Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/08/david-cameron-g8-anti-corruption-deal

David Cameron‘s hopes of securing at the G8 summit next week a major anti-corruption agreement that would force companies to reveal who really owns them is hanging by a thread, amid fierce opposition from both the Russian and Canadian governments, as well as from many members of the US Congress.

The prime minister believes new rules to make company ownership transparent are crucial, and has made it a key goal of UK diplomacy as he prepares to chair the gathering of world leaders which begins a week tomorrow. However, the Observer understands that goal is now in jeopardy, opening up the possibility that there will be no deal endorsed by all parties, a potentially embarrassing result for the UK as summit chair.

And more:

However, aid agencies now fear Cameron’s plan risks being derailed by other G8 members. Russia is resisting because of its extensive interests in Cyprus. Canada is also opposed, while many US politicians are against the plan because it would have an impact on Delaware, the low-tax, light regulation US state where some 200,000 companies are registered.

The impasse is considered so serious by Number 10 that Cameron is to discuss the issue with President Obama in a transatlantic phone call later this week.

It is understood UK diplomats have been instructed to continue pushing the proposal right up to the summit, even if it risks the UK failing to get a deal. “We are concerned not all countries are going to sign up,” said Robert Palmer of campaign group Global Witness. “This is about the world’s biggest economies saying ‘we are going to get our houses in order’.”

http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/

The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is potentially the most powerful tool ever devised to stem cross-border tax evasion and to crack down on tax haven secrecy. Initially a U.S. initiative, it is now in the process of being adapted and multilateralised.

Now, of course, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CF&P) and a group of other ethically-challenged bodies in the United States, have decided that financial secrecy (subtext: for rich people only) and tax havens are very good things, and that Fatca needs to be repealed. They have put together a coalition called Repeal Fatca, which urges support for legislation introduced by libertarian Senator Rand Paul to repeal the majority of FATCA, leaving it an empty shell, and leaving the world once again wide open to abuse.

The CF&P has some odd bedfellows in this group. One is an organisation called the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights (an oxymoron, as this document explains) and the group also includes the highly influential Washington lobbyist Grover Norquist, who once declared that his goal was to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”

For some very brief high entertainment on Norquist, spend two or three minutes watching this; for an explosion of the nonsense arguments put forwards by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, read Treasure Islands, or this blog.

The arguments of these people are simple to demolish: like shooting fish in a barrel. But that doesn’t make them any less influential or dangerous.  When the OECD made a timid effort in the late 1990s to tackle some of the worst abuses being perpetrated out of tax havens, it was a coalition just like this one, led by the CF&P, which killed it. Read more about that here.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_tax_havens_canada/?bobSybb&v=25247

Stephen Harper promised us he’d clamp down on financial corruption. But right after his own Chief of Staff gets caught paying off a corrupt Senator, Harper is getting set to shield the biggest tax cheats in Canada from paying their fair share, inflating taxes for the rest of us – unless we act fast to stop him.

In 24 hours the world’s biggest economies will try to get an agreement to tackle the global menace of tax evasion for the G8 summit in June. Canada is pushing to kill the deal, but with the Conservatives rocked by corruption controversies they’ll want to stay as far away from more scandals as possible. If thousands of us join together to pressure Harper and his negotiating team we can  get them to support a real deal against tax evaders.

$1 trillion is being lost that could be invested in schools, hospitals and public services and this is the best shot we’ve had in decades to stop this scam. Let’s flood Harper and his negotiators with thousands of messages before Thursday’s meeting and turn Canada from blocker to backer. Send a message and get Canada to save the global tax deal.

Send a message now to Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty. The more personal our messages the more impact they will have. Here are some of the points you can make when you write your message:

• Join the global deal at the G8 to implement tough, binding measures to combat tax evasion.
• Any agreement must include a public registry of who owns and controls the accounts of companies, trusts and foundations so that no individuals or companies can hide their income in shell companies.
• I want a system that stops the tax cheats so Canada has more to invest in our schools and hospitals. And my vote will depend on it.

June 4, 2013 by Ellen Wallace

“Entrapment” by the IRS resulted in “ruinous penalties” for ordinary Americans

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – American Citizens Abroad (ACA) has provided evidence “of the arbitrary and questionable IRS (US tax office) management of the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Programs” (OVDP) to members of three US Congressional committees working together to investigate IRS abuses, ACA said Tuesday 4 June.

The Geneva-based international group says that the 2009 OVDP in particular was “extremely prejudicial to Americans living overseas who sought to become compliant with their taxes due to errors or omissions under the OVDP. Believing they could come back into the system by simply filing the appropriate paperwork and paying any outstanding tax burden, these individuals were later told they would be hit with a standard penalty of 20% of the highest value of their bank accounts over a five-year period.”

More

Accounting Today: Acting IRS Chief Pledges Repairs before Congressional Panel

“The agency stands ready to confront the problems that occurred, hold accountable those who acted inappropriately, be open about what happened and permanently fix these problems so that such missteps do not occur again,” Werfel told a House Appropriations subcommittee.

…

“It seems we have a new misstep every day at the IRS,” said Representative Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican and chairman of the full appropriations committee. “I’m very troubled at what may come to light next.”

Rogers said Congress may further restrict the IRS’s funding with fresh constraints.

Congress Unveils IRS Employee Interviews about Tea Party Groups

The committee released excerpts from bipartisan transcribed interviews between Committee Investigators and Cincinnati IRS employees. In these interviews, Cincinnati IRS employees rejected the White House’s claim that the targeting was merely work of “rogue” agents and say targeting of conservative political groups came from Washington, D.C.

“As late as last week, the administration was still trying to say the [IRS targeting scandal] was from a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, when in fact the indication is that they were directly being ordered from Washington,” Issa told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday.
…
In addition to the two hearings scheduled this week by the House Appropriations Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he House Ways and Means Committee also plans to hold a hearing Tuesday in which lawmakers will hear from representatives of some of the conservative groups that had their tax-exempt status applications scrutinized by the IRS’s Exempt Organizations division.