Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

The other day, Barbara put up this lovely comment:

“I wish to take the opportunity of this thread to thank the creators of and contributors to the Isaac Brock Society. Until a month ago, I was running scared, losing sleep, calling so-called US tax experts in London, the USA and Hong Kong, trying to get a clear picture of my husband’s and my situation and how to remedy our small “errors”. Each advisor I spoke to made me more frightened, and had me nearly convinced to fork over US$500 to submit “revised” back-year FBARs per year. The compliance condors had me by the short hairs.

Thank God I found this site at last, and figured out what the condors were doing. With the plethora of information, resources and advice available here–not always in agreement with each other–I have changed from frightened out of my wits to simply mad as hell.

A big warm thank you to everyone!“

First, it was great to hear that Brock is doing what it was meant to be doing; getting the word out so people could get the information they need to try and put an end to the fear and terror caused by the IRS and the condors.It got me thinking about the beginning of Brock and one of the earliest posts that was about this very subject:

“We can’t trust the IRS – But can we trust the accountants and lawyers?”

Since the publication of that post on December 12, 2011, there have been some changes; almost no one thinks about OVDP 2009 and the bait-and-switch regarding FAQ35 anymore and most people would likely enter Streamlined before they would consider simply following the law and submitting returns via the Fact Sheet 2011-13 (though it is still a valid way to come into compliance, and is how I did it over 3 years ago). One thing the post does do, is demonstrate how utterly terrifying it was then and any Brocker/Sandboxer who has been around that long might be forgiven for some of the “harder edges” in terms of anger, cynicism and driven determination to make this stop. Just read some of these (horrible) stories that are linked in the article; while the situation remains unpleasant, frightening, unfair and all the rest of it, it seems we are no longer hearing that people are losing everything they have.

I also began to wonder, how much has Brock/Sandbox education kept from the clutches of the condors? How much money may have been denied those who really did/do not have our best interests in mind? All of us have gained from Brock, there’s no question of that. And money might be part of it but I think most of us would feel that the site offered more important things. Just for fun, please take part in this poll:
You can vote for as many options as you like!
 


 
Now, back to the main focus of this post: showing how in spite of improvement, one aspect that has NOT changed, is that of whether we can trust the accountants and the lawyers. I would really like to hear your reaction as to whether or not you think things have improved; is there any difference in what is happening to people, or is there just as much fear-mongering as before? Are there more predicatable facts and outcomes? Or does the whole situation remain confusing and frightening?
 

Q: Why do technicians use lawyers instead of rats? A. Because there's some things even rats won't do.

— U.S. Expat Canada (@USExpatCanada) March 20, 2015

Q: A lawyer and an IRS agent jump off the Empire State Building at the same time. Who will hit first? A: Who cares? http://t.co/amyo1I60e2

— U.S. Expat Canada (@USExpatCanada) March 20, 2015

 
Reposted from December 12, 2011

We can’t trust the IRS – But can we trust the accountants and lawyers?
 
The post is a comment responding to the blog post – IRS issues Fact Sheet For U.S. or dual citizens residing outside of the U.S., to which Petros commented :
 

They [the IRS] can’t be trusted when they talk about reasonable cause, because they don’t really indicate what reasonable cause is.

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We have written Congress & been ignored-The 1,000 Letter Campaign on Washington, DC-1000 at the same time by Apr! 3 http://t.co/qu4K8jIbB6

— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) March 19, 2015

Recently, a number of expats from different groups have been connecting, reposting/retweeting each other and talking about combining efforts. Even if we don’t agree on every point, we can still support each other with regard to the Senate Finance Committee’s call for tax reform. Either in connection with your own submission or perhaps actually joining this group (Facebook), please consider the following:

Until now we have been writing Congress separately – individual letters that were ignored.
Imagine if 1,000 or more wrote Congress AT THE SAME TIME.

We are asking you to please join us on our 1000 Letter Campaign on Washington.

How can you participate?

Simply write your congress person asking them to support Rand Paul’s legislation (S.663) to repeal the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

We even provide you a suggested template so that you can tell your story. Of course, if you want to write your own letter, please feel free to do so.

Please go to the “Files” tab in this Facebook group and you will find the templates for you titled, “American Overseas Letter Template” and for your family and friends titled, “Family-Friends Letter Template”.

Download the templates and follow the instructions on how to complete your letter. You are provided links (highlighted in blue) to add the necessary information.
Though this is not an AARO sponsored campaign, AARO would like to know to whom you have sent your letters as they are in regular contact with key members of Congress. Please inform them at aaro@aaro.org.

Let your voice be heard!

Every letter/email counts!

If Senators or Representatives get more than 5 letters on a particular subject, they are more likely to take note and respond to their constituents.

So, let’s multiply our individual efforts by 5! Ask family and friends stateside to join in this campaign!
The more people who write the better! Please share this campaign!

For those who want to share this campaign, please find below the links to the two templates:

American Overseas Letter Template: https://www.dropbox.com/s/es5encpmq1af7uy/American%20Overseas%20Letter%20Template.docx?dl=0″

Family-Friends Letter Template: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hkonlzv1l3uo5a3/Family-Friends%20Letter%20Template.docx?dl=0
 

You can retrieve the letter from Dropbox without being connected to Facebook. These are the points in the form letter that each representative is being asked to consider:
 

As your constituent, I urge you to consider these possible solutions:
1. Support current legislation introduced by Rand Paul (S.663) to repeal the Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act
2. Support Residence-Based Taxation when tax reform is reviewed in Congress, or
3. Support a definition of “foreign” in Treasury and IRS regulations which excludes financial accounts
already reported in the country of bona fide residence.
4. Support a general and complete IRS amnesty for a limited period of time to allow the non-willful
non-compliant US taxpayer to enter the system without fear of penalties.

The letter USCitizenAbroad has suggested is here.

I leave it to you as to whether you want to notify AARO or not………
 

A new idea for FATCA reform has been suggested, and discussed by Democrats Abroad. Brockers might like to discuss it also. Is this a workable solution or just another complex piece of patchwork?

For those that are in the position for reform, it is important to again submit input to Congress.

Remember that the last efforts have put us on the radar and placed RBT as a logical solution.

Some of us are tired. We should all know that any input is helpful. One can send in the previous submission or simply send in a few lines.

Or, send in a larger and more researched article. It’s all up to you.

Or, send in a pre-formatted letter such as AARO has recommended.

https://aaro.org/images/model_letter_def.docx

Hatch, Wyden Launch New Effort to Seek Input on Bipartisan Tax Reform

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/chairman/release/?id=3bcf1fcf-9dd8-47d4-9202-21a0870cd8d6

Stakeholders and the Public Asked to Submit Ideas to Working Groups

WASHINGTON – Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today announced a bipartisan effort to begin soliciting ideas from interested members of the public and stakeholders on how best to overhaul the nation’s broken tax code to make it simpler, fairer, and more efficient.  The goal of this effort is to provide additional input, data, and information to the Committee’s bipartisan tax working groups, which are currently analyzing existing tax law and examining policy trade-offs and available reform options within each group’s designated area.

“By opening up our bipartisan working groups to public input, we hope to gain a greater understanding of how tax policy affects individuals, businesses, and civic groups across our nation,” Hatch and Wyden said. “In doing so, we will also equip our working groups with valuable input, and we hope these suggestions will help guide the groups through the arduous task of putting forth substantive ideas to reform the tax code in each of their areas.”

Individuals, businesses, organizations, and advocacy groups interested in submitting comments should send an email to the below bipartisan group or groups that relates to their area of interest.  Please send submissions to each group of jurisdiction if an interest area covers more than one group.

Individual Income Tax – Individual@finance.senate.gov

Business Income Tax – Business@finance.senate.gov

Savings & Investment – Savings@finance.senate.gov

International Tax – International@finance.senate.gov

Community Development & Infrastructure – CommunityDevelopment@finance.senate.gov

Additional Submission Requirements:

• All submissions must be submitted as a pdf attachment. The attachment should be saved using the name of the organization/individual submitting the recommendations.
• Parties should list the name of the tax working group they wish to contact in the subject line of the email.
• Please include contact name, organization (if the submission is being submitted on behalf of a group), phone number, and email address, in the body of the email.
• Submissions will be accepted through April 15, 2015, and made public at a later date.
• If the above directions are not followed, the Committee reserves the right to not include the submission.
• If technical problems are incurred, parties can contact the Committee at 202-224-4515.

Each of the five bipartisan working groups is currently working to produce findings on current tax policy and legislative recommendations within its area, with the goal of having recommendations from each of the five working groups completed by the end of May.  Submissions from stakeholders will be reviewed by the working groups and ideas can be incorporated into the each working group’s final recommendations.  The five working group recommendations will be delivered to Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Wyden, and will be considered in developing bipartisan tax reform legislation.

A new video advertorial from CNS Business in the Cayman Islands takes us to the retail front line of the rapidly-metastasizing FATCA compliance industry and shows us how it’s done. A good-sized group of prospects Cayman-based US Persons were invited to a free seminar last week at the Caribbean Club entitled “Navigating US Tax Requirements and Strategic Methods of Coming into Compliance”. Attorneys from Caplin & Drysdale, a DC-based law firm specializing in “the tax controversy area” co-hosted the event with Ham, Langston & Brezina LLP, a multi-service accounting firm based in Texas.

As the story reports:

“There’s no longer the option of ‘I reside in this small island country – no one will find me’

Right now the message I deliver is FATCA is changing all of that and just because you’ve had an account here for 20 or 30 years without issues doesn’t mean you won’t get a letter in the mail. We’ve had clients in Cayman, as well as a host of other countries, receiving these letters,” stated [Caplin & Drysdale attorney, Dianne Mehany].

“It’s becoming harder and harder to hide and you really want to be ahead of the situation. You don’t want the IRS knocking on your door. There are options for you to come forward and come into compliance now before they come to you because once they come to you, it’s a very different conversation,” added Caplin & Drysdale attorney, Zhanna Ziering.

Both attorneys explained they are not trying to scare anyone, but want them to understand there are criminal and civil penalties if you don’t come into compliance.

Heady days indeed for FATCA compliance firms – their oyster truly is the entire world.

Of course, others are not so enthusiastic about the kind of help these firms are pitching. Comments are open and here was the first one:

Just disgusting that our government should be aiding and abetting these greedy parasites. Especially when you remember that many of the “Americans” living here are American only as a matter of law. They were born in the USA to Caymanian parents and have never lived or worked in the States.

And the beat goes on…

Since relinquishing my US citizenship in 2011 and shedding the most toxic aspect of my life here in Canada, I now worry about another kind of toxicity. Let me explain: For about ten years I’ve dealt with two nagging and debilitating conditions: peripheral neuropathy and tendinopathy. It came to a head in November 2012 when Cathy asked me to put some carriage lights up on our garage and I twice fell off the ladder, missing the last rung and falling on my butt, and I also missed a step on the way to the garage and fell on my face. This was the result of the growing issue of peripheral neuropathy–not able to tell where my feet were causes loss of proprioception. So I went on a low carb high fat diet (LCHF) and lost 40 lbs, and most of the neuropathy went away. But then in the Fall of 2013, I started having the relapses of tendinopathy which were worse than anything I’d had before–quadriceps, achilles, IT bands, rotator cuffs, neck, toe, elbow tendons–even today, I’ve had to use crutches since last Wednesday and medicate myself (ibuprofen) for throbbing pain in my right foot. This has caused me to cancel an academic trip to Switzerland planned for next week.

In October 2013 I was searching for a dietary solution to my tendon problems and I learned that Cipro, an antibiotic in a class called fluoroquinolones (FQs) is the likely culprit of both my tendinopathy and my neuropathy, as well as several other problems (dysbiosis, weight gain, etc.). In 2008, the year after I stopped my last dosage, the FDA issued a black box warning for tendinitis and tendon rupture for Cipro. I now belong to a group of people called “Floxies” because FQs (Levaquin, Cipro, Avelox, etc.) all have the stem “flox” in their scientific name. On Facebook there is Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Group with over 3000 members, many of whom are suffering much worse than me. Despite these problems, Cipro and other FQs remain a very well-prescribed drugs as doctors hand them out as though they were candy for sinus infections, traveler’s diarrhea, and other common ailments, when FQs should only be used for life-threatening bacterial infections when other antibiotics have failed.

Agency Capture

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I once got trapped in enemy minefield w/ no good choices -getting hit w/ #FATCA felt like that says Bopp plaintiff http://t.co/8TauWmjamr

— ADCSovereignty (@ADCSovereignty) March 11, 2015

US Army major in 1st Iraq War = plaintiff in Bopp suit-forced 2 choose:: USC or arduous penalties http://t.co/6WYdc16xQ7 #FATCAMarriage

— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) March 11, 2015

Rand Paul pushes repeal of #FATCA despised by Americans living abroad http://t.co/RxZ5kCSvhG via @washtimes Plaintiff in Bopp suit named

— ADCSovereignty (@ADCSovereignty) March 11, 2015

“Introducing Major (ret.) Roger Johnson: Major Johnson is the first Republicans Overseas FATCA lawsuit plaintiff and RO Worldwide Vice President for Eastern Europe. He served in the First Gulf War and received a Bronze Star for valor. As a combat veteran, he wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of “up to and including his life.” Now he is fighting for all expats’ constitutional protections and the pursuit of happiness.“

FatcaFantastic! What a great choice! Can hardly imagine the American public dissing him as a traitor or tax cheat.
 

 
Phil Hodgen stands high among the few tax/law “professionals” in the U.S. expatriation sector that I have respect for. Hodgen has just shared this precious pearl:

        The real risk is uncertainty and fear.

If you wish, go on to read the whole classic answer that is distilled into this pure nacre.

The coda, also a quotation:  In the long run everyone pays the price.  Sauve qui peut.
 

I am sure a lot of Brockers will remember how horrifying it was to listen to this video referred to in this post. I remember thinking it couldn’t possibly be real and assumed at first, that it was a spoof. It was really that bad.
 

FATCA Citizenship Taxation https://t.co/ZLnXRhBwHs – excellent discussion by one of those #Americansabroad

— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 9, 2015

 
The above tweet links to a video made by a young man studying in Germany who apparently has heard the Turks and this is his response. He obviously has a much better grip on the facts. Interesting to see a young person’s reaction to this dilemma. Worth a listen.
 

With only short-term memory, you can recall that Eric warned us about the danger of old laws (such as CBT or FBAR) lying on the books: “Reed Amendment, Logan Act: why worry about unenforced & unenforceable laws? ”

https://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/01/16/reed-amendment-logan-act-why-worry-about-unenforced-unenforceable-laws/

Do you remember laughing at Ronald Reagan, when he said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”  I do.

And I remember having some thoughts of dismissing Eric’s article, too. (although those only lasted about 0.25 seconds)

Well, all it takes is a little sheeple-driven bipartisan politics to make it happen, and now it is happening.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/impeach-and-prosecute-1.fb47?source=s.fb&r_by=12648917

It’s objective is for one side of the political spectrum to go after the other side of the political spectrum.

However, the Logan Act is not directed at political leaders, it is directed at guys like Logan himself, who is pretty much like you or me or any of the organizers of the citizens abroad groups.

There is no better way to spread propaganda, than to have propaganda spread itself. A petition such as this can come at any time and enforcement of the Logan act could begin at sunrise of any day.

Just look at your own facebook page and see how many times you have seen this petition. I’ve seen it twice so far.  It has 42,078 signatures so far.

A mirror petition is now up on Whitehouse.gov

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/prosecute-john-boehner-violation-logan-act/phgwC0r0

All it takes is a little hate (of one party or the other) to have laws like the Logan Act enacted.