I just became aware of the article http://www.financialtaskforce.org/2013/01/23/four-questions-for-jack-lew-obamas-pick-for-treasury-secretary/#comment-777179702 via Maple: http://maplesandbox.ca/why-congress-doesnt-get-it/#comment-3892 and posted a comment to Financial Task Force site. Calling all Brockers: please go to the FTF site and hammer them with comments. My comment was as follows: Continue reading
Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad
Tina Turner ‘to become Swiss, give up US passport’
Tina Turner ‘to become Swiss, give up US passport’
25 January 2013 – 10H41
US singer Tina Turner arrives for the Emporio Armani fashion show in Milan, on February 26, 2011. Turner — who has been living in Switzerland since 1995 — will soon receive Swiss citizenship and will give up her US passport, according to Swiss media reports.AFP – US pop legend Tina Turner, who has been living in Switzerland since 1995, will soon receive Swiss citizenship and will give up her US passport, Swiss media reported Friday.
“I’m very happy in Switzerland and I feel at home here. … I cannot imagine a better place to live,” Turner told German language daily Blick….
Makes sense. She’s lived in Switzerland for the past 20 years, so she might as well continue doing so under the same conditions as any other Swiss citizen. Switzerland is a great place for celebrities, since they can go about their normal lives without people making a big deal out of such.
Avoid the scrutiny of FATCA/FBAR/Form 8938 by putting your gold in an offshore safety deposit box
Simon Black (Do I Have To Report My Offshore Gold…?) asks whether custodial gold “accounts” (e.g., James Turk’s Gold Money) fall under FATCA provisions and his people think so. However, gold kept in a safety deposit box would not fall under FATCA:
What’s more, in all of those 544 pages, there is not a single mention of the words, “gold”, “silver”, or “precious metals”. So there’s still quite a bit of mystery with respect to the question, “Do I have to report my offshore gold…?”
I’m still having my team go through the rules; after an initial read, though, the language of the regulation does suggest that custodial gold institutions (like GoldMoney, etc.) should be reported. Offshore safety deposit boxes (like Das Safe) do not.
Theatre of the Absurd…
I see that we have new visitors so perhaps its time to repost this video. Everybody I show it to thinks its great and it does highlight the human rights issues associated with FATCA in Canada.
A Cold War emigrant from Romania reflects on exit taxes
Including this interesting little anecdote:
I came across a form of exit tax when I left my country. In order to receive a visa for permanent non-citizen residence in the U.S., I had to pay a tax for all the government benefits I had received in my first twenty years of life, schooling, medical care, subsidized concrete block housing, pot-holed road use, constant police surveillance, and other “services” I was not even aware existed or received. I was worried since I had no penny to my name and I knew I would not be able to leave without paying.
The final figure was provided to me after months of deliberation and computation by the communist party apparatchiks – my freedom was worth exactly $160 U.S. dollars. I owned a Japanese boom box, it was the rage back then, which I sold quickly for $160, and paid my “exit tax.” This cleared my name – I did not owe anything to the government of Romania, for the communist care and education I had received. I was finally free.
Of course, nowadays the price of a boombox won’t even get you an hour of an international accountant’s time to help you fill out the Form 3520 for your “foreign” retirement plan or the Form 8621 for your “foreign” mutual funds.
1979 Flashback: Americans Abroad Angry
Having stumbled upon this article, I had to check the date to see when it was printed because it seemed quite similar to the current situation today. Where have we heard this before? This suggests that there is no hope that the US government will ever learn from its mistakes:
Americans Abroad Angry About Tax Snare
Dec. 20, 1979. By R. C. Longworth. Chicago Tribune.After living for nearly 20 years in Switzerland, Cartoonist Hank Ketcham faced the crucial choice – either return to the United States or become a Swiss citizen. Many of his American friends in Geneva were taking Swiss citizenship, but eventually the creator of Dennis the Menance returned to California.
“I had to think about Dennis,” Ketcham said at the time. “How would it look if the all-American boy had a Swiss father?”
There are two points to this story – that Dennis’ “daddy” would even consider giving up his American citizenship, and that some Americans he knew had already done so.
This is a sharp change in the history of Americans overseas. Normally, no American, no matter how expatriated he became, ever considered giving up his citizenship.
The change is traceable to one factor – a new American tax law that can raise the taxes of Americans abroad well above what they would pay at home. At the very least, the law produces extra work and confusion. At the worst, it penalizes the American or, often, the company that sent him abroad.
The evidence that Americans are increasingly becoming ex-Americans comes mostly from informal reports from abroad. The State Department says it keeps no statistics on the matter.
But Bill William, editor of the Brazil Herald and a 20-year resident of Rio de Janeiro, wrote recently that “taxes were one of many elements” that led him to take Brazilian citizenship. He is not alone, he added.
The Democrats Abroad Paradox
Deckard writes of a major irony in the position (or non-position) of Democrats Abroad on FATCA and related issues:
I believe that one of the ironic consequences of our situation is that Democrats Abroad, and others analogous to it, such as Republicans Abroad, shall soon be facing unprecedented existential crises. If FATCA continues to unfold as its architects wish it to then there may be no more than this current generation left to even attend DA meetings and events. Instead, they may begin to resemble lonely Legion halls with a dwindling membership of WWII vets.
Once FATCA begins to be fully implemented, younger Democrats Abroad will be faced with a stark choice: either shed themselves of their now-toxic U.S. citizenship which their parents so lovingly transmitted to them, with all the best intentions – or face a bleak future of financial ruin in their adopted countries because of a crippling inability to participate in the essential tax-deferral vehicles they need to build a secure retirement. Of course, the third choice would be to abandon their overseas homes completely, where they were very likely born, and run headlong into the full embrace of the Homeland, leaving their friends and family behind forever.
I attended the Inaugural Ball celebration at the local chapter of Democrats Abroad last night and I saw very few people under the age of 50 in attendance. If that is the current, baseline demographic for this organization then I would have to conclude that its days may very well be numbered.
I was struck last night at the passion with which one of the organizers spoke of the chapter’s me-too support of new gun-control legislation in the U.S. I could not help but marvel at the irony of an overseas American organization choosing to focus on an almost entirely domestic American issue at the expense of issues that will be of far more immediate and personal consequence to their own lives in the coming years. No one spoke of FATCA, and the destructive scourge of citizenship-based taxation, even though this issue should remain at the very top of DA’s agenda for years to come.
I know that Joe Green is DA’s Canadian point-man for the FATCA/FBAR task force, but it seems that he is the only one in the organization who’s showing any real interest in the topic. Everyone else is blithely enjoying their little get-togethers and making themselves feel good about supporting a few easy motherhood issues from afar, all the while ignoring the ugly, dangerous reality that lies right before their very eyes, on this side of the border. If Democrats Abroad remains blind to where its energies most urgently need to be directed, and if it cannot muster enough confidence to forthrightly speak truth to power, then I believe it is truly doomed and will soon be a footnote to history.
Deckard originally wrote his above observations, in reply a comment to Michael on another thread, which read:
I am a member of Democrats Abroad. I voted for Obama because I agree with him on more issues than I do with the Republicans. At the same time I disagree with FATCA and citizenship-based taxation and enjoy the IBS website. If IBS wants to be as effective as possible in reaching out on citizenship-based taxation — which, like government raids and government overreach, precedes Obama — I would urge you to be more politically inclusive.
Thanks to Michael for his comment as well as to Deckard for his lengthy reply to it. It’s an important matter worthy of focus and exchange of ideas and opinions.
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting – Davos, Switzerland 22-27 Jan 2013
Patricia brought to our attention on another thread that the World Economic Forum is having its Annual Meeting at Davos and has several webcast of meetings
The programme for the five days is at this link.
Wednesday 23 Jan, beginning 0900 CET, focuses on the Global Financial Context.
Many sessions are webcast and archived, and people can participate by Twitter.
We are the Federal Government: We can do what we want when we want and there’s nothing you can do about it
The best thing about being an ex-American living outside of the United States is that I don’t live in the United States anymore.
FATCA may end the taxation of US Persons Abroad
Professor Christians has released the paper that was the basis for her presentation at the Tax Conference on January 18, 2013. In order to listen/view her presentation see an earlier post with commentary on the Pepperdine Tax Conference.