Busy night here at Isaac Brock Society but we have a response up from Government/CRA on their position on FBAR. Somewhat legalistic language and a lot of information we already know but I want everyone to take a look at it. Key points: IRS ADMITS FBAR is NOT a tax and IS UNCOLLECTABLE in Canada and CRA has NO obligation under the tax treaty to help the US enforce it against anyone on Canadian territory.
Some of the regulars over Jack Townsend’s blog may want to pass this along
Just saw this. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York City sent a letter to Tim Geithner requesting he start a FATCA and FBAR education campaign for expats. For some reason I don’t see this happening either and I think Maloney knows that too. I will note Maloney is becoming pretty powerful among House Democrats only a few ranks below(and supposedly a close personal friend) of Nancy Pelosi. I think perhaps pressure could be more successfully applied to US House members than Senators who are imbeciles led by Reid and Levin.
Read this —
Ronald L. Brekke, 55, helped prepare phony tax forms for nearly 1,000 people, most of them Canadians, claiming more than $763 million in fraudulent refunds … Brekke told clients to cash their fraudulent checks as soon as they received them and take the money back to Canada.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-tax-fraud-20120316,0,4261032.story
— and then ask yourself how big the red flag is that now flies over the word Canada at the IRS.
$14 million … all but impossible to recover.
I found this Financial Times article about the Swiss parliamentary vote, you will have to register for free at Financial Times to retreive it (8 articles per day for free or something like that [Editor’s Note: Try this link instead, routed through Google news]). Financial Times : Swiss parliament backs tax amendment The article seems to twist the whole affair around and as far as I am concerned it is negative press for us.
Here is a link to my original rant on the parliamentary vote
In lieu of original content, here is an excerpt from Angelo Nikolakakis’ “Civil Law and Common Law Perspectives: A View from the Left”, in Guglielmo Maisto, Residence of individuals under tax treaties and European Community law (IBFD, 2010). Beginning at page 81 (footnotes omitted):
Generally, non-residents are either not entitled or not in a practical position to enjoy the same public benefits as residents. Why then should they bear similar — or more onerous — income tax burdens as residents (all the while focusing the question on domestic sources), putting aside source-country opportunism? Continue reading
As the ides of March premonish the far more perfidious April 15, this day of 2012 just now passed seems to have coincided with the number of named participants at Isaac Brock Society having crossed the 200 threshhold. Hard to tell for sure, but it looks that way.
Ring… Ring…
Secretary: Hello John Culberson’s office.
American abroad: Hello, I am a voter in John Culberson’s district. What is the Congressman’s position on FATCA, FBAR, and Americans abroad?
Secretary: I am not sure. Let me see if Robert is free. He is the legislative director.
S. 1813, the highway (robbery) bill with amendments that let the Treasury Department ban credit cards from non-FATCA banks and give the IRS the power to take away expats’ passports, passed the Senate by a vote of 74-22 with 4 abstentions. The bill will now go to the House, where it will face off against H.R. 7, a competing surface transport bill by Rep. John Mica (R-FL).
Hi folks. There have been some complaints about having to be logged in to comment. This has apparently become an issue at WordPress. It is not my doing as you can see from this screen shot of the settings for this blog:
By the way, the e-mail doesn’t have to be real. Some have commented with fake e-mail addresses. Of course, the prevents me or anyone else from being able to contact you for whatever reason. We do, however, ask that you use a consistent alias.
Cheers,
Peter
