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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Recent Articles about FATCA and Renunciations of U.S. Citizenship

Following the news that a record number of American citizens recently renounced their U.S. citizenship (over 1000 in one three month period) some reporters are smelling a story behind those figures and are finally digging deeper into the underlying causes.

That wasn't just good luck on our part, mes amis.  Part of it came from hard work on the part of organizations like AARO, ACA, FAWCO and the Isaac Brock Society,  and people like Marvin van Horn, Peter Dunn, Lynne Swanson, James Jatras and Allison Christians (to name just a few).

But another part (the most important in my view) was the decision of so many Americans abroad from all over the world to publicly share their stories and be interviewed; to leave thoughtful and intelligent comments to the on-line articles; and to respond to the questions (and sometimes the insults) of the homelanders.

It's been a collective effort to educate American lawmakers, the international media and our dear compatriots in the homeland.  You should know, folks, that your comments were noted and read by reporters and that was one of the reasons that we are seeing so many new articles now that are more balanced and give our side of the story.  The mosquitoes are swarming and isn't that something to see?

Here are just a few of the articles that have appeared this past week - some good reads that you can peruse over your Sunday morning coffee.  Please feel free to add any I may have missed.

Exposed: IRS Is Colluding With Banks To Unfairly Target U.S. Citizens Abroad by Catherine Featherston on Occupy.com

Why are so many American expats giving up citizenship? It’s a taxing issue by  Patrick Cain, Anna Mehler Paperny and Leslie Young in Global News (Canada)

(You can join the discussion about these two articles on Isaac Brock and the Maple Sandbox.)

Américains, ils renoncent à leur citoyenneté pour échapper à la loi FATCA in L'Expansion.

Sharp Rise in Americans Giving Up Citizenship by Marcus Wraight on PRI's (Public Radio International) The World.

Overseas Americans: Time to Say 'Bye' to Uncle Sam? Chased by the U.S. Government, Thousands Are Severing Ties With America. Here's What You Need to Know by Laura Saunders and Liam Pleven in the Wall Street Journal.

FATCA and the American Expat:  Taxation without Representation by Robert Held in the Washington Examiner.

There is also an excellent blog post up on Tax Controversy (hat tip to Marvin who passed along the link from Jack Townsend's site) called  Tax Consequences Resulting From Renouncing U. S. Citizenship by Lacey E. Strachan.

And here is an interview from Fox News about US entrepreneurs renouncing:



And finally I recommend that you go back and read (or re-read) Colleen Graffy's excellent article (published before the renunciation numbers came out)  How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence in the Wall Street Journal.

Bonne lecture!

6 comments:

WhiteKat said...

Thoughtful post. Thanks Victoria.

Anonymous said...

".....as part of the regulations, she is required to declare the balance on her Oyster card, the electronic ticket that allows Londoners rapid access to our buses and tubes. What on earth can be the purpose of this ludicrous regulation? Does the IRS imagine that expat Americans are loading up their Oyster cards with thousands of dollars of credits as a form of money laundering? Is a modern version of Charles Ponzi (who you will recall claimed to invest in international postal coupons) smuggling in Oyster cards to the US as part of a massive investment fraud? Surely not; this is mindless bureaucracy, pure and simple."

from http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2013/08/tax

Anonymous said...

Still adding comments to the Hill article from time to time to keep it active!

Just Me said...

Did you miss this one, the original WSJ by Laura Saunders and Liam Pleven that garnered so many comments.

August 9th - Number of Americans Renouncing Citizenship Surges
Expert Says 2013 on Pace to See Highest Number of U.S. Expatriations Ever

http://on.wsj.com/13981HE

Then, don't forget the Jewish Press on August 5th.

Why US Tax Laws Are Unfair to Expats

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/goldstein-on-gelt/why-us-tax-laws-are-unfair-to-expats/2013/08/05/

Then there was Robert Woods at Forbes...

Thousands Leave U.S. Over Taxes---5 Rules If You're Tempted

http://onforb.es/17KiMMs

and Tax Girl at Forbes who seemed to use Wikipedia as her source for this mostly shallow article...

IRS Releases List Of Americans Hoping To Expatriate, Number Tops 1,000

http://onforb.es/17lbYWB

Then Bloomberg news had this...

Americans Giving Up Passports Jump Sixfold as Tougher Rules Loom

http://buswk.co/16HkGAk

ZeroHedge had this...

http://bit.ly/1eAbxdS

Dan Mitchell at CATCO had this...

More Americans Going Galt
http://bit.ly/19bDHLA

SFGATE did this....Here's The Law That's Driving Record Numbers Of Americans To Renounce Their Citizenship

http://bit.ly/15YDZkl

This was "The Hill" take on the story or renunciations...

Data shows more Americans renouncing their citizenship

http://bit.ly/1eW5pNi

HuffPost did their populist version.

Americans Renouncing Citizenship Jumps Sixfold As Tax Law Looms.

http://huff.to/16o2Gdv

Then there was a WSJ Asian version of the renunciation story run by separate authors that didn't get much attention on Isaac Brock, but really had some insightful and new perspectives...

U.S. Expats Balk at Tax Law
American Citizen Renunciations Are Soaring

http://on.wsj.com/1cSEN40

and there were a couple others I can not find tonight, but thought I would at least add these to your list. :)






bubblebustin said...

Wow, Just Me! Thanks to you and Victoria. More than a few people have said all along that if anything makes a difference it will be the renunciations. Good journalism gets on the right side of any issue, even it's eventually. I imagine that more than a few journalists will be watching the Federal Register to see if this is surge is an anomaly. It won't be.

Victoria FERAUGE said...

@WhiteKat, Good to see you here. You're very welcome. :-)

@anonymous, That's a good one. I'll add it. Thank you.

@anonymous. Great idea! I hadn't thought of that. Merci.

@Just Me, Oh my goodness! All that?

OK, tomorrow's post will be an updated list.

Thank you all very VERY much for your comments and links.

Bises,

Victoria