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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)”

  1. PierreD: indeed stories of phone searches are now common. And of course the extraterritorial search on Canadian soil is both common and shocking too. That said, while they can detain someone, I suppose they cannot bring them back to the USA. One can hope (or not?) that Canada would not deliver a law-abiding Canadian stuck at the border on the Canadian side. Seriously, though, what would happen if the US wanted to “keep” the person they were checking?
    There are also many stories of Americans stopped within the USA, but close to a border, by border patrol. I enjoy watching those videos where liberals and libertarians alike resist cooperating, though it can get violent.

  2. December 5, 2017 — Nina Olson, Taxpayer Assistance Center Service Continues to Decline, Impairing Taxpayers’ Ability to Receive In-Person Assistance

    Nina Olson

    Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), is the voice of the taxpayer within the IRS and before Congress. She leads the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), an independent organization inside the IRS that helps taxpayers resolve problems and works for systemic change to mitigate problems experienced by groups of taxpayers.

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

    …to say nothing of the experiences of taxpayers outside the US.

  3. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/thalidomide-survivors-hehr-allegations-1.4433539

    I have seen Minister Kent Hehr glad-handing (for votes), twice while I was grocery shopping at the Co-op across the Bow River from where I live, as well as public celebrations. He has never answered any of my correspondence or replied to my questions left with one of his assistants at a meeting in his Calgary office, second best to a requested meeting with him to discuss US FATCA law legitimized by IGAs signed by Canada, US-deemed USCs in Calgary / Canada and, specifically, those like my Canadian-born son who was never registered as a US Birth Abroad, has never lived in the US or had any benefit from the US and who the US says cannot renounce an automatically acquired US citizenship by birth to me just before I was able to become a Canadian citizen in Calgary — because of his *lack of requisite mental capacity*. I am not in Mr. Hehr’s constituency but, as a Calgary-elected Liberal, he promised to represent all Calgarians. That he seems to dispute what others heard him say, though he has apologized, does not surprise me.

    Just when is *A Canadian is A Canadian is A Canadian*? — any Canadian Liberal in office can answer (as no answers have been forthcoming from Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities).

  5. @Heidi. FBAR Trump exactly. He has so much international business. The FBAR requirement would be limited to accounts in his name or for which he has signature authority. So that is probably a fraction of the accounts involved. There is another limitation for 25 or more accounts, making reporting consolidated.

    Why is Mueller asking this question? To FBAR Trump. Good, this may highlight the injustices. Perhaps Mueller thinks a step too far to subpoena Trump’s tax return, yet FBAR has that “foreign” connection and as we all know that homelanders associate “foreign” with evil.

    However, that is beyond the brief for Mueller to investigate collusion with Russia during the campaign. His brief is not to enforce all laws of the U.S.A. That is where I find this troubling. I read somewhere that the laws of the U.S. are designed so that if every American are investigated that 3/4 of them could end up in jail.

    To advance the cause here we need Trump in place to sign off on the laws we hope may bring relief. I have much less faith in a Democratic president doing this.

    Trump’s Trump card is Presidential Pardon, even of himself. He may also fire Mueller, which I think justified if Mueller strays too far off brief.

  7. Heidi – “What about Fbars?”

    They’ve had the FBARs for some time, apparently:

    Beyond the inquiry into the direct investment by Russians in Trump properties, there is interest in the relationship between Trump business interests and Deutsche Bank….

    Specifically, in the House committee’s May 23, 2017 letter seeking access to FinCEN data, the committee raised with Treasury the need for information relating to President Trump and his alleged financial ties to Russia, and information pertaining to “President Trump’s biggest lender and the only bank known to lend to the President after his bankruptcies, Deutsche Bank.”

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/10/opinions/russia-probe-money-laundering-database-opinion-zeldin/index.html

  8. ‘Holy crap’: Experts find tax plan riddled with glitches

    https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/tax-plan-glitches-mistakes-republicans-208049

    Tax bill feeling pretty chaotic… Too bad our issues weren’t squeezed in — it could have been perfect timing. Sigh.

    The end of the article says:

    “Other issues arise from the fact that lawmakers are mostly skipping the custom of having a transitional period between current tax rules and the new ones, in order to give the public time to adjust to the changes.

    The House bill also includes a whole new way of taxing multinational corporations — aside from the one-time tax — that lawmakers have hardly debated, and which experts are still trying to understand.

    “It’s crazy,” said one Republican lobbyist. “I don’t think anyone could explain it, let alone comply with it” by Jan. 1. “

  9. Scope for change, then.

    Republicans themselves acknowledge one glitch. In a report accompanying their legislation, House Republicans essentially say they screwed up the details of how a one-time tax on multinational companies’ offshore profits would work and plan to fix it.

    “The committee is aware that certain aspects of this section require additional attention,” the report says, and will revise the plan to avoid “inappropriate” results.

    What report, I wonder. It would be interesting to have a look at that.

  13. Minor points of potential clarification:

    The Deutsche Bank subpoena may have little or nothing to do with FBARs. I would assume it’s aimed at Deutsche Bank operations in the US, which are probably set up as an American bank, a semi-independent subsidiary. That’s my guess anyway. But I’m sure there’s an international dimension to Trump’s financial malfeasance as well.

    There is some very funny reporting out there about the mess that is the tax bill: “Senate Republicans Made a $289 Billion Mistake in the Handwritten Tax Bill They Passed at 2 a.m. Go Figure.” https://slate.com/business/2017/12/senate-republicans-may-have-made-a-usd260-billion-mistake-in-their-tax-bill.html

  15. Nononymous – Deutsche Bank got fined by bot the US and the UK for money-laundering offences. I’ve seen speculation that DB may have sold Trump mortgages and loans to the same Russian banks that were concerned in the ML offences.

    I agree the request for FINCEN was probably not motivated primarily by a desire to prove FBAR offences, but I assume they’ll have received FBARs along with everything else FINCEN may have about Trump.

  17. Plaxy said: “Scope for change, then.”

    The report linked in the following comment (https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/hrpt409/CRPT-115hrpt409.pdf) is the House Ways and Means Committee report, which has been available since 13 Nov. On page 376 (footnotes omitted):

    In contrast to the participation exemption deduction available only to domestic corporations that are U.S. shareholders under subpart F, the transition rule plies(sic) to all U.S. shareholders of a specified foreign corporation.

    Sounds like they knew they were applying the transition rule to shareholders who did not qualify for the participation exemption deduction. I doubt they really thought through the implications of this with respect to non-resident taxpayers whose “foreign” corporations are local to them.

    There is a section on page 382 headed “Future considerations” that starts “The Committee is aware that certain aspects of this section require additional attention.” That paragraph goes on to talk about the definition of post-1986 earnings and profits and possible double counting; but nothing about which shareholders are subject to the transition rule.

  18. Karen – the “inappropriate results” mentioned in the Politico article apparently refer to a concern lest double benefits might occur. See p. 373, “Reasons for change.”

    “Sounds like they knew they were applying the transition rule to shareholders who did not qualify for the participation exemption deduction.”

    I suspect most of this bill may have been drafted years ago and since revised by many different hands, each with a different end goal in view. I don’t think there is a coherent intention to be discovered in the resulting pot-pourri.

  20. I think no corporations are going to deal with this. The inversions will continue and nothing will have been accomplished.

  24. “Trump Tax Plan Worries Europe”
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-tax-plan-worries-europe-a-1182383.html

    “…this taxation ego trip is alarming Germans and other Europeans. The acting German finance minister, Peter Altmaier, a senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, has asked Ministry officials to look into whether the U.S. plans contravene the German-American Treaty of Friendship. This agreement from the 1950s forbids either country from discriminating against companies from the other. In addition, at the prompting of Altmaier and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire, EU finance ministers earlier this week asked European Commissioner for Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici to look into whether the American tax reform violates its commitments as a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the World Trade Organization. They have urged the commissioner to act quickly so they can intervene in the legislative process now in order to prevent the worst from happening. An appeal with the WTO could take years.”

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