Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

Need help from a Brocker in BC

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I’d like to talk to someone in BC — on the record, which means I would use your name — for an article I’m preparing for BC Business magazine on the FATCA nightmare. I know this would be a leap, and fully understand if no one wants to front up. I stayed anonymous for quite a while myself on this. But I need a real story/anecdote to get this piece moving. My email is don_whiteley at telus dot net, anyone who thinks they could do this drop me a note and we’ll have a conversation first, just to make sure you’re comfortable. My deadline on this is June 28th (and I’m away next week).

DW

Pain and desperation of U.S. citizen living outside the United States

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Thought I would share the following comment from a post on my blog called “An open letter to Mitt Romney“.

This plea should be retweeted, retweeted and (you guessed it) retweeted – hard to get the word out!

 

 

or this one:

 

https://twitter.com/FATCA_BlowBack/status/212614644832018433

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr Romney, please act and help us.
FATCA, FBAR reporting and the rest of the IRS penalty system aimed at rich tax frauds is wreaking havoc among honest americans abroad.
Hardworking middle class families abroad are terrified and offered no means of coming into compliance… threatened with confiscation of a large chunk of their net worth, for the crime of simply not filling in some papers required by laws back home. Families are being separated, and people are tragically and heartbroken, flooding into the embassies to renounce the US citizenship they once cherished. Being a US citizen abroad means they are subjected to threats, insults, compliance fees and complications far beyond what any US citizen at home must deal with. They are also being refused banking and insurance services. They have two choices, either return to the states, or if they have built their life elsewhere, renounce their US citizenship (if they are in compliance that is).

Others, who just learned of their reporting responsibilities, must either fork over 30% of their net wealth to a country where they don’t even live or work; or else take to hiding as a fugitive.
Their children are learning that the US is a country to fear and hide from, rather than “the land of the free”.
Please Mr Romney have an in-depth look at this situation and please help to fix it.

Foreign Financial Institutions could recover some of their costs for implementing FATCA

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The problem with FATCA, according to so many foreign financial institutions (FFIs), is that they bear all the costs and none of the benefits of FATCA.  This is perhaps untrue.  According to the IRS website, informants are entitled to a cut on the proceeds of civil and criminal fines under the Bank Secrecy Act (FBAR):

4.26.7.8  (11-17-2006)
Rewards for Informants

  1. An individual who provides original information that leads to recovery of a criminal fine, civil penalty, or forfeiture that exceeds $50,000 for a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act may be eligible for a reward, 31 USC 5323 and 31 CFR 103.62.
  2. The reward may not exceed the lesser of $150,000 or 25% of the net amount collected. Generally officers and employees of the United States, state, or local governments are not eligible to collect the reward.

Thus, if the FFI provides information ratting out their US citizen clients to the IRS, they should be able to claim a portion of any fines that the IRS is able to collect.

Undoubtedly, the IRS will claim that the information was not “original” but required by FATCA.  Nevertheless, FFIs should pursue the “legal” possibility of getting a piece of the action.

The redirect of isaacbrocksociety.com is successful

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I have completed the transfer of the registrant for isaacbrocksociety.com and immediately used our new host’s free service to forward that domain to isaacbrocksociety.ca.  As soon as this has propagated across the internet, no one will be able to get to the old wordpress site using the dot.com address.  The transfer has been successful in redirecting to the correct page at the dot.ca site.  So there is no need for authors to go through their old posts and change links.  The only thing is that comments do not have the same permalink as before and it may be useful to change links to comments.

I personally have access to the old site (isaacbrocksociety.wordpress.com), if necessary.  But at this point, I have trouble seeing why it would be necessary for anyone to access the old site.

(I’ve just checked, and it is clear that subscribers to the old blog do not need change their subscriptions to the new blog because the redirect takes them directly to the correct page).

Fareed Zakaria – Immigration lessons for the U.S. from around the world – Getting them in and keeping them in!

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Cross posted from RenouceUScitizenship

 

Last night I watched Fareed Zakria host a very interesting show:

Immigration lessons for the U.S. from around the world

Mr. Zakaria – Thank’s for a job well done! I assume the Podcast will be available soon. Continue reading →

Tonight on CNN, Fareed Zacharia examines US immigration policies and highlights Canada

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And how Canada “cherry picks” immigrants from around the world.

‘Fareed Zakaria looks at how the immigration systems work – and don’t work – in Japan, Europe, Canada and the U.S. in the TV special: “Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Making Immigration Work” on CNN at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 10. Watch on CNN International on Saturday, June 16, at 4 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET’

Immigration lessons for the U.S. from around the world

Time is running out for you to file your 2011 U.S. 1040 tax return, if you haven’t already done so.

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The double jeopardy of a U.S. citizen (Financial Post)

Don’t have time to get all that paperwork in by Friday? You can request an additional extension until Oct. 15. However, if you do owe U.S. tax, any amount paid after June 15 would be subject to both interest and failure to pay penalties.

and other US threats,

  • If you do happen to owe U.S. taxes, your ability to travel to the U.S. in the future could be severely restricted if a bill, which is now being studied by a congressional conference committee, sees the light of day.  Under U.S. law, it is illegal for a U.S. citizen “to depart from or enter the United States unless he bears a valid United States passport.” A recent tax amendment added to the senate version of the Highway Trust Fund bill, would authorize the U.S. government to revoke or deny the renewal of a U.S. passport to an individual who owes more than US$50,000 in U.S. taxes, effective Jan. 1, 2013.

 

Huff Post: Expat Absentee Votes Are Going to Be Even More Important in 2012

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Here is a recent article what was brought to my attention this morning that provides some opportunities for feedback and comments.

I bet you didn’t know that there are 6,320,000 U.S. civilians living abroad. Of which 205,118 are military personnel deployed overseas, and 270,604 are Study abroad students. (That’s a lot of study abroad students. More on that later.)

If overseas Americans were a state, we would be the 18th largest in the nation. (Sorry, Missouri!)

Read and comment here