Commentary from the Globe and Mail:
Cayman Islands, Costa Rica sign tax pacts with U.S. http://t.co/Y2abSZ6PnD – Yes, they are #FATCA IGAs
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) December 1, 2013
Robert Wood perspective on #FATCA and countries siging IGAs http://t.co/CEb1PXs4SO
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) December 1, 2013
I love this comment from Normal Linton at http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2013/11/29/Online-Poll—Cayman-should-reject-FATCA/#view_comments
“It is illegal for Caymanians to shop on Sunday. Imagine if the Caymanian government wanted to extend that law to ban Caymanians from shopping on Sunday while in the USA.
To enforce it they would require the USA government and retailers to check whether persons entering their store on Sunday were Caymanians, so they could be prosecuted back home.
When the USA government stopped laughing they would tell us to get lost.
How different is that to the USA demanding that Caymanian businesses monitor THEIR customers and report if they MIGHT be USA citizens?
Personally, as a UK citizen resident in Grand Cayman for many years FATCA does not affect me at all.
But my heart goes out to Caymanians born in the USA for medical reasons but who have lived their lives here.
They will now be required to provide tax returns and pay taxes on their local and worldwide income, even though they have never lived in the USA.
I have an alternative idea for our big neighbors. How about following EVERY OTHER country in the world and only tax your citizens on residence?
Americans living genuinely outside the USA would then not be taxable.”
@ WhiteKat
The next comment is pretty good too. That’s a register your real name site but at least we can give some thumbs up to register our support for two very good comments and hopefully more to come.
I don’t know what to make of Robert Wood. It’s as though every time he writes something he’s just been to the Treasury Department for brainwashing and he needs to be reasoned with after.
I hope at one point he may begin to realize that every one of these conquests he brags about could each one day be part of the indelible record of the abuses the US government has inflicted upon the rest of the world. PatriotToExPatriate made a very good prediction, I think. Either the US will be extremely successful in their conquest, or they will fail miserably.
I’m sure the Nazi’s were proud of the progress they were making toward their “final solution” too, that is until they started doing badly.
The Cayman Islands have no income tax at all, and Costa Rica doesn’t tax foreign income, so they have absolutely nothing to gain from FATCA reciprocity. They probably signed the IGA purely from US pressure.
@shadow raider. So what are the Caymans and Costa Rica getting?
@Joe Zinga, I have no idea. According to the news article, the Cayman IGA doesn’t even include reciprocity. The Costa Rican IGA does, but as I said, Costa Rica doesn’t tax foreign income so I don’t know what they would gain by knowing the US income of its residents. Maybe they just thought that it would be easier for their banks to comply with FATCA under an IGA.
These are ‘notches’ on the USAs belt and Tax Havens that will now tie the FATCA line. These countries had to cave in and had no way of saying NO. What is disturbing is that no country has stood up and said flatly NO all are waiting, delaying and hoping it fails with the exception of the EU who are all apparently saying Yes. As far as Robert Wood – I don’t understand him either.
A WSJ blog has a short discussion on the FATCA IGA agreements with Cayman and Costa Rica. I enjoyed this part:
“The law, enacted in 2010, has engendered some significant resistance as the ramp up continues apace. Americans living abroad have expressed unease, if not outright hostility, toward the law.”
http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-394987/
@Innocente,
Re: ‘Americans living abroad have expressed unease, if not outright hostility, toward the law.’, not to worry if you bank at TD. TD bank is committed to making the experience more comfortable.
There’s an interesting new comment up on the Forbes article. I hope Julie Cochrane doesn’t mind me reproducing it in full. One e-mail I sent was to our Citizenship and Immigration Minister asking if, in light of the duress being put on U.S. citizens living in Canada, the Canadian Government would please consider fast tracking Canadian citizenships for Americans with permanent resident status.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/11/29/caymans-costa-rica-sign-u-s-tax-evasion-pact-fatca-gets-even-fatter/#./?&_suid=1386115894044012123595548490207
Julie Cochrane wrote:
“The outcome of this will be a reduction in dual citizenship. US citizens with dual citizenship who are not living in the US will renounce their citizenship. Countries with US residents who are not their citizens, who they want to keep, will probably speed up the citizenship pathway so those persons can renounce their US citizenship. US citizenship will become a liability like Soviet Citizenship once was; American refugees from tax-slavery to the IRS will seek (and get) political asylum.
The driving force here is the NSA breaches. The other nations will see safeguarding their citizens’ and government officials’ data as a matter of survival. They will begin to find ways to quarantine the US banking system. Insisting that American dual-citizens be allowed to renounce their US citizenship and be off the IRS hunting list, even if it means they can never go home again, will become the bright red line where other nations draw their sovereignty in the sand.
‘That’s our citizen, not yours. Let him go.’
This could actually lead the world to run gratefully into the arms of a Chinese and Russian hegemony. Not that those two would work together–but they won’t have to.”
@Em
I thought Julie Cochrane’s comment was interesting too. The US itself was in a tug-of-war with the countries of the many immigrants who landed on US shores, which led to the US passing the Expatriation Act of 1868.
“The War of 1812 was caused partly by Britain’s impressment of British-born U.S. citizens into the British Royal Navy. Immigrants to the U.S. were sometimes held to the obligations of their foreign citizenship when they visited their home countries. In response, the U.S. government passed the Expatriation Act of 1868 and concluded various treaties, the Bancroft Treaties, recognizing the right to renounce one’s citizenship.[3][4]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renunciation_of_citizenship
“Its intent was to counter other countries’ claims that U.S. citizens owed them allegiance; it was an explicit rejection of the feudal common law principle of perpetual allegiance.[2]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_Act_of_1868
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