USxCanada can vouch for the reliability of the following reporter, personally known for over three decades. This report of no-fee relinquishment in Hong Kong, authorized for release to Brock, is cut-and-pasted from a just-received email. This case provides further evidence that residents of Canada are suffering execrable treatment by the country from which they seek release.
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Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad
How big is the US tax code? Not as big as the US tax rules.
Numerous times here on the Isaac Brock Society, one or another of us has talked about the physical size of the US Tax Code. The figure I remember is on the order of 73,000 pages. Today Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute responds to a critic of his recent article on the size and complexity of the US tax code. The critic calls Edwards a liar, informing us that the Tax Code is a featherweight 5500 pages and takes up a paltry 18 inches of bookshelf space, not the nine feet claimed by Edwards. In response, Edwards defends his claim by distinguishing between the standard edition of the US Tax Code itself, which is the smaller version, versus the Standard Federal Tax Reporter published by CCH which includes the Tax Code, plus the tax regulations from the Treasury Department, plus rules and commentary from tax case law, and which is the document that tax practitioners must work from. This latter document is indeed over 73,000 pages.
The metric of shelf space, nine feet and counting, comes from the Taxpayer Advocate Service as a means of illustrating the burden of tax complexity for the taxpayer. CCH has a nice historical visual of this burden. In 1913, the 1040 form was one page, with two pages of instruction. The 1040 is still only two pages , but this year the instruction book for the 1040 is 189 pages long. And anyone who’s filled one out lately is aware of how many other forms, with their own interminable instructions, can be spun off from this deceptively short document.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative and citizenship based taxation
Outside of the IBS I am a regular commenter at a blog called Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. I have always wanted this subject to come up there and it appears tonight my wish has been granted. If you go the link below you see my comments at the very end after someone else brought up the virtues of citizenship based taxation(The person in question is a self identified NDP supporter so I had to remind him the NDP OPPOSES citizenship based taxation)
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2012/04/breakfast.html#comments
Feel free if interested to jump in if interested(Over my history of commentating at the site I am actually quite friendly with the commenter Determinant who made the comments in favor of citizenship based taxation). The people who run the blog are several influential professors who have a lot of ties to the Department of Finance so this is another way of getting are voices heard in Ottawa. Be respectful though.
FCPA as a profit center? Smells horribly like FATCA and FBAR.
FCPA as a profit center? I have been in Africa (Ivory Coast) and grease payments are de rigeur if one wants to “stay alive”.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/business/2012/04/12/pkg-taylor-fcpa.cnn
Ireland joins FATCA talks
The Irish tax authority has officially entered the debate on US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) with the US Treasury, according to a spokesperson for the Irish authority, joining a host of European countries in search of a common approach.
Full article: http://www.hfmweek.com/news/1712348/ireland-joins-eu-fatca-talks.thtml
WSJ Column on US Citizenship Renouncement
Here it is:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303592404577362050670738024.html
My first observations are the comments left are for the most part not at all negative towards those who do so.
Hiding money from your spouse can be a federal crime, if in a foreign account
Jack Townsend writes on the recent conviction of Aristotle, “Rick” R. Matsa on 22 counts of fraud and obstruction of justice related offenses, including witness tampering and making a false statement.” Jack highlights the part about FBAR charges in the government summary:
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Two small English-speaking countries with very different reactions to FATCA
In non-Anglophone countries, a lot of the coverage of FATCA is driven by cross-border tax consulting firms — the only organisations with the resources to translate huge volumes of FATCA news into the local language, and the connections to push their version of the story to local journalists on a regular basis. These companies, despite their crocodile tears, are very happy about all the new business that FATCA is going to generate for them in helping customers navigate complex new requirements, and get no benefit by promoting opposition to it.
In Anglophone countries, however, the local journalists have no excuse for not getting their FATCA coverage right anymore; there is a huge amount of material out there about the potential negative effects of the U.S.’ new fiscal imperialism. So it’s interesting to see the sharply differing coverage of FATCA in Ireland — a country with a high presence of cross-border tax sandwich-makers — and Jamaica, where such companies are far less active.
Canadian Medical Association position on FATCA and FBAR(Must Read)
I have no idea how the Canadian Medical Association got involved with issue but apparently they did sending a letter to Jim Flaherty and receiving a response back both of which I have linked to below:
Perhaps we need to get other “professional” organization outside of banking and finance to take a stand on this issue.
Letter from MP Denise Savoie to President Obama
I don’t how I missed this gem of a letter but apparently in the fall MP Denise Savoie of Victoria sent a letter to US President Obama on the subject of FATCA, OVDI, FBAR etc. I have linked to it below.
http://denisesavoie.ca/download/1467/letter_to_president_obama.pdf
MP Savoie also has a section of her website devoted to US tax issues(although it hasn’t been updated since December) in which she continues to indicate her opposition to FATCA.
http://denisesavoie.ca/us-tax-information
I am also trying to get together all of the official responses we have received and obtained for submission to Deloitte’s FATCA comments page. I don’t know whether Deloitte will publish them but there are all very much authentic.
If anyone wants to helpful post a link to any previously published letters here at Isaac Brock Society.