Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s RIGHTS WATCH CONFERENCE in Toronto September 20-21, 2013

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I just noticed this while looking at FB timeline. Perhaps of interest to those who live in the area.

 

Each year the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s RightsWatch Conference brings together a wide variety of stakeholders and community members, including academics, public officials, lawyers, students and interested members of the public for an intimate conference.  This year CCLA is pleased to partner with Ryerson University’s Office of the Vice President, Research and Innovation, the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre, and the Ryerson Law Research Centre to present Civil Liberties and Democracy in the Digital Age: Privacy, Media and Free Expression. There will be a series of discussions on the impact that new technologies and modes of communication have on legal and societal understandings of privacy, freedom of expression and the media. We are planning panels on surveillance, anonymity and expression in ‘public’ space, freedom of the press and the citizen journalist, the application of constitutional guarantees of privacy to new communications technologies, access to information and ‘open’ government, and privacy and expression in the private sector.

Join us Friday, September 20, 2013 for an evening keynote and reception, and Saturday, September 21, 2013 for a full-day conference.

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Notes From the June 15th Meeting in Toronto -“Traumatized by the IRS & the US Reaching into Canada?”

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I have received an okay to publish these notes from the Speaker of Part 2 of the meeting that was held in Toronto on June 15. I apologize that they are not in narrative form; I don’t have total memory of all that was said nor did I understand everything that was said and I fear giving the wrong impression if I were to attempt to elaborate. Hopefully, the general sense is correct. I wanted to do them as a separate post so that more might see them; it seems less people will benefit  if they were buried as comments only. Many ideas were remembered by commentors on the original post but there are some important ideas that need to come out. The Speaker did an excellent job  outlining and organizing a lot of information that many will need as they try to figure out what to do about their own situation. Also, I did not take any notes on the first session as it was my understanding that it was to be completely private and I thought it would be inappropriate for me to do so.

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Fareed Zakaria: US must stop cowering in fear

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I have been reading a really good book by Fareed Zakaria called:

“The Post American World“

The book talks about a lot of things that are discussed on this blog. If nothing else I urge you to read Chapter 7 (the last chapter) titled “American Purpose”. In a general sense the book describes and offer specific strategies for what America must do to recover.

As Americans Abroad we observe what Homelanders cannot. We see time after time how the U.S. attacks everybody. What is the consequence? A rise in Anti-Americanism!

Here are six examples of U.S. attacks:

– the use of drones strikes which kill innocent people;

– the use of FATCA to attack the sovereignty of other nations;

– the use of Americans Abroad through the citizenship-based taxation to attack the economies of other countries;

– the brutal unprovoked, unprincipled, uncalled for and unjustified attack on its own citizens abroad;

– the use of the Patriot Act to end the constitutional rights of Homelanders;

– the use of PRISM to spy on the world.

The U.S. presumes everybody is a criminal. Now the U.S. has is the most frightened and paranoid country in the world (possible exception North Korea).

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An urgent return from exile: UPDATE 2

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UPDATE 2:  Day 18 since the disappearance of Wally Dunn.

A big thank you to all who expressed their wishes of support and to those indicated that they were praying for my family.  It means a lot to me.

Through my talking to people in area, a few claimed that they may have seen my father in the Big Lake area. Two eye-witnesses believed that they saw my dad in Big Lake IGA.  Jerry Hill, the IGA manager, very kindly permitted me to view the surveillance video for as long as I needed and for two days that was my job.  Evidently, the witnesses saw other older gentlemen whom they thought was Wally Dunn. That showed to me the limited value of sightings by people who had never met my dad, unfortunately.  I only heard of the Montana Creek after returning to Ontario.  But the quality of this sighting may not be better than the ones that we already knew about. Continue reading →

Traumatized by the IRS reaching into the World? London, July 28, 2-5 pm (UPDATE)

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UPDATE:  I received the following note from my contact:

1. I have arranged for a very experienced U.S./UK Tax Adviser to participate as well. This guy is very good – I have met him and heard him speak.

2. There will also be participation from an Investment Banker who has experience with a wide range of U.K. investments and has successfully navigated the Expatriation process.  In other words – the attendees are going to have the chance to hear from people who really understand U.K. investment products and the like.

3. The session will still be in the overall context of dealing with the trauma.

The original Canadian meeting for those traumatized by the IRS in Canada took place in Toronto on June 15 with a clinical psychologist and a Toronto lawyer (read more here). Now, the Toronto lawyer will be available for a meeting in London, England, for one session:

Time: Sunday, 28 July, 2-5 pm
Location: The Church Hall, St. Pancras Church House, Lancing Street, NW1 1NA

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New Zealand IRD Prepares its Tax Agents and Financial Institutions for FATCA Compliance

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Without fanfare or public announcements, New Zealand’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has published technical guidance notes on it’s web site for NZ Tax Agents. It is found under Tax technical information Te parongo mo te take hangarau

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

Under ‘Inland Revenue’s role’, you will see their note about negotiating the FATCA IGA to reduce compliance burden.

Just as the days of New Zealand standing up to America’s Nukes are eroding, it would appear, that it is just a matter of time before Treasury has another IGA notch on their gun. I rarely hear a peep out of U.S. Persons in NZ, and of course, there is no media coverage. The FATCA round up will be like sheep to shearing shed.

 

 

 

#FATCA: A “Simple Premise” Gone Terribly Wrong @TheHill ‘s Congress blog.

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Victoria and Blaze ask in the article: How did the “simple premise” of “cracking down on illegal tax evasion and closing loopholes” become an attack on financial lives and personal integrity of millions of people living outside United States, their banks and laws and constitutions of their countries of residence?”

Hong Kong Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance 2013 does not permit automatic information exchange

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Via Marvin on Twitter, we learn that Caplin & Drysdale partner Scott Michel is claiming (in Hong Kong Business magazine) that:

On July 10, 2013, the Hong Kong Legislative Council moved to enable Hong Kong to enter into stand-alone Tax Information Exchange Agreements and, more importantly for U.S. persons who have financial accounts there, to sign an “intergovernmental agreement” (IGA) with the U.S. for implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

It is expected that the U.S. and Hong Kong will agree on an IGA, and that financial institutions in Hong Kong will begin to comply with FATCA’s due diligence and automatic disclosure provisions next year.

This is the central point of the article, and also the only part that has anything to do with Hong Kong; the rest is merely another regurgitation of general FATCA information we all know already, though it’s nice to see that he mentions “quiet disclosure” as an option for coming into compliance in benign cases.

However, the claim that this amendment has anything to do with automatic disclosure is incorrect, as an informed reading of its actual text reveals. Furthermore, a speech about the amendment by a key pro-Beijing legislator provides striking insight into the attitude of the Hong Kong government (and quite probably, the attitude of Beijing as well) towards demands for information exchange which go beyond OECD standards — and despite the fact the speech doesn’t mention FATCA by name, it casts doubt on the seemingly-authoritative declaration that “it is expected that the U.S. and Hong Kong will agree on an IGA”.

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Mopsick update on #OVDP, #FATCA and #americansabroad

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This is a must read for anybody considering cleaning up past problems. Anybody who is still thinking of entering OVDP should think long and hard. This thoughtful post ends with:

While FATCA creeps toward the starting gate, there appears to be scant progress on two fronts sorely in need of attention: (1) the plight of Americans abroad whose local bank is no more a “foreign financial institution” to them than the corner McDonalds is an English fish and chips joint to us, and (2) the hapless recent immigrant who was never told in citizenship class that as American taxpayers, they now had to register their worldwide assets with Uncle Sam in addition to report the income. The collateral damage of these two unintended FATCA consequences, particularly the former, account for the bulk of the internet chatter on this example of the gross tax injustice FATCA on Americans abroad.

The problem seems to be that of the five to seven million estimated Americans living abroad, few seem to vote. Add that to a Congress which for all practical purposes is frozen in place with no effective direction and leadership and the result is a broad based sense of frustration and disdain. Unfortunately there appears to be little hope any time soon of any attention to this problem.

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