Barrie McKenna reports about the negotiations between Washington and Ottawa to “temper” FATCA’s requirements, through a government to government sharing arrangement. Barrie called me yesterday looking for a reaction. I hope the quote is pleasing to everyone:
“The idea that any of our financial information would be given to the IRS is an abomination,” said Mr. Dunn, 48, who is in the process of giving up his U.S. citizenship and filing back taxes to end his obligations to the IRS.
Ms. Atossa Abrahamian’s article last month about U.S. persons abroad giving up citizenship has really opened up the floodgates to a deluge of reporting on issues of interest to us here at the Isaac Brock Society. It’s hard to keep up with all of it, let enough find the time to comment on everything. Here’s a roundup of recent coverage. Thanks to FromTheWilderness and others who left comments pointing us to these articles.
My understanding is that the last date for filing Form 8854 for a 2011 expatriation is June 15, the due date, because of the automatic extension for the tax filing for a person resident outside the United States. After that date, a person could be subject to warnings or even a $10,000 non-filing fine. So be it.
https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/199852579214204929
Phil’s blog post is a “must read” (The Isaac Brock Society is mentioned). Full of all kinds of great ideas – including teaching how people how to get at “Private Letter Ruling”. Also, some interesting “non legal advice” thoughts on the FBAR problem. You will find the actual paper that was submitted to the IRS here. The paper was supported by the New York Society of CPAs.
Phil, thanks again for your help and support!
Financial institutions have generally fallen into two categories in their reactions to FATCA: some seem to be leaning towards trying to qualify under “deemed compliance” exceptions, while others have urged their governments to shred privacy laws so they can dump all the costs and harms of compliance onto the public. But as far as I know this is a first: an industry body suggesting that its members ignore FATCA entirely. A couple of different links to the story, in case one or the other ends up trapped behind a paywall: IFAOnline.co.uk and Investment Week. Quotes below. Continue reading
I want to recommend a book that should be of interest to all IBS contributors/readers:
Nicholas Shaxson, Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World. London, 2011.
[editors note: zuludogm has also provided a review of this book]
FATCA and other US initiatives are meant to curtail tax evasion through off-shore tax havens. Or, so we are led to believe. Shaxson shows, with ample documentation, that the US and the UK are the biggest tax havens in the world. Foreigners (“non-resident aliens” in tax lingo) can maintain tax-free savings and investment accounts in the US. Anti-tax evasion measures taken by the US are chiefly aimed at preventing US citizens utilizing tax evasion strategies intended to attract non-US investment.
The latest FATCA news from Taiwan and mainland China: Taiwan banks are busy worrying about the mainland’s attitude, but Beijing is still not releasing any details besides confirming the fact that FATCA discussions with Washington are underway. On the bright side, the lack of confirmation about the mainland’s final disposition towards FATCA seems to be spooking banks in Taiwan. They certainly seem less confident in their original “bright idea” of solving all their problems by shredding Taiwan’s consumer data privacy laws in order to reduce their costs of complying with FATCA — because they realised they might also face issues in other major markets where they have far less lobbying power to encourage similar “solutions”. Translations below.
I am surprised that nobody has yet posted about the results of Sunday’s second (and final) round of the French presidential election. François Hollande (socialist) defeated Nicolas Sarkozy (center-right?) by a few percent and will be in office shortly.
BBC : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17975660
Le Monde (major French newspaper): http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/
Swiss Francophone TV : http://www.rts.ch/info/monde/3974074-l-election-de-francois-hollande-n-est-pas-une-revolution-estime-la-presse.html
I wonder what this means for negotiations about FATCA ? @Victoria? My gut feeling is that the socialists would be rather FATCA-friendly, but I believe that the socialists in France are also very interested in civil rights and anti-discrimination. I believe that somebody needs to be lobbying his new administration so that they can know the truth about what the US is trying to do (especially FATCA, but also FBAR and double taxation) before State and Treasury start trying to pull the wool over his eyes.
I just heard on CNN that Putin just won another term as President of Russia, and now the Constitution has been modified so that one can serve 6 terms.
While I know personally and I suspect many others here would like some stronger language I think the California Bar Assocation Tax Section raises some very pointed comment in their letter that discusses the issues we are facing here. I should further point out that the fact they bring up these issues is not for naught as the California Tax Section is one of the most influential groups of US Tax Lawyers. In particular I think they raise a very pointed question of the IRS Commmisioner which is the entire recent crackdown intended only solely to go after people living in the US with offshore assets or people residing outside the US with basic banking arrangements in their home countries. I also wanted to post this letter because two of the more prominent friends of the site(Steven Mopsick and Phil Hodgen) are members of the State Bar of California- Tax Section
Russian article, published in Russian:
http://www.klerk.ru/law/news/274541/
Anyone with Russian who might provide a good translation? Google translation, with the usual disclaimers, follows. It’s good enough to get the general drift:
According to the letter of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Russia has no plans at the international level to harmonize the application in our country the law of the United States, which relates to the mandatory disclosure of payments to the persons subject to taxation in the United States. This May 4 at the conference “Compliance in Russia,” said Director of the Department advising on risk management and compliance at KPMG Dmitry Chistov. From the event: Klerk.ru correspondent Sergei Vasiliev.
