Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

CCH Group posted this new article on March 28th, 2013:

IRS Planning FATCA Corrections and Clarifications, Looking at “Refinements” to Final Regs, Official Says

The IRS will provide clarifications and technical corrections to the final regulations issued on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-147 ), an IRS official said on March 27. When asked whether there might be further ”refinements” to the final regulations, John Sweeney, chief, Branch 8, IRS Associate Chief Counsel (ACC) (International), said that the IRS is also looking at what issues might require substantive changes, but he did not promise that the Service would issue amendments to the final regulations. Sweeney spoke during an American Bar Association (ABA) Tax Section webcast.

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Zhulik, living in Budochka, Belarus, apparently inherited $1 million from his/her US elder, tax-free, with no known US filing obligations and didn’t renounce US citizenship.  No FBAR, no FATCA, no nothing.  Yet, so far, no Americans have accused the dog of not paying his/her “fair share” or of “evading” US taxation.   Must dogs be required to file FBARs too?

MINSK, March 31 (RIA Novosti) – A dog from the small village of Budochka in Belarus inherited almost $1 million from a US citizen of the Belarusian origin, local Respublika daily reported.

The ten-year-old dog by the name of Zhulik (Swindler) inherited the fortune from late John Fyodorov, who was born in Budochka, but migrated to the United States after the World War II.

According to Zhulik’s owner Vasily Potapov, Fyodorov visited the small village in Belarus in 2007 and said the dog reminded him of his dog Valet that died in 1950s.

Valet was ill at that time and deciding between an expensive surgery for the dog and buying a ticket to Sacramento, Fyodorov chose the latter. The dog died and since then Fyodorov could not forgive himself for the death of best friend.

Maria Protasenya, a lawyer from Minsk, confirmed that a special bank account was opened for the dog and it currently boasts $993,700.

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Today, I sat down  behind the computer, punched in the requested numbers and ta-dah!  It rejected citizenship-based taxation again, just like it did last year and the year before that and before that and that and so on and on.

This shows that nobody hates citizenship-based taxation greater than the American people, the American government, the American Congress.  Let’s face it – America hates citizenship-based taxation!  If such was not the case, then this problem would have been fixed decades ago.

After punching in the numbers, the Error Check reported that Americans abroad cannot free-file US taxes if their income is below the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, since they then have no “Total income”, no “Adjusted gross income”, “Tax”, etc.   In other words, America recognizes that it is utterly stupid to bother people who live and work in other jurisdictions.

America’s unconditional hatred of citizenship-based taxation is then certified when one clicks to e-file or print the return:

Notice how it specifically states that US taxation is only for people who live in the US:

So, there you have it, folks.  America is still the world’s leading hater of citizenship-based taxation, endlessly causing unnecessary trouble for its citizens living abroad to further demonstrate that citizenship-based taxation just cannot work.

Setting aside FATCA, FBAR, or Citizenship taxation, now for something entirely different this Easter holiday.  Have you got a better explanation?  🙂

Interesting tussle between Conservative Alberta Finance Minister Doug Horner and Jim Flaherty (and indirectly by the way between Doug Horner and the Canadian Bankers Association).

Alberta wants securities regulation to stay with provinces

The province’s finance minister, Doug Horner, said Alberta was happy to discuss greater cooperation with Ottawa, especially in the realm of systemic risk. But the energy-rich province, which is seen as a key player in creating the critical mass of support that would pave the way for a national regulator, is not about to dismantle its own financial watchdog.

“We’re talking about a collaborative system. It isn’t that we’re going to go to a common securities regulator and have one office somewhere,” Horner said in an interview on Wednesday. “That’s been pretty much off the table for provinces for some time.”

But Horner dismissed the idea of a central regulator and said provincial finance ministers who met in Montreal on Monday wanted instead to consider improvements to an existing “passport” system.

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I think perhaps it is time to replace Mr. Flaherty as Federal Finance Minister with Mr. Horner of Alberta a man who likes using words like SOVERIEGN, NO, NOT, and WON’T.