31 thoughts on “Larry Lipsher speech on FATCA (citizenship-based tax) at Hong Kong FCC”

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XngZF7GOmG0 ka-ching,ka-ching

   Third, taxpayers who have completed one of the IRS’s offshore voluntary disclosure programs, such as the 2011 OVDI or 2012 OVDP, may have their cases reexamined under Streamlined. Taxpayers who are eligible for Streamlined will receive a refund of the penalty imposed by those programs.

   that should be fantastic news for some Minnows here at IBS !!!!!!!!!!!!

2. @bubblebustin and @mike t – If it was only that simple. After opting out, I only owe taxes in one or two years. One year was slightly over the streamlined amount of $1500. I asked to be considered for the Streamlined program, but my agent said I did not qualify for that program as I had been a filer. The agent actually told me it would have been easier if I had qualified for the Streamlined Program. I am becoming quite annoyed by the favorable treatment being given to those in the Streamlined Program. I feel that these cases are being prioritized and that is not fair for those of us who have been waiting around for two years or more because we made the mistake of entering OVDI. OVDI opt out cases are not often not much different than the Streamlined cases, but are unfairly dragged out. OVDI cases that were already in the system should be processed first. OVDI cases that opted out over 3 months ago should be handled before any Streamlined case. My agent told me the high volume of Streamlined applicants was slowing the opt out processing.

   I am also annoyed that while I tried my best to comply, I am being held to harsher terms and conditions because I tried to follow the rules by filing to the best of my ability. It is only hurting me in OVDI. I truly regret having filed previously. It would have been better not to have filed.

   I hope that bubblebustin will qualify for the Streamlined Program because in OVDI once you get to the opt out point, you will be treated like you do not exist and be forced to wait even longer so the poor little innocents in the Streamlined Program can be processed first. There are lots of poor little innocents in OVDI. We are told we can opt out, but working on other cases that entered the system after we did is wrong and unfair and, yes, I am angry.

3. @ Lisa … I totally can understand you and I would be furious too but I knew something like this would happen down the road and believe me there is more to come . The whole process is totally arbitrary and as we all know if you speak to 3 examiners , tax lawyers you get 4 different answers or opinions but all those nasty letters we have been sending out to various senators and agencies seem to slowly have an effect !!
   ka-ching….ka-ching

4. @Mike and Lisa,
   Now this story may make your eyes water, it certainly does mine! If my husband and I had not gone into OVDI and instead attempted the streamlined, the only year we would have owed any taxes would be the year we sold our house, A YEAR THAT OCCURRED PRIOR TO THE 3 YEARS REQUIRED BY STREAMLINED! That being said, the 6 years of FBAR’s including the ones relating to accounts where the proceeds of the sale of our home went into may have flagged us as high risk. Also my husband has what may qualify as “sophisticated tax planning” associated with his business. So it’s not a given that w/o tax owing that one would qualify for streamlined.
   As Petros said, no chance in putting that cat back in the bag.

5. @Lisa, given that your agent said that you would have qualified, and it would have been easier and simpler – except for only the fact of having already filed (which they urged us forcefully to do), you are so right when you say; “I am being held to harsher terms and conditions because I tried to follow the rules by filing to the best of my ability. It is only hurting me in OVDI. I truly regret having filed previously. It would have been better not to have filed.”

   Have you tried calling the Taxpayer Advocate Service and pointing that out – to see if they can take your case on and get it moved? Using the grounds that you only filed because you were trying to become compliant using the very method that the IRS advised everyone to use – and by being ‘timely’, which they also demanded. Perhaps the TAS would now be willing/able to help since it was your very attempt to come forward and comply without delay that harmed you (and many others). The unfair waiting times in the OVD programs for ‘benign’ international filers were noted as outstanding issues in the TAS report to Congress and recent TAS 2013 list of priorities flagged for particular attention). I am wondering if the TAS can now help with cases like yours, that would have qualified for Streamlined if that had existed prior? The fact that you did what they urged us all to do – file only noisily and immediately by entering OVDI, and since you (and many others) suffered significant injury (and are still waiting) as a result of following IRS advice in good faith, seems like a compelling reason for the TAS to take it on. As well as in recognition of the substantial expenses and toll on wellbeing that OVDI filers and those opting out are commonly incurring (i.e. the TAS criteria of suffering ‘financial harm’).

   I think that as the Streamlined process has obviously been changing in terms of strict criteria, and as the IRS has started moving people out of OVDI, it is worth going back and asking the TAS for help even if you have already asked them. The circumstances continue to change. And one of their criteria is if the taxpayer insists.

   and,

   Thanks @bubblebustin for that piece of news. That is great about the IRS moving low risk/liability minnows and krill out of the OVDI into the Streamlined of their own accord.

   It is very unfair that those who have already submitted 8 years of information should be held hostage when/if the info submitted includes a year with an anomaly like the sale of your house. To be fair, since they belatedly made a change to what is required, and the paths to get there, (ex. December 2011 factsheet, and Streamlined path) they should recognize the injury done to those who took them at their first and repeated words that the OVD was the only sanctioned way to come forward. Not to mention their repeated threats that any other method would be punished.

   Many have uselessly paid professionals for 8 years of forms and returns, and opting out, and laid bare their affairs – many of whom wouldn’t have incurred those costs and risks if they had laid low and waited. The uncertainty and lack of transparency also made people choose based on insufficient information.

   I think the IRS owes those minnows and krill and OVD filers like yourself, at minimum, looking at only the very same number of years that they would have faced under the December factsheet or Streamlined process. Otherwise the IRS is confirming – we can’t be trusted, we act in bad faith, and the idea of treating people with similar facts and circumstances similarly is just a baseless idea.

   I know of others who would have been in a far better situation, suffered less, and lost far less in wellbeing, time, LCUs, and in substantial legal and accounting fees if the Dec.2011 factsheet, or the Streamlined path had been available back in September 2011 when the CBC covered this story, and the IRS was urging everyone to come forward only using OVDI to ‘come into compliance’. And even those are not perfect options, and still leave many wondering whether just to file going forward, or stay under the radar, or backfile (where possible) just enough to renounce.

   In a way, it was random chance – in that those who weren’t listening to CBC, and didn’t read the news reports were very fortunate to have missed the OVDI deadlines. Which then gave them the chance to try and see what their alternatives were. Later came Flaherty’s public statements, and Ambassador Jacobson’s claims of US ‘reasonableness’, and the December 2011 factsheet, followed by vague rumours of an alternate path to come, then 6 more months of suspense and speculation until the end of June 2012 – PAST the next deadline for filing the FBAR! Time gave us the IsaacBrockSociety, and all the information here. It was too late for some of us, and fortunate for others.

   And then the long wait until September 2012, with the restrictive guidelines and vague terms. And nothing for new immigrants to the US with preexisting homeland accounts ( still waiting for some kind of consideration).

   And of course, it is just random chance whether people living outside the US, had chosen to save in a now ‘toxic’ Canadian mutual fund, or chose TFSAs, or opened an RESP for their child, or inherited an estate, or sold their house, etc. All normal legal activities allowed to others without the US jeopardy. If we hadn’t saved anything, or the span of taxable and reporting years were different, or we had naturalized as Canadians prior to 1980, or not had a US parent, or not received unemployment or other income that the FEIE didn’t cover, all would be different. Any legal and tax system that levies life changing draconian and confiscatory penalties based on random, commonplace and legal events in the everyday lives of those who don’t even reside in the US, and receive no benefits, and who are effectively prevented from severing unwanted US ties conferred by accident, should cause the US international shame and sanctions.

   All legal and reasonable and normal acts of everyday people turned into crimes and liabilities by the US. The cause of untold and untotalled sums of anxiety, depression, anger, and significant and life changing financial losses. And for what? The US claims on us ‘abroad’ are in every way unethical, unjust and a travesty of state extortion and confiscation.

   And then, even after we have come forward, and demonstrate the requisite years of ‘compliance’, run the IRS penalty gauntlet, and shown that we still owe the US the same nothing as before, it still has the affrontery to insist that we fill out further complex forms, sometimes wait in line for months for a consulate appointment, file followup US returns and FBAR even after having relinquished or renounced, pay a 450. fee, be threatened with an exit tax, and wait months for a CLN that we have to show for life if we cross into or over the US.

   That is the real crime, and the real criminal is the US government and the politicians who make that happen, and threaten us with even more punitive sanctions and conditions.

   That is why there is no support for the Presidential commission. Because it would be damning.

6. EXCELLENT, Badger!
   One has to wonder how many of those clamouring for compliancy are doing so just to get out of Dodge.