The IRS is attempting to expand it's powers globally.

[Disco Pickle]

http://mises.org/daily/5666/The-Attack-on-Accidental-Americans

Didn't quote the entire article.

When Julie Veilleux discovered she was American, she went to the nearest US embassy to renounce her citizenship. Having lived in Canada since she was a young child, the 48-year-old had no idea she carried the burden of dual citizenship. But the renunciation will not clear away the past ten years of penalties with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).[1]

Born to American parents living in Canada, Kerry Knoll's two teenaged daughters had no clue they became dual citizens at birth. (An American parent confers such status on Canadian-born children.[2] ) Now the IRS wants to grab at money they earned in Canada from summer jobs; the girls had hoped to use their RESPs (registered education savings plans) for college.[3]

The IRS is making a worldwide push to squeeze money from Americans living abroad and from anyone who holds dual citizenship, whether they know it or not. It doesn't matter if the "duals" want US status, have never set foot on US soil, or never conducted business with an American. It doesn't matter if those targeted owe a single cent to the IRS. Unlike almost every other nation in the world, the United States requires citizens living abroad to file tax forms on the money they do not owe as well as to report foreign bank accounts or holdings such as stocks or RSSPs. The possible penalty for not reporting is $10,000 per "disclosed asset" per year.

Thus, Americans and dual citizens living in Canada (or elsewhere) who do not disclose their local checking account — now labeled by the IRS as "an illegal offshore account" — are liable for fines that stretch back ten years and might amount to $100,000. A family, like the Knolls, in which there are two American parents and two dual-citizen children, might be collectively liable for $400,000.

Approximately 7 million Americans live abroad. According to the IRS, they received upwards of 400,000 tax returns from expatriates last year — a compliance rate of approximately 6 percent. Presumably the compliance of dual-citizen children is far lower. Customs and Immigration is now sharing information with the IRS and, should any of 94 percent expats or their accidentally American offspring set foot on US soil, they are vulnerable to arrest.

Going after the college money earned by children born and raised in Canada (or elsewhere) is just one part of the international enforcement effort. The entire package is called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or FATCA; it was a revenue-raising provision that was slipped into one of Obama's disastrous stimulus bills. Starting in 2013 — or 2014 if an exemption is granted — every bank in the world will be required to report to the IRS all accounts held by current and former US citizens. If account holders refuse to provide verification of their non-US citizenship, the banks will be required to impose a 30 percent tax of all payments or transfers to the account on behalf of the IRS. Banks that do not comply will "face withholding on U.S.-source interest and dividends, gross proceeds from the disposition of U.S. securities, and pass-through payments."[5]

Australia and Japan have already declared their refusal to comply. Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has publicly stated that the proposed American legislation "has far-reaching extraterritorial implications. It would turn Canadian banks into extensions of the IRS and would raise significant privacy concerns for Canadians."[6]

According to the Financial Post,

    Toronto-Dominion Bank is putting up a fight against a new U.S. regulation that would compel foreign banks to sort through billions of dollars of deposits to find U.S. citizens who might be hiding money.... TD has complained that the proposed IRS rule is unreasonable because it would require the bank to make US$100-million investment in new software and staff. Other lenders resisting the effort include Allianz SE of Germany, Aegon NV of the Netherlands and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.... Now the Canadian Bankers association has joined the fray. In an emailed statement the CBA called the requirement "highly complex" and "very difficult and costly for Canadian banks to comply with."[7]

The Financial Times reports,

   

• ne of Asia's largest financial groups is quietly mulling a potentially explosive question: could it organise some of its subsidiaries so that they could stop handling all US Treasury bonds? Their motive has nothing to do with the outlook for the dollar.... Instead, what is worrying this particular Asian financial group is tax. In January 2013, the US will implement a new law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.... [T]he new rules leave some financial officials fuming in places such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong and Singapore.... mplementing these measures is likely to be costly; in jurisdictions such as Singapore or Hong Kong, the IRS rules appear to contravene local privacy laws.... Hence the fact that some non-US asset managers and banking groups are debating whether they could simply ignore Fatca by creating subsidiaries that never touch US assets at all. "This is complete madness for the US — America needs global investors to buy its bonds," fumes one bank manager. "But not holding US assets might turn out to be the easiest thing for us to do."[8][/b]
  
  

Yeah, we didn't need that foot anyway, go ahead and shoot the fucker.

Going to all of the effort to get tax evaders using foreign banks, they're fucking people like myself who frequently moves money out of the US and into Mexico.  Money the IRS has already taxed, but will now require proof that they money isn't being sheltered from taxation in a foreign bank, making it more expensive and troublesome for me to move money across the border.

[Doktor Howl]

I went looking through Ms McElroy's sources for that article...

Um.

[Disco Pickle]

what about them?

[Doktor Howl]

what about them?

1.  Yahoo answers?  Seriously?

2.  The Globe & Mail tells a slighty different story than Ms McElroy:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/household-finances/irs-amnesty-nets-only-12000-people/article2172006/

Of course, they aren't libertarian anarchists, so I suppose they can't be trusted.

3.  Fox News?  Forbes?  Why not just get Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Bros to write it themselves?

Frankly, #2 is the one that concerns me the most.  It doesn't say what she says it says (that's what set me off in the first place)...And I haven't looked at the Winnipeg and Edmonton pieces yet, but I'm betting they also don't say what she says they say.

Lastly, if she's trying to prove that the law says something, why not source the bill, instead of vaguely mentioning it?

[Doktor Howl]

Incidentally, the UK and Spain, just to name two countries, collect tax information & in some cases taxes, from expats, dual citizens, etc.

[Disco Pickle]

1. the yahoo answers answer should have been sourced by the state department, sure.

2. I've reread her column, her globe sources, that fox business article and the one you linked and I still haven't seen the contradiction you allude to.  

3. you don't consider Forbes or FoxBusiness to be valid sources for business news?  

4. I suppose you forgot to denounce Reuters as a valid source so I'll help you do that here because it's funny.

While linking to the relevant parts of the bill would have been good for information purposes, the article is about the effects the bill is going to have, not the bill itself, which was signed into law over a year and a half ago and available for review.

Incidentally, the UK and Spain, just to name two countries, collect tax information & in some cases taxes, from expats, dual citizens, etc.

Yes, I know they do, but they're doing it in a way that's causing banks in foreign countries to refuse service to their respective expat populations due to the cost of enforcing legislation like this.

[Doktor Howl]

2. I've reread her column, her globe sources, that fox business article and the one you linked and I still haven't seen the contradiction you allude to.  

The link I posted describes the situation a little differently.  This wasn't sprung on people with no notice, they aren't being asked to pay tax unless it's due, but rather to report their earnings (bureaucratic crap, but legal, and hardly the suprise buttsex portrayed by Ms McElroy).  If they fail to do so, they get fined.  Nor is any ex post facto law in play, here, as she insists.

3. you don't consider Forbes or FoxBusiness to be valid sources for business news?  

Not for years.

Yes, I know they do, but they're doing it in a way that's causing banks in foreign countries to refuse service to their respective expat populations due to the cost of enforcing legislation like this.

Link?

[Doktor Howl]

While linking to the relevant parts of the bill would have been good for information purposes, the article is about the effects the bill is going to have, not the bill itself, which was signed into law over a year and a half ago and available for review.

I can't think of a single honest reason not to link the bill.

She doesn't even name the specific bill that FATCA was inserted into, for reference.  She merely says:

it was a revenue-raising provision that was slipped into one of Obama's disastrous stimulus bills

[Disco Pickle]

sorry, that should have said they AREN'T doing it in that way.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/19/us-usa-tax-fatca-idUSTRE77I38220110819

In June, the private banking arm of HSBC said it would stop offering services to U.S. residents outside the United States because of the cost of complying with the rule. That month, Michael Ambuehl, Switzerland's secretary of state for international tax and financial matters, told a conference in Zurich that FATCA showed that "Switzerland is becoming a target of intense international greediness." Even the European Commission has objected, and experts say other countries may create their own FATCA-style regimes for U.S. banks or withdraw from U.S. capital markets.

[Telarus]

Aaaaaaah. Targeted at the Swiss banks. "We don't need to know the name on the account, but YOU need to see if they are an American citizen or not".... Slick one IRS.

[Doktor Howl]

Aaaaaaah. Targeted at the Swiss banks. "We don't need to know the name on the account, but YOU need to see if they are an American citizen or not".... Slick one IRS.

Japan and Australia won't comply.  There's nothing forcing Switzerland to, either.

[Cain]

This looks like yet another tragic case of a Von Mises Institute blogger going off half-cocked based on someone elses version of events and without doing any proper or thorough research beforehand.

The "blogger" part kinda gives it away, to be honest.

[East Coast Hustle]

you don't consider Forbes or FoxBusiness to be valid sources for business news?   

you do?

[Disco Pickle]

you don't consider Forbes or FoxBusiness to be valid sources for business news?   

you do?

basing where you get your business news on partisan politics, or because their political reporting is clearly biased is pretty short sided, IMO.

Fox business I can take or leave.  They're on par with CNNMoney for quality.

But Forbes?  as in Steven Forbes?  yeah, I think I'll trust his publication as one of several sources for news about business and money. 

[Doktor Howl]

you don't consider Forbes or FoxBusiness to be valid sources for business news?   

you do?

basing where you get your business news on partisan politics, or because their political reporting is clearly biased is pretty short sided, IMO.

Fox business I can take or leave.  They're on par with CNNMoney for quality.

But Forbes?  as in Steven Forbes?  yeah, I think I'll trust his publication as one of several sources for news about business and money. 

PT Barnum says "HI!  WELCOME TO THE 21st CENTURY!"