Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

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Tag Archives: KPMG

Breaking FATCA news from Hong Kong: banks and tax consultancy firms are still shills

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Following in the grand media tradition of running biased reports about old news in an attempt to generate a feeling of consensus and progress about the issues of the day, Hong Kong’s Headline News — one of the half-dozen Metro clones you can grab for free to read on the train to work — printed a FATCA article this morning, apparently apropos of nothing. There’s no new developments to report, so they just repeat the same old half-truths in an increasingly skewed manner.

The article features interviews with diverse sectors of society such as banks and tax consultancy firms. Only a few unimportant voices are missing, such as the government bureau which is allegedly supposed to be formulating the policy response to FATCA, or accountholders who might be affected. Unfortunately it’s the first news we’ve seen here in months, so I’ll translate it anyway as part of the ongoing project of Kremlinology in trying to figure out what exactly my adopted hometown’s response to FATCA is going to be. Continue reading →

Some U.S. Persons abroad are more equal than others

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Despite half-hearted calls for tax reform which might fix the increasingly ridiculous consequences of the U.S.’ drive to tax its Persons and make them file forms wherever they go on the planet, Congresscritters clearly prefer instead to introduce more and more stupid complexity-increasing loopholes to cut tax rates on their favoured groups and locales outside of the fifty states. Puerto Ricans and Guamanians have got their loopholes already, companies which fire Americans abroad and give their jobs to Americans in the Homeland have got John Duncan (R-TN) fighting on their behalf, and Marco Rubio (R-FL) was pounding the nationalistic drums earlier this month to let Olympic medal winners have some too.

Now, two (un)Representatives from opposite sides of the aisle have introduced competing sops for Department of Defense contractors and civilian employees. Of course, in the process, they have to make sure not to give any benefit to all those other whiners who have no good reason to be living outside the Greatest Country on Earth™ — a group of taxpayers known as Escaped Unpatriotic Renegades Opposed to Paying Equal Amounts, Now Living Overseas as Useless Tax-evaders (“EUROPEAN LOUTs”). That means more pages in the tax code and longer forms to go along with it. Are you excited yet?

Continue reading →

Former U.S. Person to take charge of FATCA response in the Bahamas?

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The Bahamian debate about how to respond to FATCA is well underway. An article published yesterday in The Bahamas Tribune discusses some of the objections to the idea of an inter-governmental agreement. Former Attorney-General John Delaney points out that the implementation of such an agreement would fall to the already-overworked Ministry of Finance, requiring it to design and set up a completely new system for information collection. In contrast, Annie Chinafat of KPMG (who is also a member of the Bahamas Financial Services Board) is more optimistic, describing the IGA as “a starting point”.

But there’s one humourous aspect of this situation which the article doesn’t mention: Minister of Finance Ryan Pinder used to be a U.S. citizen. Continue reading →

U.S. IRS forms 'SWAT team' for tax dodger crackdown

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It is interesting to note that KPMG is working for the IRS as a consultant.  Do you want them to prepare your tax return?  They work for the IRS.

The IRS also sees something sinister in moving goods and funds from one country to another:

Transfer pricing is a booming field of global tax law. It involves multinational corporations that are constantly moving goods, services and assets from one subsidiary to another in different countries and how they account for these “transfers.”

“Moving goods, services and assets” is also called, “international trade”.

U.S. IRS forms ‘SWAT team’ for tax dodger crackdown