The best thing about being an ex-American living outside of the United States is that I don’t live in the United States anymore.
Monthly Archives: January 2013
FATCA may end the taxation of US Persons Abroad
Professor Christians has released the paper that was the basis for her presentation at the Tax Conference on January 18, 2013. In order to listen/view her presentation see an earlier post with commentary on the Pepperdine Tax Conference.
UK FFI’s face compensation claims under FATCA
From Out-Law.com:
UK financial institutions may face compensation claims if they send inaccurate data under FATCA regime
Excerpt:
In its document, which sets out answers to ‘frequently asked questions’ on the issue of data protection and FATCA, HMRC said that financial institutions could face claims for compensation from US nationals if they provide inaccurate information to the US authorities.
“In addition to any rights you may have to claim compensation from the US authorities, the DPA (Data Protection Act) gives individuals the right to claim compensation from a data controller where they have suffered damage because of a breach of the DPA,” HMRC said in its guidance. “As both HMRC and the financial institutions are data controllers for the FATCA information, you can make a claim for compensation to either (or both).”
Inaugural Address quote of the day
“Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”
Thank you, Mr. President, for providing the clearest rationale yet for the necessary existence of The Isaac Brock Society. As you begin your second term in office, may you spare even a nanosecond of thought for U.S. Persons worldwide untainted by the assumption that we are all rich tax cheats like your outgoing Treasury Secretary. Have a nice day.
Royal Bank of Canada: FATCA webpage
The majority of RBC clients are not U.S. persons and, in most cases, FATCA should have little impact. If you have an existing account and there is an indication that you may be a U.S. person, or if you are opening a new account, RBC may ask you to provide additional information or documentation to demonstrate that you are not a U.S. person. (link mine)
From the RBC’s FATCA page.
Hat tip: Suki
Our strongest card… The Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
It appears to me that our strongest card — besides the 1,000,000 of us in Canada — is the support of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It is a wonderful organization — recall the fine work done on the G20 in Toronto. I suggest we all join and support its ongoing work — especially in regards to us! http://ccla.org/
IRS should NOT be able to license tax preparers
As you know the IRS wants to require a license, issued by the IRS, in order to charge money to prepare tax returns. For the moment this requirement has been struck down by the courts.
https://twitter.com/FATCA_Fallout/status/292905409373683712
I believe that the discussion on this is missing the most important point which is captured in this exchange:
My comment on "IRS Stopped 'Dead In Its Tracks' In Efforts To Regulate Tax Preparers" @Forbes: http://t.co/8v7RKRz0
— Alvin S. Brown, Esq. (@USTaxAttorney) January 20, 2013
@USTaxAttorney @Forbes Big difference between the regulation of preparers and preparers being regulated by the IRS. Latter is the problem!
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) January 20, 2013
The problem is that that if it is the IRS that is issuing the license, then tax preparers will think that they must please the IRS instead of being fair to the client. It is like the problem of the lawyer who wants to put everybody into OVDP and the lawyer who considers a number of compliance options.
This case is likely to go to the Supreme Court. I suspect that the decision that the IRS can’t regulate will stand.
U.S. citizenship and a possible marriage penalty
This is an interesting topic to solicit comments on. I am increasingly of he opinion that the manner in which the U.S. imposes citizenship-based taxation may be a human rights violation. The reporting rules, threats, intrusion into the family finances, keeping the non-US spouse out of the family finances, disallowing a child deduction for children who are NOT U.S. citizens, making it difficult for the non-citizen spouse to inherit …
Does U.S. citizenship-based taxation interfere in marriages?
Subject to your comments, I think this would be worth a more comprehensive post.
Jim Jatras Radio Interview on NYC Radio Station tonight
I don’t know much about the show or the radio station in NYC but it should be available online both live and via archive. It looks this show which is fairly new has covered expat issues in the past such as interviewing Mark Nestmann. Interview air time looks to be 7:00PM Eastern.
Pepperdine #ObamaTaxAdvice Tweets and Conference
Results For #obamataxadvice :
The first tweet gives a link to the video of conference! Although the whole conference is interesting, the panel of most interest (FATCA, etc.) – Allison Christians – starts at about the 6:35 mark.
FATCANatics
The FATCANatic response starts at the 7:27 mark. He refers to the Drone analogy and acknowledges that it is a case of the U.S. telling foreign banks what to do. He makes three interesting points:
1. FATCA is the wave of the future for lawyers;
2. Surprised that FATCA has not been done sooner;
3. Thinks that other countries will follow the U.S. into FATCA.
Make sure you listen to it.
Discussion of matters of interest to #americansabroad:
Professor Allison Christians (starts at the 6:50 mark) introduced the conference attendees to FATCA and U.S. citizenship-based taxation.
At the 7:36 mark she answers a question from the audience which seems to be (I infer this from her answer) a two part question:
1. The questioner thought FATCA was reciprocal, so what’s the big deal?
2. Why on earth would Canadians object to filing U.S. tax returns?
Professor Christians gave a good description of the problem.
Prognosis:
After watching this you may want to consider where the tax environment for U.S. persons abroad is going. We DO know where the career prospects for lawyers are headed! Begins with “F”.
Overall impression of the conference:
Tax policy is simply to important to allow the discussion to be shaped and dominated by tax professionals! Perhaps they should not even be included in the discussion.
Advice:
Enjoy the video!
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Missed Tax Advice for the 2nd Obama Admin? Check out the video here: http://bit.ly/Zwo8qV
#ObamaTaxAdvice@TaxAnalysts@SoCalTaxProf
Pepperdine Law Rev.