With the concerns of constituents filling up their inboxes and voicemail, on Monday the NDP repeated their demand that the Conservatives remove a recently-signed tax agreement with the United States from the omnibus budget bill.
Read more: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/05/05/get-fatca-out-of-the-budget-bill-ndp-urges/
We’ve been saying that the United States has threatened economic sanctions against all the countries and banks in the world. The Press now officially agrees.
IRS – The US Economic Weapon to Be Unleashed on Russian Banks
and
US to unleash IRS on Russian banks
The new law means that Russian banks that buy U.S. securities after July 1 will forfeit 30 percent of the interest and dividend payments. The withholding applies to stocks and bonds, including U.S. Treasuries. Some previously owned securities would be exempt from the withholding, but in general, previously owned stocks would not.
Robert Woods at Forbes, May 3rd: Record Numbers Renounce U.S. Citizenship—And Many Aren’t Counted
Related: Time for #Americansabroad forced to renounce citizenship to pursue legal remedies in US courts
The Canada Challenge is discussed:
· Pastbeyond60
Can you envision the possible fallout to the US if the constitutional challenge being launched in Canada has a positive outcome. It is a global world now, there are other places to invest. Yes, the US has a massive economy and everyone wants to invest there. But what if these foreign governments collectively wake up, maybe have the courage to follow Canada in the event of a win. (The US must remember Canada has water, abundant natural resources and electricity) Maybe China will be the first to say “no thanks” and others follow. The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice (MLK), FATCA-IGAs and CBT are simply immoral.
Called-out comment
· Author, Robert W. Wood, Contributor
I agree that watching the litigation in Canada (has it been filed yet?) will be quite interesting. I agree that if it comes out against FATCA, the ramifications could be large. We’ll see.
Called-out comment
Republicans Overseas will be launching legal challenge to FATCA.
— Michael DeSombre (@MichaelDeSombre) May 2, 2014
The American Citizens Abroad Global Foundation has launched its educational program with a forum/debate on the merits of Citizenship-based taxation vs. Residence-based taxation.
This is a full day event, sponsored and organized by the ACA (American Citizens Abroad), that will be held at the University of Toronto on May 2nd. Registration and Information
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‘This is the first public debate — worldwide — devoted to this important topic.’
Added, May 3rd: from Professor Allison Christians’ Tax, Society & Culture blog: Tax, Society & Culture, Allison Christians, Marco G.: “FATCA non-delay delay”
The below notice will require some very close reading by a great number of people.
-Notice 2014-33; 2014-21 IRB 1
Originally announced, AGAIN, on a Friday, when it will get lost in the weekend news.
Reuters, May 2, 2014: Foreign banks get transition period on U.S. tax evasion law
From “innocente” and George:
US Treasury and the mythical Bob Stack blinked today, “U.S. Treasury gives relief to banks for anti-tax evasion law”…
from Jim Jatras:
Interesting news today!
Treasury seems to want to have its cake and eat it too: delay FATCA yet again (since it clearly would be a mess on July1) without appearing to do so. It’s a transparent sign of weakness, stalling for time to get more unconstitutional pseudo-treaties signed. It might actually make things worse. Who knows.
from Just Me:
This is akin to declaring all the IGAs non complete as being a done deal, and so added to the count.
and reply back …
I think this is aimed more an individual FFIs being able to take more time to comply, so as to drive more countries into IGAs – which is the only way they can really enforce this. That’s the paradox: foreign governments (like Canada’s) sign IGAs because their banks are terrified of FATCA, but if they didn’t sign them, FATCA would collapse and there’d be nothing to be scared of.
There’s one born every minute . . .
As Blaze pointed out on Sandbox, and as I don’t at the moment see elsewhere here on Brock, the House of Commons Finance Committee met today from 3:30 through 5:30 today. Most of the second half of the meeting was taken up by the FATCA IGA, with questions of Finance officials (Shoom and Ernewein) mainly by the NDP, with softball lobs by Conservative members.
I’ll repeat here the comment I posted on Sandbox. I’m not going to subscribe to or respond to any replies to this; I just want to call everyone’s attention to the meeting, how to download a video clip of the entire meeting, and how important it is for Canadians affected by the IGA to watch, listen carefully, and reflect carefully.
The Q1 2014 Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate has been placed on public inspection for printing in the Federal Register for 2 May 2014, two days later than required by 26 USC § 6039G(d). This is the seventh quarter in a row in which the Internal Revenue Service has failed to publish their list of certain ex-Americans by the legally-mandated deadline, bringing their all-time compliance rate to a dismal 27.5%.
One famous name did appear: “Tina Turner”, in precisely that form — rather surprising, since as far as I know that’s not her civil name in the first place. However, contrary to my prediction last time, the overall rate of missing names does not seem to have come down as much as expected. We still have not seen one-quarter of the famous people known to have renounced in 2013: the names of Cuban intelligence officer René González, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines’ former U.N. Representative Camillo Gonsalves, and Pakistani politician Fauzia Kasuri are absent.
The IRS’ utter inability to publish a simple list of names in a complete and timely fashion just fills you with confidence that they’re going to be able handle all that FATCA data fairly and competently, right?
As always, congratulations to Canadian anthropologists and insurance agents, Thai schoolteachers, fresh Singaporean university graduates, and every other ordinary emigrant and accidental American whose name was included in a list which delusional politicians think covers only “a handful of the wealthiest of the wealthy”, and my sympathies to those who for whatever reason did not have their names included.
