Yearly Archives: 2012

http://www.georgemasonjicl.org/fall-2012-symposium/

No videos but interesting picture summary. The guests were not at each others throats at least from appearances as I might have expected. Jatras and Eggert even appeared together at the end to have picture taken with the just the two of them.

http://www.georgemasonjicl.org/fall-2012-symposium-pictures/

Also a link to the presentations:

http://www.georgemasonjicl.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CLE-Materials-Final.pdf

I am considering doing my own PowerPoint presentation on this issue for anyone who has to speak at these conferences against FATCA because I think I can do one ten times as better as any of the pro-FATCA people can. I have to say just from reading the presentations of the second group of panelists who were mainly compliance “consultants” I cannot say I was overly impressed. I think in general a lot of issues I discuss frequently were never really brought up.

I also took with interest one of the presentations by the second panel that expected the final rules to be release by October 31st. Clearly this has not been the case. In fact none other than Jesse Eggert announced at least from what I understood at other conference just two days later that the final rules were not being released until the end of the year. I am curious whether there was any mention of this at the GMU conference.

Its official. Daily Kos has a thread on FATCA started by poster “War on Error.” I have always hated Daily Kos so I am quite thrilled I can now go after them on FATCA. I think “War on Error” seems pretty set in his pro-FATCA ways so my suggestion is to give “War on Error” a John Baird/Peter Van Loan tire iron sandwich. Others I suspect Just Me for example will be advocating more of a “compromise” position. In general even if “War on Error” doesn’t generate a lot of hits the more we comment the higher it will climb on the Daily Kos most commented posts section.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/05/1156301/-FATCA-One-Big-Reason-Why-Mitt-Hopes-He-Wins

As you know, the clowns of the demorepublican dictatorship didn’t mention the estimated 6 million Americans living abroad in their political campaign not one single time.  Some even personally expressed to me that they neither had the time nor interest to campaign to those Americans living abroad that they are supposed to represent.

“Mexico, a country facing 100,000 deaths, neighbor to the United States, didn’t deserve one single mention tonight. A disgrace.”1

In the debates, the demorepublican candidates expressed, 34 times, their unconditional support for their beloved Israel with its apartheid practice in the nation of Palestine 2, but they didn’t once mention the approx. 2 million Americans living in Mexico and Canada in spite of their serious banking concerns and despite the historic violence playing out in Mexico, much of it along the 2,000-mile border that the US shares, which has already cost 60’000 lives.1

Continue reading →

 
Cross-posted from USxCanada because of embedded perspectives of interest: Canada easy U.S. not; low threshhold for estate concerns; Canadian banks preparing to capitulate.

Carolyne Regan
Cross-border issues complex: proper planning saves fortunes in estate taxes
Windsor Star (1 Nov 2012)

http://www.windsorstar.com/Cross+border+issues+complex/7480168/story.html

“A very stable tax system in Canada” is contrasted with the U.S., where “changes can be very dramatic from one year to the next.” Estate planning is seen as required for assets “anywhere near” $1 million. “Canadian banks are becoming less hesitant to share information with the IRS.” This infomercial-tinged “special to the Star” relies on input from an accountant and an attorney whose contact information is listed at the end. No mention is made of severing ties to the United States.
 

Things seem to be really heating up there. More fror Haaretz.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/israeli-banks-demanding-to-see-u-s-citizens-tax-returns.premium-1.473899

The impression I get is Israeli banks are probably at this point violating Israeli law. It is interesting the different responses from country on this issue.

In a move that some tax lawyers are calling a blatant violation of customer privacy, two Israeli banks are requiring current and prospective account holders with American citizenship to furnish portions of their U.S. tax returns, Anglo File has learned. Those who refuse to do so risk having their applications denied or existing accounts frozen.

For several months, two Israeli banks – Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim – have required customers to sign a waiver authorizing the banks to review a series of financial disclosure forms. One such form is the Schedule B – which shows dividend and interest income, including the names of all financial institutions paying out dividend and interest income – and a supplementary form known as a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts form, or FBAR, for Americans with at least $10,000 in foreign bank accounts.

Professor Allison Christians of McGill University has published in the July 9, 2012 issue of International Tax Notes an excellent article on FBAR and FATCA filing. Professor Christians has not only put a spotlight on the overreach of the United States through its required reporting of FBAR and FATCA by Americans overseas, but has also proposed a constructive legal solution to end this reporting requirement. All Americans abroad will be interested in reading this article.

Could a Same-Country Exception Help Focus FATCA and FBAR?

Allison Christians seems to have used quite a bit of actual common sense in coming to her conclusions / suggestions.  Perhaps a way for a Win:Win?  At any rate, a good read and, although reprinted from TAX NOTES INTERNATIONAL, JULY 9, 2012, p. 157, Volume 67, Number 2, July 9, 2012*,  I haven’t come across this before.  I may have missed it here at Isaac Brock.

*Tax Analysts 2012. All rights reserved. Tax Analysts does not claim copyright in any public domain or third party content.

The title of this column asked whether a same country exception could serve to focus FATCA and FBAR. The answer seems to be yes for pragmatic reasons, by allowing the tax administration to turn its ever-diminishing enforcement resources away from what is likely to produce an enormous data dump with few productive leads — getting some of the haystack out of the way in order to render the needle more visible.  The answer also seems to be yes for political and diplomatic reasons. FATCA and FBAR are either a rather nasty piece of arm-twisting, a bit of bad faith in the U.S. diplomatic relations department, or, worse, they are signaling a loss of faith in the pursuit of cooperation through diplomacy — a huge blow to the international tax regime as a whole. Carving out the bona fide residents who are using bank accounts to live their lives as residents and often dual citizens abroad could provide a means of backing away from either of these destructive positions.