Putting aside the challenges FATCA has created for Americans (in fact, for everyone) wanting to open bank accounts overseas, the filing requirements and
It’s official. The IRS can now revoke your passport if you owe them US$50,000 or more. The new law was tucked away in a new highway bill dubbed the FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act) that was signed by President Obama last week. What better way to get a contentious, potentially civil rights-violating bill […]
Yesterday, day one of the Global Asset Protection and Wealth Summit Lief is hosting in Panama City this week, he and I had lunch with banker friends in town for the conference. One, with 30 years of experience in the global banking industry, sat down, looked around the table, and said: “I wish I hadn’t […]
Five years ago, when the U.S. FATCA law had just been passed and the effects it would have on non-U.S. banks were a hot topic for speculation, a banker I knew from Andorra made a remark to me along the lines of: “We’ll all go back to goat herding before we roll over for the […]
I’ve been reporting on the coming of FATCA for eight years. That’s old news. FATCA has arrived. It’s a reality of today’s offshore world. Banks have decided or are in the process of deciding which path they’ll follow toward compliance. Either they’ll continue to work with American clients and meet all the reporting requirements… or […]
I got peoples’ attention with my “I Confess: I Don’t Care If The U.S. Dollar Collapses” headline last week. Boy, did I get mail, positive, negative, and lunatic. Some readers wrote to point out that the U.S. dollar is on a run and isn’t going to collapse anytime soon…or ever. Others argued that no level […]
Since the FATCA regulations took effect July 1 of this year, it’s been getting harder and harder to carry out financial transactions around the world, and I’d say we’re only at the bottom of this hill. As these onerous requirements and restrictions take hold, all kinds of unimaginable and unpredictable complications and consequences continue to […]
The unintended consequences of FATCA and the overreach of the U.S. government and the IRS have started playing out around the world. In the last week, I’ve heard from a half-dozen people with “know your client” tales of woe. Indeed, I have my own. Let’s start with the know-your-client form that the homeowner’s insurance company […]
Because the tax system in the United States is probably the most complicated in the world. Even simple wage-earners with but single W-2s can have trouble figuring out which forms to complete thanks to