Author Archives: Deckard1138

http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/07/fatca-tax/

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, sounds another forceful warning about FATCA while confirming his support for the efforts of both Jim Bopp and our own ADCS.

Some excerpts:

History will ultimately teach us that America’s far-reaching new global tax law, FATCA, which came into effect Tuesday, is a “hammer blow for the U.S. economy”, warns the founder and chief executive of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations.

The stark warning from Nigel Green of deVere Group, which has $10bn under advice and management, is in response to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), better known as ‘FATCA’, which was implemented by Washington yesterday.

“As such, I will continue to voice my calls for this damaging tax act – which cannot possibly effectively achieve its purported aims of combatting tax evasion – to be definitively repealed.

“I will also continue to champion the legal and constitutional challenges being prepared by the likes of American super-lawyer Jim Bopp Jr. and the Alliance for the Defence of Canadian Sovereignty.”

www.devere-group.com

http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/1542111/beijing-back-united-states-over-new-fatca-law-against-tax

The move will enable Beijing to obtain information on mainland Chinese taxpayers in the US, which will help in its fight against tax evasion and corruption.

“It is important, as China was seen as the last major outlier in reaching an IGA with the US,” said Charles Kinsley, a China tax partner at accounting firm KPMG. “Most major economies have negotiated an IGA, either formally or in principle.”

Eric Boes, an international tax consultant at the trust company Amicorp, said: “I can imagine Beijing will want information on Chinese taxpayers abroad. A possible reason is that the government wants information on corrupt Chinese officials.”

Really?  Do the Chinese actually believe that the US, the world’s greatest tax haven, is going to hand-over any more banking information about their nationals than they have to the Russians, any number of Central or South American countries or, for that matter, any of the signatories to FATCA worldwide, including Canada?  While the US may have gleefully yanked Switzerland’s banking secrecy culture out by its roots it sure isn’t about to do the same thing to Delaware or Nevada or Texas or Florida.  It is simply laughable to pretend otherwise.

Yet plenty of pretending has been going on worldwide.  We know that reciprocity is a lie, yet every single article and press release trumpeting yet another FATCA deal includes this easily-refuted canard.  Is there something else going on behind the scenes that we simply haven’t figured-out?  With only four sleeps left until FATCA ignites, are we truly witnessing the birth of a nightmarish One World Government ruled by a despotic America or is this more like a game of high-stakes poker where every player is badly bluffing – except maybe China?

The Economist weighs-in with two new articles about FATCA:

Taxing America’s Diaspora: FATCA’s flaws

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21605907-americas-new-law-tax-compliance-heavy-handed-inequitable-and-hypocritical-fatcas-flaws

Dropping the bomb: America’s fierce campaign against tax cheats is doing more harm than good

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21605911-americas-fierce-campaign-against-tax-cheats-doing-more-harm-good-dropping

These are both great commenting opportunities.

Thanks to Innocente for pointing-out the additional article.

Another confounding dispatch from the inimitable Mr. Mopsick, this time offering some armchair quarterbacking of the June 18th IRS announcements.

Some CanCon highlights amongst the head-scratching tally of winners and losers:

With the Streamlined Express, the IRS has recognized that it is ill-equipped to hold everyone’s hand including old ladies in Canadian nursing homes who swear they see armed IRS special agents lurking around the bushes at night ready to arrest and humiliate them because they have disgraced themselves by failing to recognize their obligation as dual citizens to honor America with an annual tax return for all these years.

*****

The Canadians were not loser’s [sic] here. Continue reading →

Straight from the donkey’s mouth:

THE GOOD – The IRS announced on June 18 that the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (in place since late 2012 to help delinquent filers become tax compliant) would from 1 July be even more streamlined for non-filers who wish to become compliant. In his statement, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said, “We’re expanding the streamlined procedures to cover a much broader group of U.S. taxpayers we believe are out there who have failed to disclose their foreign accounts but who aren’t willfully evading their tax obligations. To encourage these taxpayers to come forward, we’re expanding the eligibility criteria, eliminating a cap on the amount of tax owed to qualify for the program, and doing away with a questionnaire that applicants were required to complete.” If you want to know more about the changes see the Special Report posted on the DA website.

THE BAD – Residence-based taxation will not replace citizenship-based taxation, no matter how hard other groups representing overseas Americans argue for it. Although it is baffling that the US is paired with Eritria as the only other citizen-based taxation regime, that’s where we are! And, FATCA will come to be – but read on to see what your DA FBAR/FATCA Task Force is working toward.

THE UGLY – A Senate controlled by the Republicans will NOT be able to repeal FATCA, no matter what they say. But a Republican Senate (and Republican House) can only make things worse for the nation and the world – and for us living and working around that world.

SO – What to do?

1. Vote in November. Please request and return your ballot so that we may keep the Senate in the hands of Democrats and perhaps even see Democrats take back the House. Go to www.votefromabroad.org!

2. If you haven’t already done so, please complete the DA FATCA Survey – and do it right away. The findings will strengthen our advocacy to Congressional committees (House Ways and Means, Senate Finance and the Joint Committee on Taxation) and to the regulators (IRS and Treasury) and persuade them FATCA needs to be reformed urgently.

Our position is that banking and other financial services provided to overseas Americans should be treated as local activities and therefore not subject to FATCA reporting. We are advocating that FATCA should be reformed to include an exemption for accounts in our countries of residence – a mechanism known as the same country exception. Read more about it on our website.

We have good reason to believe we will succeed. Your DA FBAR/FATCA Task Force, along with other overseas Americans groups, has already helped achieve the establishment of the initial Streamlined Financial Compliance Procedures, plus the enhancements announced last week, as well as helping to raise the FATCA reporting threshold for overseas Americans.

SO VOTE, COMPLETE THE SURVEY AND KEEP THE FAITH!

Democrats Abroad FBAR/FATCA Task Force
Joe Green – Canada
Stanley Grossman – UK
Maureen Harwood – Canada
Carmelan Polce (Chair) – Singapore
Joe Smallhoover – France

Contact us at any time with questions or comments on fatca@democratsabroad.org

TORONTO — A year after Ottawa expelled the consul-general of Eritrea to put a stop to a money-making scheme his regime had set up in Canada, the dubious “diaspora tax” program appears to be continuing undeterred. Under the system, the Eritrean consulate in Toronto tells expatriates they must hand 2% of their wages to the repressive African regime. The setup is part of a strategy that “routinely involves threats, harassment and intimidation,” according to a United Nations report.Foreign Affairs officials have repeatedly warned Eritrea to end the practice. Last month, as a condition for maintaining a diplomatic post in Toronto, Eritrea agreed the consulate would not have any role in the solicitation and collection of taxes.

From Value Walk, an article outlining Nigel Green’s enthusiastic support for superlawyer Jim Bopp’s upcoming lawsuit.  Disqus comments are ready for feedback.

DeVere Champions Super Lawyer Battle Against ‘Toxic’ FATCA

The founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations is hailing the involvement of one of America’s most prominent superlawyers in the campaign to repeal the highly controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as “the tipping point.”

The comments from Nigel Green of deVere Group, which has 80,000 clients and $10bn under advice, are in response to attorney Jim Bopp Jr’s decision to mount a legal challenge to the new law – due for implementation on July 1.

A legal challenge to FATCA

The high profile, no-nonsense lawyer is preparing a legal challenge to FATCA, which its opponents insist has a host of serious unintended adverse consequences.

Mr Green says: “The decision taken by Mr Bopp, who has previously successfully challenged other questionable finance laws in the Supreme Court, to take on the fatally-flawed FATCA could, I suspect, be the tipping point in the campaign to ultimately have it repealed.

“He is on a legal mission to definitively prove that FATCA, which has far-reaching negative consequences for the 7.6 million U.S. citizens abroad, the 13 million green-card holders and American businesses that operate globally, is unconstitutional on at least three counts.

“I believe that common sense and justice is on his side on this issue of national and international importance.  I am confident that his legal opinion will prove to be sound and robust.”

As most of us will recall from our school days, an iceberg is a deeply deceptive thing since 90% of its mass lies hidden beneath the waves. Like an iceberg, the full reality of FATCA remains largely hidden from view, even now, a mere 20 days before its implementation.

Much attention has been paid to FATCA’s most visible aspects – the growing numbers of both signed and “in substance” agreements – as well as the more than 77,000 FFIs which have entered the Portal of Mordor and received their shiny new IRS deputy badges.   As Robert Stack, deputy assistant treasury secretary for international tax affairs crowed, “The strong international support for FATCA is clear, and this success will help us in our goal of stopping tax evasion and narrowing the tax gap.”

But appearances are indeed deceiving with FATCA, and the imminent danger lies not so much with what is already seen, but that which remains to be seen, still lurking in the shadows beneath the surface.
Continue reading →

Finally, one country seems to have relocated its testicles and is calling America’s bluff on FATCA reciprocity:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-mulls-limitations-on-information-exchange-with-us-under-fatca/500669.html

http://rt.com/politics/160764-russian-banks-fatca-ban/

Whatever else one might make of recent events involving Russia, the nation deserves praise for tossing the FATCA live grenade squarely back into the laps of its authors. Russia realizes full well that there will never be reciprocity in any FATCA IGA and that there is thus no reason to surrender Russian sovereignty and to share private banking information with the IRS. There is also increasingly less to fear from the American threat of FATCA sanctions as Russia rapidly expands multilateral trading agreements which bypass the increasingly unfriendly and toxic U.S. dollar. If anything, FATCA is serving as an unintended, yet effective catalyst for a major realignment of global trading currencies which should have occurred years ago.

If only Canada’s pathetic Conservative government would have shown half the intelligence, foresight and resolve of the Russians and refused to capitulate to FATCA’s hollow threats and even hollower promises.

I urge one and all to watch this important and revealing look at the most powerful rogue state in history:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/

United States of Secrets, Part Two, will air on Tuesday, May 20th.

This series dissects, with chilling precision, just how far the United States has strayed from its Constitutional and moral center, especially since 9/11. There appears to be no law or Constitutional amendment which cannot be safely dispensed with in the name of those who died on that fateful day. Any true patriots who perished in those towers must surely be rolling over in their graves by now.

While the NSA’s massive domestic and international electronic surveillance campaign, dubbed “The Program”, was initiated by the Bush-Cheney White House, it has not only continued under Obama, but has flourished, for it is now enshrined in law. In the larger context provided by this documentary, FATCA may be seen as just one more layer of a pervasive, persistent, global information dragnet that is truly Orwellian. By any objective measure, this monstrous technical and legal system provides the very foundation for an inevitable one-world surveillance society.

The would-be heroes of this story include not only Edward Snowden, but an unlikely cast of NSA insiders, who agonized about the removal of all remaining privacy and due-process safeguards, and who ended-up like all good American government whistleblowers: having their front doors rammed-in by FBI SWAT teams. A cautionary tale, to be sure.

This is not even the already sick and dying America I remember as a ten year old kid by the late 60’s. This is something even more evil and dangerous. This is a nation that has not only completely forgotten its founding principles, but which continues to cloak itself in hypocritical, pious rhetoric while simultaneously destroying every last vestige of democratic freedom for its own people, and for the entire world. We are indeed mere roadkill on America’s unstoppable journey to a vastly greater version of hell.

Watch the program, and weep.