This post is from the RenounceUSCitizenship blog.
Earlier this year I wrote that “Peaceful resistance to FATCA will result in a new financial order“. An article by Geoffrey York of the Globe and Mail suggests this may be starting to happen.
China leader’s first trip highlights growing clout of BRICS nations soa.li/GBJC2iN – Anti #FATCA nations form political alliance
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 23, 2013
The article is well worth reading. Note the following commentary and excerpts:
For a glimpse of a potential new world order, take a look at the carefully chosen plans for the first overseas trip by China’s new President.
Fresh from his triumph in China’s leadership transition this month, Xi Jinping won’t be paying his respects in Washington or Europe on his debut foreign tour. Instead, on Friday, he flies to Russia – and then onward to three resource-rich African countries, in a trip laden with symbolic and political meaning.
What? He is not starting in Washington or Brussels? What is he up to? What could this mean?
Originally an economic bloc, BRICS – now comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is venturing further into politics and security. The summit will feature an unexpectedly heavy agenda of global issues, from the Syrian war to the planned creation of a development bank to compete with the World Bank, with $50-billion in seed money.
Did you catch that? A group of nations, of which at least three are hostile to FATCA are meeting to create a bank to compete with the World Bank? But, this really could not be of any significance. These countries are of little substance (or so the U.S. might think), but the article goes on to note:
While it claims to have no political ambitions, BRICS is already a powerful economic bloc. Its leaders boast that it represents 45 per cent of the world’s population, 30 per cent of the world’s territory, 30 per cent of global output and 17 per cent of world trade. And despite a recent slowdown, it has been responsible for 50 per cent of global economic growth over the past decade, making it a key source of hope for Africa, where the BRICS nations have dramatically increased their trade and investment in recent years.
Fascinating. Could this possibly be the beginning of a “FATCA Free Zone?” On this note consider the following excerpt from a comment by Todundsteur:
The greatest threat to the effectiveness of both Charlie’s FATCAT and Carl’s STHA is the very real possibility that they will trigger a reaction that attempts nothing less than the establishment of an alternative world financial system parallel to that based on the Tokyo-NY-London-Frankfurt axis.
Johannesburg, Dubai, Mumbai, Jakarta, Singapore, Sao Paolo, Shanghai suggest themselves.
One highly-regulated, highly taxed, safe but stagnant and the other looser, lightly taxed, risky but freewheeling and dynamic.
We shall see.
Meanwhile back in the world of the West, we are still waiting to see whether Cyprus will (in the end) confiscate the savings of it bank depositors to pay for its debt problem. First, Cyprus is “Cyprused” – then the rest of the world. Funny, the U.S. owes China a lot of money. Will the debtor be able to impose FATCA on the creditor?
This may be the best news those opposing FATCA have had yet!
bubblebustin’, my deepest condolences on the loss of your mother. It is the hardest thing that any child (no matter what age you are when this happens) has to go through. There is nothing that will cause such an upheaval as the loss of a parent.
I lost my father in 2009 and I still miss him to this day. He felt that he hadn’t done enough during his work years so he waited to take out Canadian citizenship until he retired. Of course he was a Japanese citizen until his retirement and unlike Form Nation, Japan doesn’t tax its non-resident citizens. And he was still able to hold his Japanese property which ended up being ceded to his side of the family (his brothers as I don’t want those properties being taxed by the United States).
@ Bubblebustin… Sorry to hear about your mom. We lost our Dad last summer and that’s pretty much the reason I even found IBS, to research info as I need to repatriate to the US to take care of my Mom (as well as other reasons). Death and taxes is a old cliche but the real joke is that the two can never be mutually exclusive to Uncle Sam 🙁
@HKGS
Thank you. Sorry to hear about the loss of your father. In a way I am grateful that I was never able to tell my mother about the US tax grief I’ve been exposed to because of leaving the US. It wouldn’t have changed anything, and she would have felt terrible when the best gift she could have given me is a life in Canada as a Canadian!