Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Monthly Archives: July 2013

Breaking news — for your 4th of July (Independence!) celebrations…

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Further to Just Me’s “HR 2299 Calls for Withdrawal of FATCA IGA Reciprocity Tool (DATCA lite)”,

Blaze reports:

We’re not free yet, but check Maple Sandbox for breaking news out of Washington.

James Jatras is reporting a “death knell” for IGAs and possibly for FATCA

Maple Sandbox — It’s Official, No American Reciprocity

Thanks, James Jatras. Thanks, Blaze. Thanks, Petros. Thanks to every Brocker who posts and comments and has added to this important discussion. We stand together against what is not right!

Listen to Mr. Jatras once again: FATCA Fact Finding Forum – Part 7 of 9 – James Jatras – How FATCA Can Be Defeated

From Maple Sandbox:

Do they really see that FATCA is not the panacea — at great cost all round, that it would not rope in the true tax evaders, just the small minnows — and more US collateral damage?

Now, if only the US would come to their senses and change to Residence-Based Citizenship… and if we could all live in peace in the countries of our choice, reporting our incomes and paying our taxes to and for the countries that give us our benefits.

As go taxes so goes the debt – Where did the money go?

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Yesterday Pacifica commented that that the core value of US citizenship is taxation.

She is correct. But, in thinking about this I realized that the US provides little or no services to its citizens. Government debt is never okay. Governments must live within their means. But, at least other Western democracies provide better levels of health care, education, etc.

It appears to me that the U.S. government is using its citizens as “tax chattels” to finance its never ending wars. The effect of the wars is to make the U.S. and its citizens disliked the world over. So, the US government is using your money to make people NOT like you.

Your tax dollars at work.

I am interested in your comments on the following question:

Given that the core value of citizenship is taxation, what do U.S. citizens get for their money?

 

 

Opinion: #FBAR penalties cannot be automatically assessed on an e-file

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This post appeared on the RenounceUScitizenship blog.

 

Since the filing of FBARs online became possible I have heard various things about whether and/or how penalties are to be assessed. Effective July 1, 2013, the presumption is that FBARs are to be e-filed. This raises the question of filing FBARs online and the possibility of penalties. The issue is described by David Treitel as follows:

Continue reading →

FBI: 413 renounced U.S. citizenship in June 2013

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The FBI has released its latest report on Active Records in the NICS Index as of 30 June 2013. NICS now contains the records of 22,610 renunciants who have been stripped of the right to purchase firearms in the United States. (None of them actually tried buying last month anyway, according to the federal denials report.) This is an increase of 413 since last month, 1,106 during the quarter, and 1,956 so far this year. Based on past trends there should be about four or five relinquishers for every six renunciants, meaning that somewhere around 750 people gave up citizenship last month in one way or another, if the FBI didn’t miss any — hard to verify, since the names on their list are not public.

Various upcoming data releases this month may provide a useful basis for comparison. South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be publishing not just their annual diplomatic whitebook (whose previous iteration revealed that 2,128 South Koreans gave up US passports or green cards in 2011), but also their biennial report on the status of overseas Korean populations. And of course, by the end of the month we are supposed to have the Federal Register quarterly name-and-shame list — though there is a high chance it will not be merely late but also laughably incomplete, just like last year when the FBI recorded 4,650 renunciants alone but the IRS named only 932 renunciants, relinquishers, and long-term-green-card-abandoners combined.

Ottawa promises to make #FATCA IGA public after signed!

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This article is clearly a prequel to the announcement of a FATCA IGA. It includes the following:

There has been little debate on the issue so far, partly because no details on the talks between Canada and the U.S. have been released. However, Ottawa is promising to make the deal public once it is signed.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is keeping an eye on the issue.

The commissioner’s office and the Finance Ministry have discussed the negotiations with the United States, said Valerie Lawton, a spokesperson for the commissioner. She also said Ms. Stoddart has received “a few dozen” inquiries about the U.S. law, but formal complaints cannot be filed until it is in effect.

Looks like Canada’s FATCA IGA will be done in the spirit of Nancy Pelosi:

“We need to pass the law so that people can see what’s in it!“

Continue reading →

US corporate tax laws make it difficult for Dell to use its own cash

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This is just one more article which demonstrates how U.S. tax laws are destroying the United States. It is very clear that there is an “IRS discount” associated with any U.S. entity or citizen who conducts economic activity outside the United States.

This article caught my attention in part because of a quotation from one Villanova law professor by the name of Richard Harvey. He is quoted as saying:

If companies “can structure a deal where they can bring cash back and avoid even a cash tax charge, that is nirvana,” says Richard Harvey, a Villanova University law professor who worked as a tax accountant and formerly advised the IRS. “They either enter into some elaborate tax structure that they hope avoids IRS scrutiny, or they might just decide to borrow in the U.S. and keep the money offshore.”

Incredible. As has been noted in previous posts it can actually be less expensive for a company to borrow rather than pay the taxes to repatriate their earnings. Funny, last I heard, the U.S. thought it was good to invest in America. Guess Congress and the IRS don’t think so.

To make matters worse, money earned outside the US provides a permanent cash injection into the economies of other countries. It’s never coming home. How dumb is that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its Budget Submission Time in Canada, AGAIN

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http://www.parl.gc.ca/CommitteeBusiness/CommitteeHome.aspx?Cmte=FINA&Language=E

This time though the submissions are basically open ended. You can talk about whatever the hell you want as long as your format it a certain way.

 

The Standing Committee on Finance is undertaking its annual pre-budget consultations. Following these consultations, it will present a report to the House of Commons outlining its recommendations for the 2014 federal budget.

Individuals and groups are invited to take part in these consultations by completing the Committee’s online template no later than August 5, 2013. Only one submission per individual or organization can be made..

To take part in the consultations, you

  • must use the template published on this page
  • must propose between one (minimum) and three (maximum) recommendations
  • may provide up to an additional 500 words that elaborate on your recommendation(s) in the space reserved for that purpose on the template; and
  • must submit the completed template no later than AUGUST 5, 2013.

An acknowledgement of receipt will be provided as soon as the Committee receives your completed template.

The completed templates will be translated and posted on the Committee’s website.

NOTE: TO BE CONSIDERED, ALL RESPONSES MUST BE PROVIDED USING THE ONLINE TEMPLATE AND SUBMITTED BY THE DEADLINE.

Shifting the blame from gov to expat

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Earlier today, the Handleszeiting posted a wonderful article critical of America’s treasured national origin discrimination titled:

Amerikanische Bürger: Herkunft als Hürde
American Citizens: National Origin is a Hurdle

Shortly afterwards, this was picked up by Die Welt with a much more fitting title:

Fiskus vertreibt US-Bürger aus der Schweiz
The Treasury is ethnically cleansing US citizens from Switzerland

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Then, America woke up and immediately the title changed, shifting the blame:

US-Bürger in der Schweiz geben ihre Pässe ab
US Citizens are turning in their passports

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The article mentions that the US embassy in Bern refuses to be honest and transparent about the number of Americans who are turning in their passports.

Laut Schätzungen der amerikanischen Gemeinschaft haben letztes Jahr 700 bis 900 US-Bürger in der Schweiz ihren Pass abgegeben.  Die Botschaft in Bern will diese Zahl nicht kommentieren.

According to estimates made by the Amerian community, around 700-900 American citizens in Switzerland gave up their passports last year.  The Embassy in Bern does not want to comment on this number.

 

FBAR’s no longer accepted by snail mail!

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I received this email from my Enrolled Agent today!

”

Dear Valued Client,

 

The IRS and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Nework (FinCen) announced on Friday that paper FBARs will no longer be acceptedas of today, July 1, 2013. If you have not filed your 2012 FBAR yet and you intend to file it yourself, you will need to create an account at FinCen’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) e-filing website http://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/main.html to file your FBAR. After you create your account you will be given a PIN code. You must then logon to the website whose link you will receive via email, click on the FBAR link on the left side of the website and manually enter all of your FBAR data into the writeable pdf version of their FBAR form. I recommend you also save the FBAR to your computer before you click the button to e-file it.

 

Professional tax software programs are not yet capable of e-filing FBARs so professional tax preparers must manually enter your FBAR data into the FinCen website. We will be happy to do this for you, however due to the additional work and time involved, we must raise our fees for FBAR preparation to CHF 20 per account if we e-file the form for you. We will also just prepare a paper FBAR for you that you may copy into the FinCen website for our normal fee of CHF 10 per account.

 

The professional tax software companies are frantically working on a solution to allow professional tax preparers to e-file the FBARs directly from our software. As soon as such a solution is in place, our FBAR preparation and e-filing fee will return to CHF 10 per account.

 

Best regards,

“