate?
Feel free to update some self-declared “patriots” with a taste of reality, such as the creator of this comment:
The Swiss “Handelszeitung” website has now posted the full interview with the US Ambassador, Donald Beyer. The full interview was previously available only in the printed newspaper. Interview transcript is in German:
http://www.handelszeitung.ch/politik/donald-s-beyer-es-gibt-nur-ein-problem