Today I got curious about who actually designed this horrific albatross around our necks called FATCA. I found out that one responsible person is J. Richard (Dick) Harvey, who proudly says he was one of the architects of FATCA. He has published an article that discusses his perception of FATCA, how it came to be, issues with it and what he sees as recommendations needed to make FATCA successful. His article consistently refers to “tax cheats” (29 times), and there is no discussion of how this would affect regular, normally law-abiding people. He argues extensively for GATCA. His paper, Offshore Accounts: Insider’s Summary of FATCA and Its Potential Future’ can be found at:
Tag Archives: FATCA
US Government Fundraising Event!
Yes, the United States of America wants YOU to donate!
As of May 24, 2012 the US total debt stood at $15,719,144,405,320.76 and we’ve belatedly realized that this actually is a serious load that must be addressed.
Over the past few years it’s come to our attention that we’ve been seriously neglecting many people who could be donating and reducing the overall debt, which would reduce the load on the US citizens who live in our great country. We’ve thought long and hard on this and have come up with a solution to make it very easy for you to donate.
Notice to Swiss Authorities: Canada resists US extraterritorial tax policies, Switzerland must too
Foreign banks freezing out U.S. millionaires
Here is a Washington Post article that just broke that seems to contain a lot of text that we have already seen at sources like Bloomberg and WSJ. Nothing really that new.
Foreign banks freezing out U.S. millionaires
The comments page is interesting: there is one remark mentioning the fact that FATCA-level reporting is not required of American banks. Perhaps IBS members could put some comments there.
Recent media coverage: one entry for the Hall of Fame, lots for the Hall of Shame
Ms. Atossa Abrahamian’s article last month about U.S. persons abroad giving up citizenship has really opened up the floodgates to a deluge of reporting on issues of interest to us here at the Isaac Brock Society. It’s hard to keep up with all of it, let enough find the time to comment on everything. Here’s a roundup of recent coverage. Thanks to FromTheWilderness and others who left comments pointing us to these articles.
U.K.'s Association of Investment Companies suggests members not comply with FATCA
Financial institutions have generally fallen into two categories in their reactions to FATCA: some seem to be leaning towards trying to qualify under “deemed compliance” exceptions, while others have urged their governments to shred privacy laws so they can dump all the costs and harms of compliance onto the public. But as far as I know this is a first: an industry body suggesting that its members ignore FATCA entirely. A couple of different links to the story, in case one or the other ends up trapped behind a paywall: IFAOnline.co.uk and Investment Week. Quotes below. Continue reading
Taiwan banks having second thoughts about FATCA?
The latest FATCA news from Taiwan and mainland China: Taiwan banks are busy worrying about the mainland’s attitude, but Beijing is still not releasing any details besides confirming the fact that FATCA discussions with Washington are underway. On the bright side, the lack of confirmation about the mainland’s final disposition towards FATCA seems to be spooking banks in Taiwan. They certainly seem less confident in their original “bright idea” of solving all their problems by shredding Taiwan’s consumer data privacy laws in order to reduce their costs of complying with FATCA — because they realised they might also face issues in other major markets where they have far less lobbying power to encourage similar “solutions”. Translations below.
ACA has just issued the April 2012 News Update.
For those of you who are not members of ACA, and not on their email list, I wanted to alert you to the April edition of the ACA News Update for some interesting new information. The top item on the list is this:
ACA Participates in Meeting with Departments of IRS, Treasury,Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency (FINCen) and the Office for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC) Continue reading
US taxman's long Arm Threatens Costly Kiwi Headaches
This isn’t much, but it is the first popular media story on FATCA that I have seen in NZ. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any opportunity for Kiwis to provide comment feedback. I have sent an email to the Editor to see if contact with the journalist is possible, and see if additional news reporting is in the offing. They have barely cracked a window open on the story, but as I found out when I did a search for FATCA on the Seattle Times today, there was nothing there either! So maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on my Kiwi friends. They now know more than Seattlites do! Thanks to Moby for drawing my attention to it.
Dutch Finance Secretary sidesteps hostile questions from lawmakers on FATCA
Mondaq.com is running the headline “The Netherlands to join Joint FATCA Statement”. This appears to be lifted from an English-language newsletter issued last week by Amsterdam-based law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. Don’t get the wrong impression, though — no agreement has yet been negotiated. The most recent news is that Finance Secretary Frans Weekers stated last week (link available in Dutch only) that the Netherlands is open in principle to joining FATCA. But the cross-border services providers have managed to miss (or to bury) the real news. Last week some Second Chamber members submitted written questions to Weekers (also in Dutch only; see here for Google Translate’s rendering). I’ve manually translated some of the interesting bits. I am disappointed by many of Weekers’ responses, both for their attitude towards the democratic process and their apparent lack of understanding about FATCA’s effects on bona fide residents of his country who have no financial connection to the U.S. besides their passports.
