The following claims were made by Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock – US Swiss Tax Deal Imminent:
- Time is running out.
- A willful failure to file is considered a felony punishable by five years in prison.
- Holders of unreported foreign accounts have more than jail to fear.
- the IRS has proven itself very adept at finding taxpayers that have not filed an FBAR.
- Those that are caught can expect both a tax bill and a penalty assessment of the greater of $100,000 or half the highest balance in the account.
- Making things worse for taxpayers is next year’s looming FATCA law.
- If the IRS thinks you moved or renamed your account to avoid detection, chances of criminal prosecution increase dramatically.
- The Quiet Disclosure strategy not only doesn’t work, it sets up taxpayers for a huge interest and penalty bill.
- The IRS publicly states on their amnesty website that those who try to quietly send any missing FBAR forms to the Service Center may find themselves in hot water.
Eritreans can feel themselves lucky. Their government is far less criminal against its diaspora.
SwissPinoy
I am not sure I agree with you on Willful Failure to File is a felony. The IRS would like it to be but would is the operable word. As I read and understand it Willful failure to file is a federal misdemeanor crime usually not subject to extradition.
Tim
Nice scare piece. LOL
C’mon up and imprison us. Start with me. I can be your first “born dual, left US soil as an infant” criminal prisoner.
Idiots.
@Tim, I edited the post to make it more clear that I pulled all of these threats and scares out of the article.
@The Mom,
At the same time, come and get me as I will NOT register my son with the US for then year-after-year tax and reporting compliance for him for absolutely no US taxes that would be owed — only US draconian penalties.
My son was born in Canada, raised in Canada, never lived in the US, never had any benefit from the US. I am told that he cannot renounce his “supposed” US citizenship (because of his ‘accidental’ birth to me, a US citizen in Canada) due to his “mental incapacity.” He had no say, CHOICE, to whom he was born or where)..
My adult developmentally-delayed son is entrapped as I am also told by the US Consulate where I live that a parent, a guardian or trustee cannot renounce on his (or any others in the same situation) behalf, even with a court order.
Is the only solution to this to imprison me, his 70 year-old mother, or maybe the US would like to come and get him?
What a campaign of fear.
The ill-will, fear and anger this is causing is disgraceful.
First the US squandered its wealth; now it is demolishing its good-will.
calgary411, maybe the most logical thing for you to do is to boycott America. Cross it out of your mind, don’t think about, don’t visit it and don’t fly over it. Just completely avoid it and forget about it, if you can. Maybe you can even arrange for all mail coming from the US to be automatically trashed before you see it.
This is beyond disgusting. The time has come to put together a page where these lawyers are named along with links to their posts. The title should be:
“Here is a list of lawyers who are working for the IRS, but want to be paid by you.”
http://taxconnections.com/taxblog/tick-tock-tick-tock-us-swiss-tax-deal-imminent/#.Ui4lcRwm7gk
Let us not forget that american jails are full ( they are already releasing marijuana dealers) and they dont have any room for 6-7 million expats.
@Polly, once all of the Syrian natives have been wiped out by American bombs, then they’ll build a big fence around the place and toss all the expats into it, along with a bottle of water for them to fight over, Kind of like how they already do similar with Gaza.
@all
I put up a post today titled : “Joke of the Day”
It was up for avery short time, but for some reason it has a status of “Pending” ???
I bielive that the joke could also be used in reference to people who make threats towards expats.
The only reason I can think that my post is “Pendig” is because it used the word a**hole. 😉
If so I’d wouldn’t mind to edit it so it can be put up!
thanks for any feeedback
Tim says
September 9, 2013 at 3:08 pm
SwissPinoy
I am not sure I agree with you on Willful Failure to File is a felony. The IRS would like it to be but would is the operable word. As I read and understand it Willful failure to file is a federal misdemeanor crime usually not subject to extradition.
Where is your refrence can we get a legsl oprinion
Tim
Where is your refrence can we get a legal opinionl\
I would not a waste a second with swissponoy.
The Swiss were Nazi bankers if he is just too stupid.
FBAR is not even enforceable in Canada
@money
Just one second there money, I’m not sure if you’re into soccer or not but if I were a soccer ref. I’d have to show you the yellow card! I think you might have jumped the gun with your comment towards swisspinoy! I suggest you try and read as many post and comments from him on this site as you possibly can. I think you will come to see that he has very sarcistic artery running in his body which I personally think is good thing because get get a person to start tinking.
Hope you will reconsider your comment.
p.s I know swisspinoy personally
Boy do I miss that edit function for comments!! 🙂
The Swiss should just shut up on thing.
When you countryt dealt with the Nazi or Commies in a meaningful I would take your country comment worth something.
By the way
Home>Collections
Switzerland votes to prohibit the building of mosque minarets
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-11-30/world/36822097_1_minarets-muslim-community-switzerland-votes
This your attitude on the “religion of Peace”
Swiss Banks are responsible for the IRS starting FACTA
@money, during WWII, my grandfather delivered ammunition to the troops protecting the border from the Nazis. When the ammunition supply ran out, he served in the military administration and spent his free time working for a farmer to earn money to feed the family with potatoes and fruits. Back then, everything was rationed, including bicycle tires and there was a huge shortage of supplies. After harvest, his mother and children searched for remaining grains to make flour. The children also gathered nuts from trees for food. My grandfather was released from the military on the 4th of November, 1945. Afterwards, he planted flowers and vegetables to attempt to feed the family better, but his children went to to America and Canada in search for a better life. My grand uncle was a priest who helped Canadians and Americans who’s bombers had crashed in his village. My grand aunt was nun nurse who helped the sick and wounded. Another grand uncle was held hostage in Mongolia and then kicked out of China by the communists, another immigrated to New Jersey. My father studied languages and then went to the Yukon territory to chop trees and mine for gold.
The “Swiss were Nazi Bankers” claim is a racist generalization. Anyone who makes such a stupid claim is a born-again anti-Semite who would rather honor Hitler and slaughter Jews than to protect the innocent.
@all
I think IBS has just reached the “Godwin” point. I just hope we cross this point in time with few casualties 🙁
@money
First – Switzerland was just as much at risk of being run over by the Nazis as Austria and France. Fat chance they would have had with their meager army. Their banks were what svaed them from annihilation.
Second- Switzerland voted on the erection of new mosques in their country. A majority said no thx and this is a functioning democracy in which the wishes of the people are upheld, unlike America where the government does what it wants for money. The people decided against it because they said that these mosques were the breeding grounds for religious fanatics. And I`d also ask how many muslim countries allow for new churches or synagogues to be built and how many allow for other religious rules than their own.
And lastly – swiss banks are not the sole reason for FATCA. America`s debt is the reason for the hunt for money elsewhere. Globalization too, seeing that companies could place their headquarters elsewhere. There is more there than meets the eye. More and more people were bringing their money to Switzerland because of instability elsewhere.
The “Swiss were Nazi Bankers” claim is a racist generalization. Anyone who makes such a stupid claim is a born-again anti-Semite who would rather honor Hitler and slaughter Jews than to protect the innocent.
Your statement is illogical as the Swiss Banker were gentile
Nazi Gold and Loot
During the war, the Nazis stole gold, jewelry, and other valuables from the millions of Jews they murdered. The Germans needed a way to place these commodities in the international market so that they could use the money they received in exchange for their war effort. The Swiss helped facilitate the exchange in addition to holding Nazi accounts. Many speculate that some of the gold that the Swiss accepted were the dental gold and wedding rings taken from Jews at the camps.
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa072397.html
The WJC was able to marshal the unprecedented support of U.S. government officials including senator Alfonse D’Amato R-NY, who held hearings of the Senate Banking Committee in which he claimed to possess “recently declassified documents that shed new light” on the Swiss role in the war. He also claimed that “hundreds of millions of dollars” of war-era Jewish assets remained in Swiss banks.[1] At the behest of President Bill Clinton,[2] Undersecretary of Commerce Stuart Eizenstat testified at these hearings and commissioned a report[3] which accused Switzerland of being “Nazi Germany’s banker.” The report relied exclusively on U.S. government archives. It contained no new historical information on Nazi victims’ deposits into Swiss banks, and criticized the decisions of U.S. officials who negotiated settlements with Switzerland after the war as being too lenient. Christoph Meili, a Swiss bank guard, also testified at the hearings,[4] claiming to have witnessed illegal shredding of wartime records at Union Bank of Switzerland (SBG/UBS) in January 1997. He removed wartime records of transactions with German companies and gave them to the Swiss-Israeli Cultural Association. A warrant was issued for his arrest for violation of banking secrecy laws, and he fled to the U.S. UBS claimed the records were not relevant to dormant Jewish assets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jewish_Congress_lawsuit_against_Swiss_banks
The Holocaust
Prior to and during the Second World War, Switzerland gave refuge to about 23,000 Jewish refugees although the government decided that Switzerland would serve only as a country of transit. These Jews were protected during the Holocaust due to Swiss neutrality. The Jewish refugees, however, did not receive the financial support from the government that non-Jewish refugees received. Many more Jews were prevented from entering, effectively shutting the border. The Swiss government persuaded Germany to stamp “J” on the passport of Jews, making it easier to refuse Jewish refugees. The end of the war had delivered many thousands of Jews into the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. In 1942, the Swiss police issued a regulation that denied refugee status to “refugees only on racial grounds, e.g., Jews.” By the end of the war, less then 25,000 Jews were permitted to take refuge. Most of the refugees left Switzerland at the end of the war. More then 30,000 Jews were turned away according to a 25-volume study on Switzerland’s role during World War II completed in 2002.
In the past few years, Switzerland has had to owe up to its behavior during the Holocaust. In 1996, Swiss President Kastar Villiger formally apologized to world Jewry for their 1938 accord with the Nazis and its wartime actions against the Jews. At the same time, however, he downplayed economic cooperation between Switzerland and Nazi Germany. It transpired that numerous documents relating to Jewish property in Swiss banks disappeared during the 1940s and 1950s and there was significant pressure in the 1990s and early-21st century to rectify and compensate Holocaust victims and their heirs who were denied their assets in Swiss banks.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/swiss.html
@ money
Consider the sources of your copy and paste. The Jews have been re-writing WW2 history to suit their purposes for decades now. This is really not a great direction to be taking Brock.
“Godwin’s law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies[1][2]) is an assertion made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] that has become an Internet adage. It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3] In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Thanks Uncle Tell!
@ bubblebustin
Yes, I had to check that one out too. Maybe in the future there will an equivalent rule for Obombya.
Em Bubblestin who brought up wiping out people it was Swiss.
If you two want to bring rational of facts to your argument I would want to see them.
I think Syria is a waste of time and if one group of Muslim want to kill another group of Muslim so be it.
When we started research for our documentary “Nazi Gold,” we knew that the emotionally-charged issue of Holocaust survivors’ claims against Swiss banks was triggering a re-examination of Switzerland’s relations with Nazi Germany. New accounts of witnesses and survivors, and information from recently declassified documents in the United States and Switzerland, contradicted the previously-accepted historical record. From Switzerland’s close trade and banking relations with Berlin, to its controversial and tragic refugee policy, to certain officials’ post-war support for Nazis in their escape to South America, wartime Switzerland appears to many observers to have been less than neutral in World War II.
But there is one story we examined — the forced transports of Italians through Switzerland via the St. Gotthard mountain passage — which represents a dramatic new allegation about Switzerland’s wartime role. We tracked down a woman able to describe in detail an incident that since 1943 had been discussed only behind closed doors within Zurich’s Jewish community. Initially, this woman – whom we call ‘Elizabeth’ – had contacted a Holocaust survivor who had written about Switzerland’s role in the war. She described to him how, as a teenager in Zurich, she assisted in giving humanitarian aid to people in cattle trains headed to Germany.
We eventually established communication with ‘Elizabeth’ directly and gained her trust. She asked that we guarantee her privacy before giving an interview. Her husband confirmed that this was a story she had told him for the first time over 40 years ago. She is an intelligent, kind and cheerful woman with no motive for telling her story except a desire to put on record what she witnessed.
‘Elizabeth’ claimed that her experience with Nazi prisoner transports occurred sometime after the middle of December 1943. She emphasized that this was very secret, telling us, “I think the whole thing was rather undercover.” And she added, “we knew they were going to Germany, we knew they were Jews, we knew about the concentration camps.” In our interview with her, she described harrowing scenes at Zurich’s main station, with details we set out to corroborate.
The question is – who were on the trains? Were they Jews on their way to concentration camps, or slave laborers seized by the Nazis in Italy to keep their factories running? Or was it possible the transports included both?
To start, we found witnesses whose stories do support the charge that Italians were forcibly sent through Switzerland.
Elena Dreher, an Italian partisan, described her unit’s attempts to stop freight trains loaded with people before they passed into Switzerland. She recalled how the Germans would round up Italians in towns and villages by offering free cigarettes to all men between 18 and 40. They would be arrested and shipped to Germany as slave laborers; many would be worked to their deaths. The partisans attempted to stop these transports and were occasionally successful in derailing trains before they reached the Swiss border.
Otto Frey, a Swiss railway supervisor told us how he helped arrange for trains with cattle cars full of Italians to be transported against their will through Swiss territory. He emphasized, “We were told to get the trains through Switzerland as quickly as possible.” We heard similar accounts from five additional retired trainmen, including one description of a train that was stopped by rail workers within Switzerland, so the people inside could escape.
We found material in the U.S. National Archives on use of the Swiss rail system by the Germans. There were U.S. intelligence documents from the war which confirmed a massive amount of traffic through the Gotthard mountain passage between 1943 and 1944. German trains with coal and non-strategic supplies for Italy were passing through Switzerland at the rate of up to one every ten minutes. There have also been on-the-record accounts of hidden weapons and soldiers on the same route including a report by Jean Ziegler, a radical Swiss parliamentarian, who, as a young man claims to have witnessed a derailed freight train in 1944 with weapons and Nazi soldiers giving orders: an incident that, officially, never took place.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nazis/train/
I just directed a bunch of people to this website today who wanted to know more about FATCA. This conversation is not good and frankly I think we need to decide if going forward this is what we want newcomers to see here. I sure don’t.
The issue here is FATCA. Everything else is going to be a political point of contention since we are of all stripes here. There are conservatives here, liberals, centrists, christians, agnostics, atheists, buddhists and on and on. The second someone starts using language that demeans a country, a group of people, or any other name calling goes on it just takes away from why we are here and makes ANYONE who might be interested in learning more about this turn around on their heel and leave. There were four or five very interested people who took the url of this website. I sure hope I didn’t waste my time out there and I don’t like the idea that we stray into areas that could be harmful to fighting FATCA.
If someone wants to argue the points of some other sensitive issue then I don’t think that needs to happen here. We’re all affected by FATCA. That’s it. I don’t need to know that you hate liberals, you hate conservatives or you think the people of a particular country, religion or anything else are wrong or evil. FATCA made news today and Flaherty got asked about it directly when he wouldn’t have otherwise. People got directed to this website and sure hope we didn’t just lose the support we tried to drum up and got, at least temporarily.
Totally agree with AtticusinCanada. There are more than enough websites devoted to these kinds of discussions. Such discussions are irrelevant to the plight of USPs abroad and really don’t belong here. We should stay focused on FATCA, CBT/RBT, etc.
My 2 cents.