Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Today’s “Must Read and Use Accordingly”: US Senate Finance Committee Submission by John Richardson*, Willard Yates**, Stephen Kish***

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US Senate Finance Committee Submission–Richardson, Yates and Kish

Cross-posted from Maple Sandbox: US Senate Finance Committee Submission — Richardson, Yates and Kish

Here’s an excellent submission (Request for Tax Rule Changes) to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

This was written by *Toronto lawyer John Richardson, ***University of Toronto professor Dr. Stephen Kish and (this is huge!) **U.S. attorney Willard Yates. Mr. Yates’ involvement is significant because he retired from Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International) (ACCI), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service.

The 32 page comprehensive submission deals with everything from problems of citizenship based taxation to the financial and psychological costs of renouncing US citizenship. Despite the complexity of issues covered, it is quite easy to understand for most of us who have been around this issue for a while (although newbies may very well find it overwhelming and frightening).

The report is also posted at citizenshipsolutions.ca , John Richardson’s Canadian website designed to counsel US citizens abroad who find themselves having to live in a FATCA and FBAR world.

badger said:
January 26, 2014 at 2:48 pm

This goes a long way to explaining why NZ should not go any further with a FATCA IGA:
US Senate Finance Committee Submission–Richardson, Yates and Kish

Perhaps a submission could include it, preface it, and add any other comments that the submitter felt needed elaboration or was specific re NZ?

For years, American banks have been rejecting American clients

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US banks don’t want US clientsAdmittedly, «certain American banks in Switzerland have been following a policy of rejecting US clients for years».

The CEO of a large financial institution in Geneva anonymously confirmed this: He himself, a US citizen, was rejected by Morgan Stanley in Switzerland.  The main reason wasn’t so much the fear of of the IRS and the US Department of Justice, but rather a central policy of preventing the private banking business from being cannibalized by offshore branches in Switzerland.

In other words, it is quite possible that US banks in Switzerland will be untouched by the tax conflict between the US and Switzerland, but due to various reasons.

 US-Banken wollen keine US-KundenAllerdings hätten «gewisse amerikanische Banken in der Schweiz seit langem die Politik gehabt, US-Kunden gar nicht zu akzeptieren».

Der Chef eines grossen Genfer Finanzinstituts bestätigt dies anonym:Er selber sei, da US-Bürger, von Morgan Stanley in der Schweiz abgewiesen worden. Hauptgrund scheint offenbar nicht so sehr die Furcht vor dem IRS und den heimischen Justizbehörden gewesen, sondern eine Politik, bei der die US-Zentrale sich ihr Private-Banking-Geschäft nicht durch die Schweizer Ableger kannibalisieren lassen wollte.

Mit anderen Worten: Gut möglich, dass die US-Banken in der Schweiz tatsächlich relativ heil herauskommen aus dem Steuerstreit zwischen den beiden Ländern. Aber dies aus allerlei Gründen.

Source: US tax program? Who cares…

 

 US Program: Foreign banks profitSwiss banks are stuck in the US-tax pillory.  US institutions, on the contrary, are taking the situation in a relaxed manner.

Banks with no relation to the US legal conflict are at an advantage.  This is why J.P. Morgan can only win, says Andrea Tardy, the managing director of the American bank to the economic paper «L’Agefi».

The Geneva branch is the second largest private banking unit of the bank after New York, yet it in Switzerland it focused on the local offshore market, wrote «L’Agefi».

 US-Programm: Auslandsbanken profitierenSchweizer Banken stehen in den USA am Steuer-Pranger. US-Institute in der Schweiz scheinen dagegen der Sache gelassen gegenüber zu stehen.

Banken ohne Bezug zu den US-Rechtstreitigkeiten seien im gegenwärtigen Umfeld im Vorteil. Deshalb könne J. P. Morgan nur gewinnen: Dies sagte Andrea Tardy, Managing Director bei der amerikanischen Grossbank, gegenüber der Wirtschaftszeitung «L’Agefi».

Zwar sei die Genfer Niederlassung nach New York die zweitgrösste Private-Banking-Einheit des US-Instituts, doch hierzulande habe sie sich lediglich auf den lokalen Onshore-Markt fokussiert, schreibt «L’Agefi» weiter.

Source: US Program: Foreign banks profit

#FATCA attack: Bank card blocked to force answer: Are you #Americansabroad??

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Article includes:

So my husband’s bank account was blocked and he couldnt use his card anymore. He went to his bank to see what the problem is. he thought maybe his card was not working right.
At his bank they told him that they blocked his account and that he couldnt get his money. They got their orders to block all US citizens accounts until they can prove that they dont owe taxes to the US.

Robert W. Wood Teeters On The Fence

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Forbes’ Robert W. Wood is clearly feeling conflicted these days, as he asks:

Is Opposing FATCA Supporting Tax Evasion?

I’ll resist too much editorializing for now and simply urge as many Brockers and Sandboxers as possible to get over there and help Mr. Wood (and his trusty side-kick Lesperance) to get in touch with their inner consciences and come out forcefully on the right side of history.

There is nothing inevitable about FATCA except that our grandchildren will surely be reading about it in school some day. There is still plenty of time to change the course of history, as Nelson Mandela taught the entire world. This is hardly the time to give up, and methinks Mr. Wood just needs a bit more cogent and positive encouragement. Remember, we’re all basically on the same side, so let’s start getting it together.

Please Join Our New Meetup Group

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Greetings to all,

We really got motivated by the Toronto meeting last Saturday (January 25) and are expanding our resoures to include our own Meetup Group.

Please join and it would probably be helpful to keep your same handle/moniker etc.

This is a good opportunity to help us get the word out to more and more of those who are stuck, or still don’t even know what is happening.

 

Thanks,

 

Tricia/nobledreamer

 

http://www.meetup.com/American-Expats-Abroad/events/162765622/

Nigel Green supports RNC’s FATCA repeal resolution

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Nigel Green, CEO of the deVere Group, and a frequent critic of FATCA, calls the RNC resolution “a step in the direction of common sense”, as reported by Robin Amlôt in CPI Financial:

Republicans’ “common sense” fightback against FATCA applauded

The Republican National Committee (RNC) voted Friday to adopt a resolution to repeal the US law, which is purportedly aimed at cracking down on tax evasion. Green, whose firm has more than 70,000 clients worldwide, including many American expatriates, said, “The RNC’s vote to support the repeal of this damaging law, that was slipped into the 2010 HIRE Act and wasn’t reviewed properly by Congress, is a step in the right direction for common sense.
 
“I hope that this heralds the start of the critical review that FATCA should have already been subject to, which has not taken place to date; plus the start of a national and international conversation on this immensely important issue – again something, that has to date not yet taken place.
 
“The Republicans’ bold stance is part of a groundswell of anti-FATCA feeling in Washington and beyond and, to my mind, it represents real progress in the fightback against a law that has a host of serious unintended adverse consequences.
 
“FATCA is hugely expensive to implement – costs that will surely be passed on to the public – and highly ineffective.  It will do little, if anything at all, to tackle the serious challenge of offshore tax evasion as it does not actively target tax cheats. Instead it relies upon a ‘dragnet approach’ to haul in the personal financial information of millions of ordinary Americans – the vast majority of whom are not suspected of owing taxes – on the off chance they happen across some illegally hidden assets.
 
“All Americans should be concerned about FATCA because it will reduce foreign investment in the U.S. thereby threatening American jobs, fuel the likelihood of tax hikes, increase consumer costs for dealings with banks and other financial institutions, potentially damage important international trade relations, and it will – and already is – turning American citizens who live and/or work outside the US, and American firms operating globally, into financial pariahs.”
 
The RNC’s vote to back a FATCA repeal follows Senator Rand Paul’s opposition last year when he introduced legislation, citing privacy concerns, to have parts of the controversial law scrapped. FATCA, which the Obama administration intends to implement from 1 July 2014, requires every single financial institution in the world to report all their American clients’ financial activities directly to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), or be subject to a 30 per cent withholding tax.

A Plea for Submission against #FATCA IGA Enabling Legislation in New Zealand.

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February 3, 2014 UPDATE: Urgent:


Public submissions can be made from anywhere in the world. All that is required is a name, email address and phone number. But you will have to be quick as the link will be closed at midnight on Wed 5th Feb New Zealand time.  (That is actually 3 AM the morning of Feb 5th on the West Coast of America.)

I hope you will find time to express your opinion to them. It is very much appreciated. The link is here:

http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/make-submission/50SCFE_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL12926_1/taxation-annual-rates-employee-allowances-and-remedial (scroll down to “make an online submission”)

Plainly put, FATCA is more Stealth in New Zealand than in America.

Osgood has provided us good informational analysis of the pending Legislation for New Zealand to capitulate without a fight to the FATCA IGA.

This inspired a good article at The New American but nothing in New Zealand media.  The last article I have seen is this at Interest.co.nz from November.

The Ministery of Revenue has NO IDEA OF THE COST of what they are doing, or HOW MANY U.S. PERSONs  in New Zealand!  Nor, do they or the Ministry of  Justice seem to care.  All they care about is finding a way legislatively to comply. Banks want their bailout, and the government is determined to give it to them, it would seem. Let ALL Kiwi bank customers pay the cost.

Osgood has recently sent an email plea for submissions from over seas, as when it comes to media coverage in New Zealand, FATCA is operating like a Secret CIA covert operation that the citizenry is unaware of.

See below for his request for help.   Submissions are easy to do! They are due by February 4th, USA time.  Continue reading →