I don’t have a lot of details yet but apparently Tom Coburn of Oklahoma(a Republican for those of you who care about that type of thing) is proposing an amendment to make the existing passport revocation provisions of S.3457 even more onerous. Link to the amendment text below:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2012-09-13/html/CREC-2012-09-13-pt1-PgS6346-3.htm

@all
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks backpacking in the Rockies — no wireless, no newspapers, no email, no cell phones — heaven.

Many of you are asking about credit unions. I have written a 2000-wd magazine piece on how credit unions in BC (and nationally) are dealing with FATCA. I can’t share details with you now, but the piece will be published in BC Business magazine on Oct. 1. The magazine is hoping this will spark significant reader comment, and everyone at IBS is welcome to go online and submit a letter to the editor. Here’s what the BCB Editor said in a note I got this morning:

“You can just let them know to look for your story in our October issue, which will be out first week of October. It should be online by Monday, Oct. 8. If they want to send a letter to the editor, they can address it to:

bcb@canadawide.com

and put “letter to the editor” in the subject line.

Thanks — Here’s hoping for a lively discussion!”

So — go for it Brockers. And don’t hesitate to take a shot at the piece if it doesn’t meet your expectations. After 40 years of doing this, I’ve got a very thick hide. My one almost-daily panic is that magazine deadlines are such that the story must be submitted at least two months before publication — and a lot can change on a file like this in a couple of months. I’m praying the whole thing isn’t irrelevant by the time it sees the light of day.

BTW — on our backpacking trip, met a couple from Virginia. They were astounded when we filled them in on FATCA, FBARS, citizenship-based taxation etc. — they knew NOTHING about this issue and were horrified that their government is inflicting this kind of pain on expats.

US Senator Bill Nelson and his Senate colleagues are back up to their old tricks of trying to get a Passport revocation rule instated for back/unpaid taxes. This time they are trying to do it through enacting an amendment to the “Veteran Jobs Corps Act of 2012” which who could be against such a piece of legislation until of course you look at fine print and notice the provisions of the act that have nothing to do with veterans or jobs. The following Senators are Senator Nelson’s partners in crime so to speak on this issue:

Sen Blumenthal, Richard [CT] – 9/10/2012

Sen Franken, Al [MN] – 9/11/2012

Sen Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [NY] – 8/2/2012

Sen Merkley, Jeff [OR] – 9/10/2012

Sen Murray, Patty [WA] – 7/30/2012

Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] – 9/10/2012

Sen Stabenow, Debbie [MI] – 9/10/2012

Sen Wyden, Ron [OR] – 8/2/2012

Link to legislation

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:S.3457:

I found this article on the Moodys Tax Weekly:

Life Expectancy, Retirement Planning?

It seems to me that any effective, responsible retirement / estate planning, leaving something behind for our families, can drastically change when taking into account US citizenship-based taxation, excessive penalties (vs actual taxes owed to the US).  If we have been able to do any careful planning with our countries’ savings incentives (such as Canada’s RRSPs, RRIFs, TFSAs, RDSPs), certain mutual fund investments, etc. it all now has a different face.  Some are already there, into retirement, out of the work force and with limited choices to change course.

http://www.rts.ch/info/economie/4265768-l-allemagne-autorise-les-mecanismes-de-sauvetage-de-l-euro.html

Some countries are threatening to leave the Euro because of austerity measures that their people won’t accept.  Others want Germany to prop the Euro up or leave the zone.

What do all of you make of this mess?

I was reading an older article (“Getting Ahead of Privacy Risk” by Matt Kelly) in Compliance Week today and it led me to wonder what FFI’s and the IRS will do with FATCA data once our privacy laws as well as our personal data, have been breached. The article is more about how to handle issues within a corporation but it seemed some of the ideas in the summary would transfer easily to concerns we should have once this data is collected. Given IRS’ notorious lack of ability to deal with identity theft, I wonder what nightmares will appear once the process begins. The bulleted items are from the article with possible concerns underneath in italics.

• Do you have a means to know when your business is creating a new pile of data?

Will there be a time lapse between collection of the data by the FFI and the transmission of it to the IRS? Will the data “sit”, waiting to be evaluated in the inevitable backlog of files to be examined at IRS? Will hackers be able to gain access and befoul the process further? Continue reading →