The number of Americans who’ve turned in their passports and renounced citizenship has increased more than tenfold in five years, to 3,000 in calendar 2013. [USA Today] Earlier on the burdensome expatriate tax and regulation measure here, here, here, and generally here.
Posts Tagged ‘FATCA’
Surveillance roundup
- “That Thing They Said They’re Not Doing? They’re Totally Doing.” [Daily Show with Jon Stewart] “Exactly What the State Says to Deceive You About Surveillance” [Conor Friedersdorf]
- “Warrantless Cellphone ‘Tower Dumps’ Becoming Go-To Tool For Law Enforcement” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt; Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post; David Kravets, Wired; USA Today (local law enforcement using, not just federal)]
- Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn, but telecoms absent: “U.S. Tech Industry Calls for Surveillance Reform” [Corporate Counsel, EFF, Marvin Ammori/USA Today]
- New Federalist Society symposium on NSA/FISA surveillance and bulk data collection includes names like Randy Barnett, Jim Harper, Jeremy Rabkin, Stewart Baker, Grover Joseph Rees [Engage, Randy Barnett]
- Nowadays “law enforcement can feel free to admit their traffic stops are pretextual” Thanks, Drug War! [Popehat] “Sobriety Checkpoints Paved Path to NSA Email Spying” [Wired]
- FATCA, the intrusive overseas tax enforcement law, isn’t couched in public controversy as a federal data-snooping issue, but it should be [Radley Balko, McClatchy]
Politics roundup
- “Who’s Afraid of Political Speech?” (spoiler: incumbents) [Roger Pilon, Cato] “None of this was perceived as a major problem so long as the 501(c)(4) category was dominated by the political left” [Brad Smith, WSJ]
- Texas trial lawyers not all of one mind over extent of political involvements [Texas Tribune, Southeast Texas Record]
- Sen. Mark Pryor, a key architect of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad CPSIA law, faces tough re-election race in Arkansas [Politico]
- RNC asked to take stand for Americans overseas hurt by FATCA tax law [McClatchy]
- Richard Epstein recalls Chris Christie’s unlovely tactics as a prosecutor [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism]
- That time Texas politico Wendy Davis sued the Fort Worth paper over its coverage of her campaign [Andrew Stiles, NRO]
- “Low political knowledge levels mainly due to lack of demand for info, not lack of supply” [Ilya Somin, Jack Shafer]
- SEC backs off plan to expose companies to harassment over outlays to politically oriented nonprofits, and NYT (thinking only of shareholders’ welfare of course) is sad about that [Marc Hodak, David Silvers/CEI, NYT] Sen. Warren seems to enjoy new capacity to use position, Durbin-like, to punish political foes [David Henderson]
At Treasury’s mercy
How “money laundering” regulations give the U.S. Treasury power to destroy foreign banks [Stewart Baker, Volokh] Meanwhile, if Canadians imagine that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is something only Canadian-Americans need to worry about, they should think again [Maclean’s]. Excerpt:
To say that FATCA is controversial is an understatement. The law is so complex and onerous to implement that some foreign banks have reportedly kicked out their U.S. clients in order to avoid dealing with it. Americans living abroad are queuing to give up their U.S. passports over it. The other problem with FATCA is that it asks foreign banks to do things that are often illegal in their home countries, such as passing on certain private information.
NY Times notices that FATCA is “vexing” and “major headache”
Many previous posts in this space have addressed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which presumes to regulate overseas banks and financial institutions that do business with Americans, and which goes into effect next June. So it’s nice to see the Paper of Record running a reasonably informative introductory piece on its problems, even if at too late a date to get the thing stopped. “Global banks and investment firms have made their dislike of the law known, though they are reluctant to speak out individually” — and how common that last point is these days, given the retaliatory potential of the U.S. government’s vast regulatory and enforcement apparatus for a business that does dare to speak out. Still, a few critics are willing to show their heads above ground, including
Georges Ugeux, a dual Belgian-American citizen, a lecturer at Columbia Law School and the founder of Galileo Global Advisors, an international business consulting firm. He described the law as “bullying and selfish.” The United States, he said, “is acting outside its borders as if they were its home.”
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has introduced legislation to roll back part of the law, and there is a site called RepealFatca.com. [Lynnley Browning, NYT via TaxProf]
With the FATCA deadline looming…
..a surge in U.S. citizenship renunciations by expatriates [Bloomberg] The United States is “the only nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside,” a departure whose disincentive effects are magnified now that Congress is insisting on regulating foreign financial institutions that deal with Americans. Earlier on FATCA here. More: Dan Mitchell, Cato.
Banking and finance roundup
- After bank burglarizes Ohio woman, law will give her curiously little satisfaction [Popehat]
- North Las Vegas scheme to seize underwater mortgages through eminent domain raises constitutional opposition [Kevin Funnell]
- “The SAC Insider Trading Indictment” [Bainbridge, WSJ MoneyBeat]
- “He who sells what isn’t his’n/Must buy it back or go to prison.” Most naked short selling driven by fundamentals, study says [Daniel Fisher]
- NY AG Schneiderman to Thomson Reuters: don’t you dare sell early access to the market-moving survey you pay for [Bainbridge]
- “The Confidential Witness Problem in Securities Litigation” [Kevin LaCroix]
- “The puzzling return of Glass-Steagall” [Tabarrok]
- “FATCA: How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence” [Colleen Graffy, WSJ via Paul Caron/TaxProf, earlier]
Banking and finance roundup
- Employer mandate not the only impractical reg being postponed: “IRS Delays Implementation of FATCA” [Paul Caron; earlier]
- Foreign banks whipsawed betwen U.S. terrorism-finance liability and privacy laws in home countries [Daniel Fisher]
- “NY Fed Official: Let’s ‘Facilitate’ The Seizure Of Underwater Loans” [Kevin Funnell]
- “If anything, the data suggest [home] ownership … inversely correlated with political stability and rule of law.” [Michael Greve]
- Revisiting the Randy and Karen Sowers structuring case [Kathleen Hunker, Bell Towers; earlier]
- “Can we improve payday lending?” [Andrew Sullivan]
- When if ever should the SEC pay bounties to attorneys to snitch on their clients? [Prof. Bainbridge]
June 15 roundup
- “The NYT revisits the Tawana Brawley rape hoax scandal — and Al Sharpton’s role.” [Ann Althouse]
- Is there any hope of reforming or repealing FATCA, the crazy overseas banking regulation? [Frederic Alain Behrens, SSRN via TaxProf, earlier here, etc.]
- Urbanophile is no fan of Toronto mayor Rob Ford, but also no fan of the campaign to drive him from office [Aaron Renn]
- Landlords face legal risk taking on ex-offenders — so where are they supposed to live? [Volokh]
- When does a strong central state advance individual liberty? Arnold Kling reviews Mark Weiner’s The Rule of the Clan [EconLib]
- Unenforceability of contract holds back Indian tribes’ prosperity [Terry Anderson]
- “Oklahoma High Court Nullifies State Tort Reform Law” [WLF, TortsProf, Tulsa World, Reuters, NewsOK, Beck (“the Oklahoma Supreme Court was plainly out of control in Ysbrand, and unfortunately it remains out of control to this day”), Douglas v. Cox]
Banking and finance roundup
- FATCA: “Another American Turns in Passport to Protest Idiotic New Banking Regulations” [Matt Welch, earlier]
- Cato president John Allison discusses his new book “The Financial Crisis and the Free-Market Cure” [video, earlier; John Tamny, Forbes]
- “The Unintended Consequences of Cracking Down on Payday Lenders” [A. Barton Hinkle, earlier]
- Trial lawyers’ uses for “say on pay” [Bainbridge] Suits after mergers [Kevin LaCroix on Boris Feldman article]
- Massachusetts law restricting foreclosures is likely to backfire [Anthony Randazzo] “Foreclose on state AGs” [Michael Greve, Law and Liberty]
- ACLU (ACLU?) sues Morgan Stanley over allegedly predatory loans [Althouse] Suing Wells Fargo twice is not very nice [Reynolds Holding, Reuters]
- “More evidence that Dodd-Frank is hurting small banks” [Ammon Simon, earlier]