It seems that 3.6 million precious Social Security numbers have been obtained by some enterprising group of people. Data storage devices are nothing more than “mother lodes” of riches and the U.S. government seems to be incapable of closing off access.
Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad
Fatca faces delay after bilateral disagreements
From Financial News, a DowJones news website:
October 26, 2012
Sophie Baker, “Fatca faces delay after bilateral disagreements”
The Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, was due to be introduced from next year but, according to a notice published on the IRS website on Wednesday, the deadlines have been pushed back. The original 2013 deadline for financial institutions to put compliance procedures in place has been delayed until January 2014.
More:
Moving to Canada? Better get a lawyer!
I missed this story on Wednesday, and have not commented on it yet. It was broadcast on NPR stations, by MarketPlace Radio.
It’s an oft-told political joke: “If things don’t go my way, I’m moving to Canada.” You hear it every election, but do people actually mean it when they say it?
There’s a chance Hannah Frame might be one of those people. She’ll be watching the upcoming election very closely from her dorm at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, as the outcome could have major ramifications for the rest of her life.
I thought some of you Canadians might want to use this opportunity to inform Market Place Radio about the “other” realities they did not mention. I notice, yet again, there is not a FATCA in the story or anything related to the issues of US Citizenship taxation. It is written from the perspective of difficulties with Canadian immigration, the legal issues and associated expenses of those hurtles. So, a one sided and narrow perspective. That said, here is the opportunity to educate a wider audience of the other difficulties Hannah Frame has never considered.
Americans are Undesirable as FATCA Closes More Doors
This reminds me of the t-shirt that I used to wear as a kid to protest the war in Iraq. It had all of the flags of the world with the US flag crossed out. Not much has changed since, apparently. But, what more can one expect from a two-party system?
Robert W. Wood
10/25/2012 @ 11:05PM |141 views
It’s cute to see movie portrayals of clumsy but good-natured Americans not fitting into some über sophisticated situation. But hearing big banks say thanks but no thanks to opening a checking, savings or investment account? Not cute. Being turned down for a mortgage because you’re American? That’s even worse. See Wary Swiss Banks Shun Yanks.
Sure, we might think a South American drug lord who is turned down is getting his just desserts. But these days, anyone but Americans seems likely to be welcomed into foreign banks. Welcome to FATCA, the global U.S. law that applies in earnest in 2013. Americans everywhere are facing ostracism and some are voting with their feet…
Read more Forbes
Show your support to the contributor and comment away. The article currently only has one comment from American abroad:
It is unbelievable that Americans living and working overseas are now being refused bank accounts and even mortgages, all over the world. The US system of citizenship taxation is completely wrong and has extremely negative effects, not only on Americans living overseas but on the US economy itself.
Imagine if California taxed every person ever born in the state of California, even those who had long ago moved to New York, Louisiana or Texas. That’s citizenship-based taxation.
And if California made every bank in every state of the whole country report directly to the California authorities the names and addresses of any client of that bank who had been born in California. That’s FATCA.
And if California imposed heavy fines and penalties on anyone who they discovered had NOT been reporting their income and their bank accounts to California, even if that person didn’t owe any taxes to California because they were paying hefty taxes to, say, New York. That’s the FBAR scandal.FATCA should be repealed as quickly as possible before it blows up the world financial sector and even worse, has an extremely negative impact on the US economy overall, as foreigners pull out of US ventures and investments and take their money elsewhere.
Thinking of voting?
David Selig says that the IRS is interested in your gold
The next IRS overreach will be closer scrutiny of bartering and precious metals. Lauren Lyster interviews David Selig, who argues that the IRS wants to know what you are doing with your gold in the same way that it has brought your foreign bank accounts under closer scrutiny. Also, expats–are you reporting your bartering with 1099B? David Selig says that you must. Did you trade something worth $100 for something worth $2000? That’s a taxable event, potentially a criminal event if left unreported.
Hat tip: Daily Reckoning
Or watch the video at Youtube.
Jim Jatras responds to Isaac Brock Society on FATCA
This comment by Jim Jatras is too important to let it be lost in our comment stream:
To Tim, Petros et al.at IBS:
The organizers at George Mason Law School inform me that the video of the event will be posted in a few weeks. Yes, it was great to have a chance to offer a few points directly to Prof. Harvey and Jesse Eggert at Treasury. Once the video is up, we can let viewers to decide who might be a flake and who is not.
Bottom line from the event is that it confirmed my sense going in of FATCA’s extreme political vulnerability and ripeness for repeal — if financial institutions (both US and non-US) and foreign governments would stop acting as, in effect, FATCA enablers. Most significant: Prof. Harvey, Mr. Eggert, and pretty much everyone admitted in substance that FATCA as written can’t be enforced. IGAs (intergovernmental agreements) are essential for the US to implement what would otherwise be an unenforceable regime. No one pretended that FATCA could be successfully enforced solely as a unlilateral and direct U.S. imposition. Either Washington will be successful in pressuring or tricking other countries into enforcing FATCA on themselves, or the whole scheme collapses.
Americans Who Leave the Country To Avoid High Taxes? Huh?
Another story in Business Insider. The headline is mis-characterized and that is too bad.
It comes to us via the Blaze, which means few progressives will give it much attention. They should!
Headline: In Last Night’s Debate, No One Discussed The Americans Who Leave the Country To Avoid High Taxes
I also posted it as a comment on the WSJ article here.
The story prompted the usual “Don’t let the Door Hit you in the ass” type comment, and I posted a response. Others are welcome to join in. Educating those poor ignorant Homelanders by one comment at a time is hard work, but we need to be persistent, IMHO
Singapore bank to Uncle Sam: ‘Stick it where the sun don’t shine…’
October 23, 2012,
SingaporeI never thought I’d see the day. Two years since the HIRE Act, FATCA, and Dodd-Frank became law and threw global finance into a tailspin, two foreign banks have finally stood up to Uncle Sam…
Bottom line, it’s more reporting, more registration, more paperwork, more hassle…
Yet just yesterday, DBS Bank in Singapore stood up to the US government, indicating that they would not be registering with US authorities for at least for one Dodd Frank provision pertaining to swaps. Nordea Bank in Sweden made a similar statement.
This is an interesting turn of events which could evidence a bigger trend.
We’ve already been seeing signs that US financial influence is waning. The dollar is being slowly displaced in international markets. Countries around the world are starting to increase their reserves of China’s renminbi, as well as accept renminbi in international trade settlements.
We’ve also seen foreign companies like McDonalds issuing debt denominated in renminbi, the launching of renminbi-denominated commodity futures contracts, and the trading of renminbi assets in foreign exchanges.
All of that used to be dominated by the dollar. But now the dollar’s share is gradually fading.
If more banks follow DBS and Nordea in standing up to the US government, it will be the clearest sign yet that this trend is taking hold… perhaps accelerating the dollar’s decline…
US Rep Dave Reichert of WA State posts FATCA Press Release on his website
This is first time I have seen any member of Congress go public on FATCA to their constituents. Excerpts:
Rep. Reichert Demands Answers on FATCA Implementation from IRS Commissioner
“Whether or not we agree on the approach that FATCA prescribes – which now allows the IRS to enforce the disclosure of personal private information about US persons from foreign companies – it is now clear that the implementation process of FATCA involves the IRS acting with an implied license to determine a new direction for global tax policy,” wrote Reichert. “I have talked with constituents, had discussions with international companies who are looking to comply, and many who wonder how successful these new policies will be in achieving their intended consequences.”
In the letter, Reichert, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, asks Commissioner Shulman to provide information on how the IRS is taking into consideration the potential effects on U.S. businesses and persons when negotiating IGAs, and asks the IRS to provide information on these considerations as Congress looks toward comprehensive tax reform.
I find the “I have talked with constituents” to be quite interesting clearly there are a lot of people registered to vote in Bellevue/Issaquah effected by FATCA. He also has a link to the letter he sent to Shulman CCed to Tim Geithner.
http://reichert.house.gov/sites/reichert.house.gov/files/FATCA%20LetterFINAL.pdf