Here is a fairly good article, published earlier today, on how FATCA makes US citizens abroad toxic:

“The law that makes U.S. expats toxic”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-law-that-makes-u-s-expats-toxic-1444330827

A few hours ago, I sent a quick note to the author, a law professor at Pepperdine University, complimenting her, but pointing out the issue of “accidental Americans” and similar cases. She responded within an hour or so, pointing to her 2013 WSJ article on precisely this:

“How to lose friends, citizens and influence” at http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578607472987119796

She is hoping:

a) her article will be reposted or linked, in order to get it number one article online

b) there will be good quality comments posted.

Professor Graffy gets it, that citizenship-based taxation is buckets of trouble.

According to Rep. Jim Jordan (OH), Congress will impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
 

“It is something that has to be done,” said the Ohio Republican. “If we don’t hold some people accountable in the executive branch for the executive overreach we’ve seen in [the Obama] administration, then they’ll never get the message.”

 
It appears that Mr. Koskinen delayed FOIA requests and ignored court orders to turn over documents on the IRS scandal involving Lois Lerner.

Four hundred and twenty-two backup tapes of approximately 24,000 emails, including some of Ms. Lerner’s were destroyed.Given the fact Mr. Koskinen told the Congress the documentation would be preserved and that he would turn over all the documents, it appears he lied and quite possibly, perjured himself.

At a hearing in July, Judge Emmet Sullivan warned the IRS and the Justice Department that”excuses for not following His order were “indefensible, ridiculous and absurd and that “I will haul into court the IRS Commissioner to hold him personally in contempt.”
 
Federal officials can be impeached for:

• dereliction of duty
• failure to comply and for
• breach of trust

In Koskinen’s case this amouts to:

• failure to disclose loss of emails relevant to a congressional investigation
• non-compliance with an order to preserve evidence
• refusal to testify truthfully and according to indications given to the Congress

 
Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch,says some of the emails
 

“prove that the agency used donor lists to audit supporters of organizations engaged in First Amendment–protected lawful political speech.”

 
Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, says the IRS has
 

“lied to Congress,” and “destroyed documents under subpoena.”

“He assured us he would comply with a congressional subpoena seeking Lois Lerner’s e-mails. Not only did he fail to keep that promise, we later learned he did not look in earnest for the information.”

 
During the trial in July, Mr Koskinen appears to have mis-characterized a GAO report that was critical of the IRS’s procedures for selecting exempt organizations for audits.The report indicates that IRS does track information about high net worth individuals. What may need to be investigated further is whether contributions to political committees are traced and whether or not the IRS then proceeds with audits of donors.

So Mr. Koskinen now sits in the hot seat and one can only hope that others involved in this, particularly former Commission Douglas Shulman may also find it difficult to evade responsibility. You may remember Mr. Shulman’s rather snarky response to an Oversight Committee member’s question as to why he made so many trips to the White House; his reply was “taking his kids to Easter Egg Hunts.” Sounds rather dishonest and quite willful at that. Oh, and let’s not forget IRS’s favourite phrase, “under penalty of perjury.”

Information about this story can also be found here, here, and here.
 
Hat tip to Sid
 

U.S. fears EU tax probe

Financial Times
By Vanessa Houlder in London and Christian Oliver in Brussels

How ironic that the US Treasury is now worried about tax investigations into Apple, Starbucks and Amazon.

Robert Stack, a deputy assistant secretary, said the US was concerned that “any retroactive tax would be borne by US taxpayers in the form of a credit”, adding that “a purely prospective remedy would alleviate these concerns”.

The Commission’s competition arm is expected to issue decisions shortly on cases involving Amazon and Fiat in Luxembourg, Apple in Ireland and Starbucks in the Netherlands. If it rules that governments gave companies favourable treatment, it has the power to force governments to claw back 10 years of unpaid taxes, potentially hitting companies with bills running into billions of euros.

The US also fears that the Brussels investigations will end up diminishing the role of its bilateral tax treaties with EU member states. It does not want the commission to override member states in deciding companies’ tax bills, as it has no treaty with Brussels that would allow it to challenge its conclusions.

Hey Robert Stack, how about a tax credit for each country’s expenditure to implement FATCA? That would keep you off the backs of the rest of the world for your insane 30% sanction at least for a while. Look who’s crying now. No Treaty with Brussels, too bad………..

http://www.thecanadianpress.com/contact_us.aspx?ekfrm=1897

TREASURY INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION

Planned Improvements Have Not Been Made to Manage and Track Correspondence
With International Taxpayers

September 8, 2015

Reference Number:  2015-30-072

This report has cleared the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration disclosure review process and information determined to be restricted from public release has been redacted from this document.

Redaction Legend:

1 = Tax Return/Return Information

Phone Number  /  202-622-6500

E-mail Address /  TIGTACommunications@tigta.treas.gov

Website           /  http://www.treasury.gov/tigta

HIGHLIGHTS

PLANNED IMPROVEMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN MADE TO MANAGE AND TRACK CORRESPONDENCE
WITH INTERNATIONAL TAXPAYERS

Highlights

Final Report issued on September 8, 2015

Highlights of Reference Number:  2015-30-072 to the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner for the Wage and Investment Division.

IMPACT ON TAXPAYERS

As of May 2014, the U.S. State Department estimated that approximately 7.6 million U.S. citizens live in a foreign country.  The rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns, as well as paying income taxes, are generally the same for international taxpayers as for those taxpayers living in the United States.  The IRS heavily relies upon its many notices and letters as its primary means of communication with taxpayers.

WHY TIGTA DID THE AUDIT

As globalization trends continue, so too do the challenges to the IRS’s ability to provide services to and enhance the tax compliance of U.S. taxpayers living in other countries.  This audit was initiated to evaluate the process for sending tax correspondence (notices and letters) to business and individual taxpayers who reside outside the United States, analyze how the taxpayers responded, and determine whether the correspondence resulted in improved compliance.

WHAT TIGTA FOUND

Even though the IRS sent approximately 855,000 notices and letters to U.S. taxpayers living in other countries during Calendar Year 2014, it cannot determine taxpayer response rates.  The lack of data on response rates for international taxpayers is problematic because this information is needed to determine the effectiveness of international correspondence on increasing taxpayer compliance and to make program improvements.

IRS data systems are not designed to accommodate the different styles of international addresses, which can cause notices to be undeliverable.  Other factors complicate the delivery of international mail, making its delivery less certain than domestic correspondence.

In addition, the IRS generally does not know if international taxpayers receive the tax correspondence sent to them.  Without specific controls to monitor and metrics to measure international tax correspondence, the IRS cannot determine the impact of its international tax correspondence on taxpayer compliance.

WHAT TIGTA RECOMMENDED

TIGTA recommended that the IRS:  1) develop a systemic process that identifies undelivered international mail volumes, as well as tracks international tax correspondence and receipt trends;2) develop specific performance measures to monitor the compliance impact of sending international tax correspondence to taxpayers residing outside the United States; 3) use the Postal Service Form 2865, Return Receipt for International Mail, for the countries that currently support return receipts for registered foreign mail; 4) expand the International Submission Processing Individual Master File Foreign Address Job Aid to include abbreviated address formats for all foreign countries as needed; and 5) coordinate with the other business operating divisions to make the job aid available to all IRS employees who are responsible for the input of addresses into IRS computer systems.

The IRS disagreed with four of the five recommendations.  While the IRS generally agreed that TIGTA’s recommendations could provide additional insight into the factors contributing to undeliverable international mail, it does not believe this information would permit the IRS to overcome budgetary, statutory, and operational constraints as needed to achieve appreciable improvement in its current processes.  TIGTA does not believe that the IRS’s response is adequate because current IRS processes for addressing international mail issues are ineffective or nonexistent.

September 8, 2015

********************

You can read the full report at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2015reports/201530072fr.html

Thanks to bubblebustin for providing the content for this post.

I just sent this to all NDP sitting members.

Please ask the geniuses running the NDP campaign…

Why they are unwilling to solicit the 1,000,000+ votes of Canadian citizens with the misfortune of being born in the USA who are having their bank records turned over to the IRS by the Stephen Harper government?

https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/

 
“Logline” from the extensive press kit for this new documentary film:

The investigative documentary Faliciani‘s Tax Bomb follows the tracks of the obscure whistleblower Hervé Falciani who — being responsible for the so-called Swiss Leaks — caused the biggest bank data theft in the history of HSBC Bank. His delicate information hit the international finance sector like a bomb and uncovered massive tax fraud strategies exceeding billions of Euros, finally triggering off a heated debate between financial experts and political leaders about the legitimacy of tax havens. Hervé Falciani is said to be the Edward Snowden of the banking system. He is currently on the run from being arrested by the Swiss authorities.

Source image courtesy of Sally Edelstein and her web site Envisioning The American Dream.

http://drtp.ca/canada-fatca-court-challenge-fizzling-maybe/

“[77] For all these reasons, the declaratory and injunctive relief requested by the plaintiffs in their motion for summary judgment shall be denied by the Court, without prejudice to the plaintiffs’ right to pursue their claim that the impugned provisions are ultra vires or inoperative because they are unconstitutional or otherwise unjustifiably infringe Charterrights. There shall be no costs. This is a case where, in view of the nature of the issues and the public interest involved in clarifying the scope of novel provisions affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadian citizens, no costs should be ordered against the losing parties.”

This last sentence leads us to believe that the case may be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada at a later date.
Hillis v. Canada (Attorney General) 2015 FC 1082