You’ve just been named by your financial firm as a responsible officer under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA for short.

Should you hand in your two-week notice, take the job in stride, or brace– and protect yourself – from hefty operational and legal liabilities?

Those are the decisions and options now faced by potential FROs, or thousands of high-ranking officials working outside the US, who have been tapped by their financial institutions to help comply with the controversial FATCA legislation.

FATCA Responsible Officers: Be Careful, Very Careful

What could be the consequences to a Responsible Officer making a false certification under FATCA?

PwC looks at building effective internal controls and processes to promote compliance and (RO) certification

Seems to me lots of money spent in set-up — there must be something to this implementation of FATCA IGAs in Canada and other foreign countries. Wonder how many new “Responsible Officers” job titles and opportunities have been added to the world’s foreign financial institutions, corporations and where that FRO would stand in the pecking order of Board of Directors, CEO, CFO, etc.

Our own Noble Dreamer in the news. Wall Street Journal reports:

Expatriate Americans Break Up With Uncle Sam to Escape Tax Rules

By LIAM PLEVEN and LAURA SAUNDERS

“Ms. Moon is among record numbers of Americans cutting ties. U.S. offices abroad reported that 1,001 U.S. citizens and green-card holders had renounced their allegiance in the first three months of the year, according to Andrew Mitchel, a lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who analyzes Treasury Department data. That figure puts 2014 on track to top last year’s total of 2,999 renunciations, he said, which was the most since the government began disclosing the data.”

This dates back to April, but I have not seen it reported on IBS.

The Canadian Bar Association has filed a submission on bill C-24 which echoes our concerns with respect to legislation implementing the FATCA IGA. The submission stops short of calling the relevant provisions in C-24 unconstitutional, saying only that it “implicates” s. 15 of the Charter:

Targeting dual nationals for citizenship revocation results in differential treatment based on ethnicity or national origin and therefore implicates section 15 of the Charter. Canadians from countries that do not recognize dual nationality would not be subject to the provisions. However, Canadians whose ancestors came from countries that recognize dual citizenship and pass citizenship to generations born abroad would face the prospect of revocation. Entire ethnic or national communities would either be subject to the provisions or not. Gradating the rights of Canadians on the basis of the laws of another state creates different classes of citizens. It is unfair and discriminatory. (p. 19)

The submission of the Canadian Bar Association is available full-text here:
http://www.cba.org/CBA/submissions/pdf/14-22-eng.pdf

Bill C-24 is now in final stages of passage in the House of Commons. To become law, it must also be passed by the Senate and signed by the Governor General.

Hilary Clinton speaking in Toronto live now – Watch it here: Updated / Recorded Version: Hillary Clinton speaks at Toronto Region Board of Trade, June 16, 2014

— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 16, 2014

This is amazing.

Update

These seminars will include discussion and analysis of the IRS “relaxed opportunities” for people to come into compliance.
 

“If only I had known known about these rules earlier …

This session will focus on the problems of investing and retirement planning for U.S. citizens abroad in general. It will operate as both:

– possible solutions for those already mired in the process

Who: John Richardson, B.A., L.L.B., J.D – CitizenshipSolutions.ca
Where: Downtown Vancouver, 1010 Richards Street Richards & Nelson, Gallery Condo Building, Amenity Room, Entrance at REAR of BLDG on lane. Metered parking on street or lot at Richards & Smithe. Canada Line – Yaletown stop. Expo & Millenium lines – Granville Station.
When: Sunday, June 22 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Admission: $20 individual or $40 for a family of up to four people (to cover costs)
Hope to see you and your families on June 22. Spread the word!

Michael Maloney makes a distinction between “currency” and “money”. Currency is issued by government. Money has always been gold or silver. He outlines in the following video how various currencies dominate world trade only for a short time before they collapse and something else takes over. At the end of World War II, the US dollar became the dominant currency, and for the first time ever in history, the world had one reserve currency. Today, in Maloney’s view, there are various events which are bringing the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency to an end–nails in its coffin.  One of those nails is FATCA.  See at 18:00 minutes in:

Brockers! Please distribute this far and wide. We need the media to pay attention to this story.

Please download this Press Release PDF and send it out to your Local Papers, TV and Radio Stations! Tweet and post on Facebook!

We need people to wake up and join the Legal Challenge, but they won’t do so unless they know what is happening to our country.

ADCS-ADSC Press Release

Here is the .PNG version for Twitter and Facebook posting (please “save image” to download the .png) and attach to your Twitter and Facebook posts:

From Value Walk, an article outlining Nigel Green’s enthusiastic support for superlawyer Jim Bopp’s upcoming lawsuit.  Disqus comments are ready for feedback.

DeVere Champions Super Lawyer Battle Against ‘Toxic’ FATCA

The founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations is hailing the involvement of one of America’s most prominent superlawyers in the campaign to repeal the highly controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as “the tipping point.”

The comments from Nigel Green of deVere Group, which has 80,000 clients and $10bn under advice, are in response to attorney Jim Bopp Jr’s decision to mount a legal challenge to the new law – due for implementation on July 1.

A legal challenge to FATCA

The high profile, no-nonsense lawyer is preparing a legal challenge to FATCA, which its opponents insist has a host of serious unintended adverse consequences.

Mr Green says: “The decision taken by Mr Bopp, who has previously successfully challenged other questionable finance laws in the Supreme Court, to take on the fatally-flawed FATCA could, I suspect, be the tipping point in the campaign to ultimately have it repealed.

“He is on a legal mission to definitively prove that FATCA, which has far-reaching negative consequences for the 7.6 million U.S. citizens abroad, the 13 million green-card holders and American businesses that operate globally, is unconstitutional on at least three counts.

“I believe that common sense and justice is on his side on this issue of national and international importance.  I am confident that his legal opinion will prove to be sound and robust.”