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The Isaac Brock Society

Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)

You can access all years at this link: Media and Blog Articles – Links for All Years

 If clicking on a comment link brings you to the wrong comment, click here  to get on the most recent page of comments.(alternatively, to reach the most recent comment page, go to  the url in the bar at the top of your browser and delete everything after http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/media-and-blog-articles-open-for-comments-part-4-of-4)

Media and Blog Articles

EmBee suggested that it would be good if there was a thread for new articles, so that people would be aware of where to comment.   So, I created this permanent page.   I’ll make a permanent list of links posted here and keep adding to it,  but not deleting, so we’ll end up having sort of a  “bibliography” of FATCA/CBT articles.  [Note:  Some articles are not open for comments]

For more articles on FATCA, enter FATCA into Google then click on the link “more news for fatca” just below the most recent featured article.

Notes:

From JC:   To see #FATCA on Twitter for latest breaking news.  JC finds that is quite a good source and there even are some international articles that one may read using Google Translate.   Others may help certain tweets and articles remain in elevated position by retweeting them.

From Badger:   On an important archival note, please use the Internet Archive Wayback machine https://archive.org/web/ (see bottom right ‘Save Page Now’ box to enter URLs of webpages you want saved for posterity, and try to save backup copies of articles and other items of interest in some other form – such as a datastick or external drive. Some important and very significant webpages and the fulltexts of articles are no longer available (although some can be retrieved if someone using the Wayback machine saved them).

Be sure to read the comment stream for this thread — there are usually very recent articles mentioned there that aren’t on this list yet.

2017.12.28
It’s time to address the double standard about tax havens, Angela Wrights, Macleans, Canada.
The US Is Becoming the World’s New Tax Haven, The Editors, Bloomberg View, US.
2017.12.21
Rep. Dina Titus Supports Americans Abroad Tax Reform, Democrats Abroad, US. 
Now That The GOP Tax Bill Is Approved, The IRS Gets Busy, Brian Naylor, NPR, US.
2017.12.20
Taxpayers will have to wait to find out how they fare under new legislation , Renae Merle and Aaron Gregg, Denver Post (reprint from Washington Post), US.
U.S. Shareholders –Take Action by December 31, KPMG.
2017.12.18
Have You Ever Felt Sorry for the I.R.S? Now Might Be the Time, Patricia Cohen, New York Times, US.
2017.12.12
EU finance ministers issue warning to Trump over tax reforms, RTÉ, Ireland.
2017.12.11
Banque: les consequences étonnantes de l’accord FATCA, Edouard Lederer, Les Echos, France.
2017.12.10
As Australia ousts MPs with dual citizenship, Canada’s Parliament embraces many in its ranks, Kathleen Harris, Canada. (mentions MP who “assumed his U.S. citizenship was automatically rescinded because he did not meet several requirements for continued citizenship. [But when travelling to Washington] was told he was ineligible to enter the U.S. on a Canadian passport because he was a U.S. citizen. He was . . . allowed in on a one-time basis . . . it cost him $3,000 to later sort out the administrative requirements.”)
2017.12.09
The American Diaspora: Outreach and Organization, Victoria Ferauge, The Franco-American Flophouse, Japan.
2017.12.08
Foreign-owned banks to be hit by US tax rules, Financial Times, UK.
Trump Tax Plan Worries Europe, Christian Reiermann, Der Spiegel, Germany.

For articles earlier in 2017, click here.

1,720 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 4 of 11 (Year 2017)”

  4. If you understand French, this morning there was a mention on French radio (on France Inter, one of the most listened to) of America’s unique citizenship based taxation and the royal headache it could cause; not much new but at least it was in the news:

    “Meghan Markle : le casse tête royal”

    …”les Etats-Unis ont une particularité fiscale qu’ils sont seuls au monde à appliquer avec l’Erythrée : obliger leur nationaux à payer des impôts sur le revenu aux Etats-Unis quelque soit leur pays de résidence. Cela date de 1862, de la Guerre de sécession.

    A l’époque, il s’agissait de punir les Américains qui fuyaient la conscription en se réfugiant à l’étranger…”

    My translation: “The United States have a fiscal quirk that is unique to them, and Erithrea: forcing their citizens to pay income tax to the US, no matter where they live. This dates back to 1862, the Civil War. Back then the idea was to punish Americans avoiding conscription by fleeing abroad” …

    They then mention form 8938.

    https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/les-histoires-du-monde/les-histoires-du-monde-30-novembre-2017 for the full text.

  6. Heidi: Excellent! The UK as a whole (and particularly its government) has got to wake up to the dangerous imbecility that is US extra-territorial tax law. They were asleep at the switch when, like someone hypnotized, they were the first in line to sign on to a FATCA IGA. They were still snoring when Boris Johnson was victimized for selling his own British house! Maybe they’ll finally wake up and realize what they’ve done when the tax-payer-funded coffers of the royal family are made vulnerable to tapping by the IRS because of a “US Person” in their midst. Talk about a Trojan Horse!

    With any luck, by the time May rolls around CBT/FATCA will be history, if we dare hope any longer.

  7. I wonder if any nations have made a cost analysis of what US fiscal obligations of their residents has cost them? How much revenue have they sacrificed to comply with US tax laws? And especially in Canada where millions of US citizens reside. How much money has been lost to their treasuries? Markle`s situation should help to create an awareness of this as a big problem for other countries. What bothers me is that they focus on her and not on the whole issue!

  8. Polly: excellent point. Is there a country with mandatory cost-benefit analyses of laws? That said, they’d certainly argue that not bowing to the US would have been more expensive if withholdings than complying with FATCA. But then again it could also be argued that the withholdings would be against international law, and simply not feasible, or that they could be retaliated against. But in fact most governments salivate at the erosion of banking privacy and applaud any efforts to control every aspect of individual finances. They view FATCA as helping install CRS and helping find their own citizens (residents) with US accounts (at least that’s what the US sold them).

    Anything that raises awareness of this ridiculous situation (CBT) is beneficial. Any changes in our favor, such as that currently making waves, Rand Paul’s FATCA repeal efforts, would be a great help. Indeed, should FATCA and / or IGAs fall, they would be much harder to reinstate later on, given what is known now.

  9. @muzzled
    I wish…but I doubt it will make any difference to us minions. The Royal Family have their own ‘unique’ way of dealing with any problems that affect them.
    @Polly
    You are right, it would seem pertinent for Govs to do a cost analysis re fatca, but Fred is right, Govs had been chomping at the bit to have crs or its equivalent implemented but the banks resisted quoting costs to themselves. Govs must have thought they had struck gold when
    the banks were forced into this by the US, but who in power knew the US were uniquely in the driving seat with everything to gain with no reciprocity.

  11. Not sure if I got that right but it was 2009? So many had not even heard of FATCA then.
    Yes I agree- many governments were just waiting for Switzerland et al to fall as a tax haven. And now the world does not seem even minimally moved by the fact that America is the new tax haven of the world.
    All this fuss about the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. Maybe one should take a look at the lawyers and professionals who made tax evasion legal? This world is definitely not fair, is it?

  13. Royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle’s US citizenship intrigues tax experts
    By: Helen Burggraf | 29 Nov 2017
    http://www.internationalinvestment.net/products/tax/us-expat-tax-aficionados-consumed-royal-tax-strategy-speculation/

    The Isaac Brock Society is referenced in this article.

    The article has some excellent advice that we all should have followed before we set foot outside of “The Land of the Free” ( IF we could have afforded it, IF we were in the know, IF we knew where the rest of our lives would lead us, IF we had a time machine to crank it all back and do things differently):

    “I would urge them to get an opinion; get a back-up second opinion; and then, perhaps in this case, tell the advisers they’ll end up in the Tower of London if they turn out to be wrong.”

    Clearly the article recommends 2nd opinion. Easier done and afforded by Royals than mere mortals.

  14. JC says:

    The article has some excellent advice that we all should have followed before we set foot outside of “The Land of the Free” ( IF we could have afforded it, IF we were in the know, IF we knew where the rest of our lives would lead us, IF we had a time machine to crank it all back and do things differently)

    Add “IF we knew when we moved away decades ago that the US would come up with FATCA, the exit tax, and all the other changes they have made to the laws taxing non-resident citizens”

  15. Incredible story of a French citizen having their French inheritance blocked (as a result of #FATCA) because they – accidental American – did not have a U.S. Social Security Number.

    “Américaine accidentelle”, je vis un enfer. J’ai dû renoncer à ma double nationalité
    Par Caroline C.
    Publié le 16-01-2017 à 09h37 – Modifié le 18-01-2017 à 09h38
    http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/1634244-americaine-accidentelle-je-vis-un-enfer-j-ai-du-renoncer-a-ma-double-nationalite.html

  16. Shocking case. I got a copy of my birth certificate online, but I had to send a photo of US passport.

    It is pure birthplace discrimination.

  17. The International Investment is entertaining and makes it seem quite possible the combination CBT + FATCA + FBAR + American bride will give the Royal Family a Royal Headache. Any such publicity on the absurdity of the situation is welcome (especially since, if I understand correctly, she will be moving from Canada, thus not directly out of the US; even exit-tax countries like France would not dream of taxing someone who has already moved away and is simply switching between foreign countries).

  19. This is my continuing worry, what happens when I die?

    What about those of our beneficiaries who cannot renounce because of *lack of requisite mental capacity* a US-deemed US citizenship (even though never registered as a USBA, never lived in the US and never had any benefit from the US and do not accept that US-deemed USC status and a parent, guardian or trustee cannot act on their behalves) — for any amount of money to any US tax compliance lawyer or US tax accountant, entrapped into an US extra-territorial requirement of yearly US tax and reporting compliance costs?

  21. American who lived in the UK since 1986 got screwed in US Tax Court on the tax treatment of his divorce, because the payments to his ex-wife under the English-law divorce agreement didn’t qualify as alimony for US tax purposes
    http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/12/lesson-from-the-tax-court-the-perils-of-poor-drafting.html
    https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/blog/2017/11/28/english-law-used-to-determine-if-payments-would-cease-on-death-of-payee

    The court case is not clear about it at all, but I believe he stayed in the UK after his divorce:
    http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txnavarr/obituaries/pg90434.htm

    Also given the sums of money involved, I expect he was very expensively advised, yet his lawyers missed this issue (or maybe didn’t even consider it). Another screwup by condors preying on emigrants?

  22. Wolens doesn’t seem likely condor prey. Head of global equity at London ABN AMRO, left in 2006 to form his own hedge fund – same year as the divorce and just in time for the crash.

    A lot going on. Maybe he was doing his own return.

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