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An important message from Jim Jatras – Spread the word!

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 61 Comments
Thank you Jim!!!!!!!!!!

@All

See below: “U.S. Treasury to miss deadline on tax crackdown – sources” (Reuters)

So much for the FATCA juggernaut – another delay!  This also signals IGAs are not falling into place as fast as they need to.  Another reason CANADA must not rush to sign an IGA.

Impacted interests (FFS, foreign governments) need to stop preemtive surrender and wake up to the fact that Treasury is shooting blanks — and STOP negotiating IGAs with Washington.  Instead, they need to support FATCA repeal in DC! 

 

Media need to stop acting as bulletin boards for government releases and see that there’s a big story here: FATCA IS IN TROUBLE.

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-usa-taxes-fatca-idUSBRE8BJ0T320121220

 

Exclusive: U.S. Treasury to miss deadline on tax crackdown – sources

 

10:16am EST

By Patrick Temple-West

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department will miss a year-end deadline to publish final rules for a new global tax enforcement regime targeting the offshore assets of U.S. taxpayers, sources familiar with the timing said on Wednesday.

The rules represent one of the last implementation steps for the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, which is scheduled to take effect in 2014.

The accounting industry sources, who asked not to be named, said the rules are on track to be released in January.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department on Tuesday would not confirm whether the year-end deadline will be met.

“We are still working to issue the final regulations and they will be released soon,” the spokeswoman told Reuters.

Treasury has already missed one deadline for the publishing the final rules. It came and went in September.

FATCA was enacted in 2010 after an outcry over a Swiss banking scandal that revealed U.S. taxpayers had hidden millions of dollars in assets overseas from the Internal Revenue Service.

The law requires foreign financial institutions to tell the tax-collecting IRS about Americans’ offshore accounts worth more than $50,000.

International businesses ranging from Western Union Co to BlackRock Inc are waiting anxiously to see the rules so they can figure out how to comply with the law.

Delays mean businesses will have less time to prepare for compliance. Multinational firms have said they need at least 12 months to prepare for FATCA’s 2014 start date.

“It is critically important that final FATCA regulations are issued as soon as possible,” said Barbara Angus, a principal at Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP.

Treasury efforts on the rules may have been slowed by a number of government-to-government FATCA information-sharing deals it started pursuing earlier this year, tax experts said.

The United States has completed FATCA deals with the UK, Denmark and Mexico. Switzerland and Spain also have “initialed” agreements with Treasury.

Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing for deals with at least 50 other countries, according to the Treasury Department.

These deals represent a shift in FATCA implementation. While not envisioned as part of the 2010 law, the agreements are seen as a more practical way to implement the law.

Rather than forcing all foreign financial institutions to deal directly with the IRS, in some cases the agreements will allow the banks and funds to report information about American accountholders through their home governments to the IRS.

(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh)

61 thoughts on “An important message from Jim Jatras – Spread the word!”

  1. @Medea .. and would that be in the German the US translators learned at school, or the German the Swiss speak which even the Germans can’t generally comprehend? …  I sure as hell can’t when I hear it, and have about four years of high-school and university “hochDeutsch” under my belt though it’s awfully rusty.  I know the Swiss Germans can read standard German, if they want to and you ask them politely, but …

    The mind doth spin and giggle at some of the thoughts this raises.

  2. @Medea Fleecestealer

    The poor French, but they are used to it.  Their airline pilots have to speak English when they make contact with any Air Traffic Control operator in the world, so the Americans think nothing of requiring the Financial world to do everything in English.  Everyone speaks it and reads it of course.  If your Bank, can’t do it, that is their problem. That’s the attitude you are dealing with.  🙁

  3. *Interestingly enough in Montreal “Center” Airspace which is primarily Quebec and Ottawa Macdonald Cartier Airport English or French can be used in ATC communication. However, most air carrier operations out of Quebec City, Montreal Trudeau, and Ottawa all communicate to ATC in English but Nav Canada requires all air traffic controllers covering this area to be proficient in both French and English.

    In terms of FATCA and Canada all tax forms and official government communication must be in both English and French. My guess is Kevin Shoom being from Kingston, Ontario on the linguistic boundary probably speaks relative good French. Within the public service of Canada bilingualism is strongly encouraged at the higher levels I don’t know to what to degree Flaherty’s people are billingual. I know Flaherty’s rep at the Canadian Embassy in DC is a native francophone speaker which may not be helpful to the anti FATCA cause.

  4. *Schubert1975, I believe that all documentation is in High German because until very recently you couldn’t write down or read Swiss German.  It varied, just as Romansch varies.  Romansch was worse though because it varies often from one valley to another.  However, both are being standardised now so you can actually buy books to help you learn Swiss German.  Before that it was very much an oral learning system only.  That’s my understanding anyway.

  5. From Mexico…

    FATCA: U.S. imposes extraterritoriality

    Google Translate:  Mexico can be a laboratory for the results of that regulation.

    Wonder how that other Laboratory experiment has worked out for Mexico, the War on Drugs?

    Notice that Jim Jatras is quoted.

    Mexico signed the intergovernmental document last November, which for the U.S. Jim Jatras, lawyer at Squire Sanders, was a mistake.

    “The most affected may be those with strong ties to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the European partners, Southeast Asia. Institutions and governments can begin to see Mexico as an example of what can happen and reconsider bilateral agreements, “said Jatras to Apro.

    This attorney http://www.repealfatca.com created the website, a campaign to roll back the legislation.

  6. Repost for Ask your FATCA Question Thread.

    In Preparing For FATCA, American Government Relations Specialist Tells Jamaican Firms: Stop Wasting Your Money

    A senior government-relations specialist in the United States (US) has declared that Jamaican financial institutions should “stop wasting their money” trying to revamp their operations in preparation for the implementation of the new American tax law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

    The advice from James Jatras, who also manages the US-based websiterepealfatca.com, comes in the wake of a report in the US that the Treasury Department will miss the January 1, 2013, deadline it had set to publish the final regulations that will govern the new legislation.

    This is the second missed deadline for the publication of the final regulations and analysts say it raises doubts as to whether the new law, designed to track American tax-dodgers worldwide, will be in place by June next year.

    STOP PUSHING NEGOTIATION

    “Stop paying accountants and tax lawyers lots of money to become compliant with rules that don’t even exist yet. Why do you spend money complying with rules that don’t even exist, rules that may never even take effect?” Jatras questioned.

    According to him, the delay is an indication that the US is finding it increasingly difficult to convince other countries to sign reciprocal inter-governmental agreements and said financial institutions in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean should stop pushing their governments to negotiate a deal with Washington.

    “This is exactly what Washington wants … . Washington knows they cannot enforce FATCA unless your country and other countries agree to put the shackles on themselves,” he said.

    But it appears Jatras’ advice has come too late for some local financial institutions which, according to Earl Jarrett, the general manager of Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS), have already spent “a lot of money” to engage the services of accountants and attorneys “to help get ready for FATCA”.

  8. The China Post: “Treaty needed before FATCA will be honored: KMT lawmaker”

    http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/foreign-affairs/2012/12/28/365496/Treaty-needed.htm

    From the article:

    “Taiwan’s government has no obligation to meet tax-reporting requirements under Washington’s 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) until it has signed a tax information exchange agreement with the United States, a ruling lawmaker said yesterday.”

    “’It is a matter of sovereignty,’” Lai said during a legislative session yesterday in Taipei.”

    “The act requires foreign financial institutions to tell the IRS, which is under the U.S. Treasury Department, about offshore accounts held by American citizens worth more than US$50,000. It is expected to affect thousands of green-card holders and U.S. citizens in Taiwan.”

  10. Pingback: What a FATCA IGA “would” mean for non-compliant U.S. citizens abroad « Freedom from the tyranny of U.S. citizenship-based taxation for U.S. and dual citizens outside the U.S.

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