Human Rights and Taxation

Good link was posted up on Allison Christian's blog (Tax, Society and Culture) today:   Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.  Twenty or so pages about tax systems, tax evasion, and international cooperation on fiscal matters and she tries to demonstrate how these things are also human rights issues.  An interesting read.

I was very pleased to see that she adressed one issue that is close to my heart:  transparency and representation in the making of tax policy.  Here is what Ms. Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona has to say:

"22. Decision-making processes regarding tax and public revenues must therefore be based on full transparency and the broadest possible national dialogue, with effective and meaningful participation of civil society and those who will be directly affected by such policies, including people living in poverty. Fiscal policies should be subjected to the scrutiny of the population during design, implementation and evaluation stages, with the various interests transparently identified. This will require capacity-building and fostering fiscal literacy in the population. The population should have access to all relevant information in an accessible and understandable format, and inclusive mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that they are actively engaged in devising the most appropriate policy options. Owing to the asymmetries of power, expertise and interests in this debate, specific measures should be taken to ensure equal access and opportunities to participate, particularly for people living in poverty."

Not only is this true on a national level (the US, for example) but it is triply true on the international level.  I know from hard experience that when such things are discussed in international forums like the OECD, or in regional ones like the European Parliament, it is a fairly limited circle:  banks and other financial institutions, academics, and representatives of national tax authorities.  Yes, there were also reps from human rights groups committed to tax justice, but did adding them to the group of well-dressed bankers and bureaucrats who flew in from different countries mean that all the stakeholders in such policy were represented?  Of course not.    Way down at the end of the line - far from the exalted forums where such policy was debated and decided - are human beings who must bear the brunt of any unintended consequences.

One of the most glaring omissions in the debates about international taxation and information exchange is the impact all this will have on global mobility.  And I'm not talking here about the global rich - I am talking about migrants whether they are engineers, teachers or musicians or those who drive taxis or work in restaurants.   These are the people who have to sign the forms that come from the local or home country banks or who see their access to financial services (like basic bank accounts) limited or denied.  In the worst case these migrants could end up caught between the taxation systems of the host country where they live and work and that of the home country which has different and sometimes conflicting requirements.

I think we will see more of this as financial information begins to flow between countries of immigration and emigration.  The taxation of French living abroad has been proposed and will surely be proposed again as the French state looks for more sources of revenue.  Developing countries surely have an interest in doing this as well - a migrant from such a country may not be particularly well-paid according to the standards of his host country but what he earns may represent a great deal of money to people back in his home country. Should such people be taxed by their home countries? Should an immigrant taxi driver in New York be required to contribute something to his home country above and beyond what  voluntary remittances he may already be sending back?  Should a visiting university professor in Europe be required to pay some portion of his income back to his country of citizenship?

These are serious questions that are at the intersection of international migration and international tax/information exchange policy.  On one side are millions of people on the move, the vast majority who are not rich.  On the other are high-level regional and international forums where migrants have no voice and where policy is made pretty much by stealth.

The ability to leave one's home country is enshrined in international human rights law. If global mobility is made more difficult (or even impossible for some) because of conflicts between home and host country tax policies, or where tax policies might be used to discourage people from emigrating, are these not human rights issues?

Attack in Paris

Late this morning I was at the American church and as I and a friend were walking out on the way to lunch, the staff at the church gave us the news that there had been a shooting in the 11th district and that the church was closed down - standard, they said, when this happens.  The friend I was with lives in that part of town and was on his cellphone immediately.  Quite a relief to him to hear his family on the phone.

It was a horrendous attack. I will not say more here about it because I think Arun's post is perfect and he is updating it with links and commentary as more information comes in.  I invite you to head over there and read about what happened:

I am Charlie

After I posted this I had an urge to pick up St. Augustine and find this passage.  Not sure why it inspires me but I thought I would share parts of it with you.  Eternal questions that we still struggle to with :

"Where then is evil, and what is its source, and how has it crept into the Creation?  What is its root, what is its seed?  Can it be that it is wholly without being?  But why should we fear and be on guard against what is not?  Or if our fear of it is groundless, then our very fear is itself an evil thing...Whence then is evil, since God who is good made all things good?"  

FATCA in France

Well, it's a done done deal, folks.

Ellen Lebelle just posted on Facebook a link to the FATCA  décret d'application in France.

Read it and weep...

Décret n° 2015-1 du 2 janvier 2015 portant publication de l'accord entre le Gouvernement de la République française et le Gouvernement des Etats-Unis d'Amérique en vue d'améliorer le respect des obligations fiscales à l'échelle internationale et de mettre en œuvre la loi relative au respect des obligations fiscales concernant les comptes étrangers (dite « loi FATCA ») (ensemble deux annexes), signé à Paris le 14 novembre 2013 (1)

The United States and You: A New Americans Abroad Survey

This survey comes from  Dr. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels of the University of Kent in Brussels and is meant for Americans and former Americans abroad. (Yes, she wants to hear from the renunciants as well.) 

Dr. von Koppenfels is the author of some of the best research that I have read about Americans abroad (American immigrants to other countries). I highly recommend her book:  Migrants or Expatriates? Americans in Europe.

I hope that many of you participate and please spread the word by passing along the link:  

The United States and You – A Survey for US Citizens and Former US Citizens

Citizens and Their Foreign Spouses

This post appeared in April of 2012 and still generates comments.  I went back and reread them (and answered a new one) and realized that a repost/update was in order.  

I have migrated once and am about to be expatriated for the third time for my French spouse.  As happy as I am to be global and mobile, Osaka represents yet another sacrifice on my part and a set of challenges for us to face as a couple - a loss of friends, family, my parish, my house and garden, my oncologist and the clinic where I am still under treatment for breast cancer.  As much as I love Japan and find the Kansai region to be fascinating, this city was not my choice of destinations and a move at this time not so simple.  It has been emotionally wrenching to leave so much and from time to time I find myself asking if this move (which is definitely a good deal for my citizen spouse) is, in fact, a good deal for me.  Much of the past few months has been spent trying to find ways to equalize the situation which makes a reread of this post particularly apt at this moment. In my search I also found some new information that I would like to pass along.  May it be of benefit.

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Marriage is a topic on which I am very hesitant to give advice.  There are too many variables and it's impossible to pin down what makes a marriage or long-term relationship work even when both parties share a language and a culture.  There is no magic formula that guarantees success.  Call it one of the cosmic crapshoots of life.

There are special challenges, however, when two people from two different countries decide to make a go of it.  For one thing, there is a choice to be made:  In which country do you plan to live?  Unless you are very rich, it's not possible to maintain residences and jobs in two very geographically distant places.  There is a choice to make and, to be brutally honest, one party is going to have to leave his or her country of residence. This move can be temporary or permanent but it has to be made at some point.  Some couples have resolved this by choosing a Third Place: a country where neither is a citizen.  That way no one has the upper hand (the "home court advantage") since both are foreigners.

It usually doesn't happen that way for obvious reasons.  It's just a lot easier to choose one of the countries of citizenship and benefit from immigration policies that favor family reunification.  25 years ago I had no trouble getting a French residency permit and that is still true today though some countries in Europe are making noises about limiting this.

But that's just the beginning of a long journey for the foreign spouse and most of us discover that getting the residency permit is the least of our challenges.  Once married and installed in another country, this is not an easy decision to reverse for either party if things go terribly wrong.  There is no way to know for sure how things will work out but I thought I would throw out a few thoughts that might be helpful to those foreign brides and grooms contemplating a move:

The Empathy Gap:  Even before the decision is made, I think its important that both parties recognize that the citizen and the foreign spouse are starting from very different places, may have very different implicit expectations and are going to experience life in the citizen's country very differently.  Every marriage requires love and empathy but bi-cultural couples in one country of citizenship, I contend, have to make an extra effort because one person is "home" and the other is not.

One good sign of trouble is a lack of appreciation on the part of the citizen spouse for just how hard it's going to be for the foreign spouse.  When I say this I am not calling into question his or her goodwill -  I'm just saying that there are some important barriers to understanding here.  The citizen spouse who wants to stay in his home country clearly finds his country desirable and wants to live there.  It may not occur to him that it has never been his spouse's deepest desire to migrate.  

For the foreign spouse, it can be hard to talk about this honestly with the citizen spouse because the conversation can quickly disintegrate into a debate about what is and isn't attractive about the potential country of residence. This can be greatly exacerbated when, in the citizen spouse's head, the foreign spouse's country has a perceived lower economic or political position relative to the host country.  Why wouldn't someone want to move to the U.S. or to France or to the U.K. ?  Shouldn't the foreign spouse be grateful to have the chance at a Green Card or a 10-year EU residency permit?   Not necessarily.  The trite saying, "home is where the heart is," applies here.  Doesn't matter what country we are talking about, how poor/rich it is, how politically corrupt/sane, how many/few opportunities.  We all have a very human tendency to love where we are from regardless of how outsiders perceive its lacks. 

The other barrier to understanding is that whatever the citizen spouse's life experience I can guarantee to you that he/she has never been an immigrant of the opposite sex in his or her home country.  He may have the best of intentions, he may even think it won't be a big deal, but he or she is starting from a position of complete ignorance - he doesn't even know what he doesn't know because he hasn't lived it.  If things start to go badly with the foreign spouse (difficulty finding work, integrating or learning the language) he/she may be genuinely surprised and might even call into question the foreign spouse's competence, intelligence and goodwill. 

The Information Gap:  On the foreign spouse's side the move is a leap into the unknown.  Sometimes the adventure is welcome and the spouse is eager to go.  In other cases, it takes a lot of persuasion (and a lot of trust) before the spouse agrees to sell everything, quit the job and give up the old life. 

Intellectually we all understand that moving to another country things will be different but no migrant can judge the depth of the differences until he/she actually arrives and starts living.  Describing what it's like to be a permanent resident in France is a little like trying to explain how a rose smells.  Nothing I could possibly tell you (assuming I could even find the right vocabulary) would do it justice.  It's just something you have to experience.

But most foreign spouses come to a new country with the idea that they do know what it will really be like "over there."  Their views are informed by the media, the Internet, books, travelers and the citizen spouse.  That is an illusion of knowledge and it's very dangerous.  It is not and will never be enough and I will even go so far as to say that all these sources are unreliable for different reasons.  I personally have a special loathing for the endless parade of very silly books written about France for Americans.  Generally these fairy tales do little harm unless they are taken even semi-seriously by men and women who actually do choose to follow a spouse to a foreign land.  Then they can become very destructive indeed.  Why?  Because the reality almost never resembles the fantasy and the citizen spouse (who may have been very flattered in the beginning by his foreign spouse's pre-move good opinion of his country) may find himself in the unenviable position of being held  responsible when the foreign spouse has a series of bad days or when the dream comes crashing down. This is not fair, I grant you, but it is very very human.

I've seen these two scenarios played out in many places by couples of many different nationalities.  Was it ever inevitable or necessary?  No, and here are a few suggestions I offer up based on hard experience.

• Citizen spouses need to take their foreign spouses very seriously when they talk about the problems they may be experiencing. For every fairy tale about moving to a foreign country and living a wonderful romantic exotic life filled with opportunity, I can give you others that more closely resemble horror novels: loneliness, isolation, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, marital problems, and suicide. Having a spouse who, from his or her lofty position as a native, laughs off the foreign spouse's problems off as minor or who criticizes the immigrant spouse for his or her inability to get a job right away or who makes incessant jokes about the spouse's accent or grammatical errors in the second language or who denigrates the foreign spouse's home country or culture, may be genuinely unaware of how destructive these things are. But they are. Of the bi-cultural couples I know who have divorced, I most often hear that it was a lack of empathy and an unwillingness to listen or negotiate that was the final straw.
• Before moving, the foreign spouse should take everything he/she reads about the future country of residence with a grain of salt. The best approach might be to cultivate a Beginner's Mind - a mind that doesn't have preconceived notions about what will happen and what it will really be like. Hard to be disillusioned if one doesn't start with too many assumptions. Once in the host country the foreign spouse can seek out many sources of information and help - never rely entirely on the citizen spouse for information nor cast him or her in the role of being the sole support or sounding-board for all the difficulties encountered. Cast a wide net and listen to true stories by people who have lived, survived and thrived though the good and the bad - those who have recently arrived and those who have been around for years. A foreign spouse should never feel embarrassed or depressed if things don't click right away -  don't let anyone push you around or make you feel guilty because you haven't yet mastered the language or the customs. Integration/assimilation comes in its own time and, like love, it is not worth anything if it is forced. 
• And finally I would strongly suggest that the foreign spouse take some measures against the precariousness of his/her situation.  Bi-national marriages are complex from a legal standpoint - there can be uncertainty about which country's laws will apply in the case of a dispute or a divorce.  For example, a bi-national married couple living in one of the citizen spouse's countries or living in a Third Place might find that the marital regime under which he/she was married under in one country may not be valid or applicable in another country.  Yep, it happens and the repercussions of getting it wrong are pretty horrendous.  This is something to clarify as soon as possible, mes amis, because what marital regime (community property, asset separation and so on) you think you are married under may not actually be the one that will be enforced.  So as unpleasant as this may sound, you (the foreign spouse) should find a lawyer (or in France a notaire) well versed in international family law and get this clarified.  What the notaire I saw in France advised was that we both sign and have witnessed a declaration of matrimonial regime that says that we agree that we are married under community property in France and that French law applies wherever we happen to be in the world in the case of divorce/separation.  Not a terribly complex document but very helpful for one's peace of mind.  A good lawyer (or notaire) can also advise on other matters that the foreign spouse might be concerned about (questions about children, for example, are ones I hear often) and so I think it is well worth the trouble to make the trip and ask - assumptions in this case just won't cut it.

Happy New Year!

Bonne année 2015 à toutes et à tous! (And please note that the ladies come first always in such salutations :-).

It is with both joy and trepidation that the Flophouse is ringing in the new year.  What a wild (and emotionally difficult) month it has been filled with sorting, packing and attending the usual end of the year pots (cocktails) and dinners.

After a bit of trouble with the Japanese landlord in Osaka which was ably managed by the Japanese team at my spouse's new office, we were finally granted a lease for that small but lovely apartment on the 14th floor in the heart of the city.  That accomplished we went about the business of getting a minimum of things ordered and ready for delivery - important things like a refrigerator and a washing machine.  Yep, the apartment is entirely without appliances (like most French apartments).

And then there were the usual formalities at the Japanese embassy;  the Certificate of Eligibility was applied for and granted which meant that we could go down to Avenue Hoche and apply for our visas.   Turnaround time was a mere 3 days.  Very efficient and gracious service.

Lastly, there has been the entire business of deciding what to take and what to leave at the house in Porchefontaine.  While we were at it it seemed a propitious moment to do a bit of sorting and throwing out.  As I pulled things out of forgotten boxes in the basement, I simply asked myself if I could live without the items for three years and if I would care (or need them) when we came back.  The result of that exercise was many many bags of junk thrown out in the trash (and thanks goodness Versailles has garbage pickup 4 times a week) and a large load that went to the local dump just a few days ago.

As we went about this business of closing out one life in one country and starting another on another continent 13 hours away by plane, I thought a great deal about the differences between migration and expatriation. 

The commonality is, of course, that one is physically picking up, packing up, and moving to another place.  The differences start, I propose, with one's mentality and intentions.  When I left the US for France so long ago as a young bride, I left only my family and friends behind me and my intention was to arrive and to build a new life in a new land with no definitive date of return - just the possibility which one might think of as a  kind of personal myth of return - not entirely magical thinking but very very close to it.  

This is absolutely not the case with our expatriation to Japan.  This departure and arrival has boundaries:  around three years which is the term of the contract.  So return is almost certain and the question of course is how much to invest personally in that new place, that new life, knowing that it has an expiration date.  How much of the language to learn?  To what extent do I wish to integrate?  And what are the limits to integration in this new place since this process always involves a delicate dance between the foreigner and the native?   From my experience (and I have that in spades), it takes me about two years to become acclimated and from that point that leaves only one short year to enjoy being bien dans mes baskets in Japan and then....

Back to Versailles and my house, my garden, and a basement filled with the things I truly care about and have kept for years?    An old painting by a Scottish water colourist given to me by my mother that hung on the wall of the Thackeray Street Hotel, my daughters' baby clothes, the quilts I made for them and for my spouse, and an entire box of beautiful love letters that were sent to me by my spouse long ago when I was still in Seattle and he was living in Paris in the 1980's.  (And as we sorted, it turns out that he kept the letters I sent him as well from that time.)  These are the precious irreplaceable things and they will stay here in Versailles.

Like my move to France from the US so many years ago I will be leaving friends and family behind and that is a great sadness.  More than that, it is psychologically destabilizing. While I am gone for those three years, the river and rhythm of life will continue to flow in France and when I come back perhaps some things will be the same but it is dead certain that many many more things will change. 

That, mes amis, is the price to being global and mobile. And I find that this bothers me much more at 50 than it did at 20.  It also raises another question in my mind:  since we are already leaving this life for another, why stop there?  This has been a topic of discussion at the Flophouse these past few weeks provoked by the presence of the Frenchlings who flew in from Seattle and Montreal for Christmas.  It is hard to live oceans away from one's children (and future grandchildren) and so where my children choose to settle becomes a factor in the old old question that we have been asking and answering for over 25 years: "Where shall we live?"  

A question that will not be answered today or tomorrow, but there is some consolation and much wisdom, I think, in the words of Boethius:

"My wings are swift, able to soar beyond the heavens.  The quick mind which wears them scorns the hateful earth and climbs beyond the globe of the immense sky, leaving the clouds below.  It soars beyond the point of fire caused by the swift motion of the upper air until it reaches the house of stars...  There the Lord of Kings holds his scepter, governing the reins of the world.  With sure control He drives the swift chariot, the shining judge of all things.  If the road which you have forgotten, but now search for, brings you here, you will cry out: 'This I remember, this is my own country, here I was born and here I shall hold my place.'  Then if you wish to look down upon the night of earthly things which you have left, you will see those much feared tyrants dwelling in exile here."

An Excellent Video on the Impact of FATCA

Well, folks, it has been a rough couple of weeks at the Flophouse.  The logistics of getting out of one country and into another are daunting (but many of you already know that, right?)

And then there are the surprises. Stuff that seemed simple, straightforward, above all, done?

We should be so lucky...

 Remember that apartment we flew all the way to Osaka to find? Turns out that it's not a done deal and the issue is most likely the fact that we are foreigners (gaijin).

But I've learned a thing or two in the past couple of weeks which I will share in the days to come.

But for today I would simply like to draw your attention to this excellent video about FATCA by Robert Morris.  Morris is also the author of FATCA and the New Birth of American Empire -  the book is available in the usual places and you can read my review here.