IMPORTANT! USA Tax Survey! ATTENTION Americans, accidental Americans and US dual passport holders

Legal Taxes
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This post is for American citizens, Accidental Americans and dual passport holders of US passports who are a tax resident of the USA only.

Many years ago I posted much information about FATCA, FBAR and double taxation issues. These matters are still being pushed and still plague Americans living overseas and you are encouraged to contact your congressional representatives in the US to push them for a repeal of FATCA and put an end to citizenship based taxation or double taxation.

Recently the Tax Payer Advocate and other members of our group have started a new Americans overseas advocate website to solely deal with expat issues.

You are highly encouraged to do a survey for the group.

Please note that the Tax Payer Advocate (TAP) is NOT in any way connected to the IRS! You do not need to feel fear of doing the survey and stated your honest straight forward and blunt feelings, recommendations and description of how these laws negatively affect your life abroad. I am in direct contact with TAP panel members.

Please visit SEAT to learn more about what is being done and what is being supported.

For the survey, please visit https://nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bBCzDKX8lI2t3Rb Taiwan was initially left off the list, but I got them to add it, so please go and do the survey.

Please note your participation in the survey is highly appreciated and needed! And the deadline is end of November so please do it ASAP.

If you have any questions please feel free to PM/DM me.

#FATCA fbar #doubletaxation #CBTax #GILTI #transitiontax #taxjustice irs

Cross reference to FATCA post: ATTN: All American Citizens! Taxes! Citizen vs. Residency based taxation, FBAR, FATCA, please read! - #133 by captainjohng

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Please note I no longer support any overseas American group other than SEAT now as the rest of them are in bed with the compliance industry and do not care about American overseas issues one big. Especially ACA which I sited in the post above in 2013.

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Related thread is here

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Yes, I just saw that. A prominent TAP member who I have been in contact with asked me to do what I can here as I have been fighting against the nonsense for over seven years and have posted lots of other things on this topic over the years.

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As the US seems to want to become increasingly isolationist, stupid laws like this will keep getting passed. It’s basically to punish Americans for living overseas.

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FATCA, FBAR and Citizenship based taxation have nothing to do with isoloationism.

FATCA was under Obama.
FBAR has been off and on the books since the 70’s however under Obama it came back into the spotlight.
Citizenship based taxation has been forever.
Transition tax was under Trump, but it was challenged in court and I think we won or close to it.
Patriot Act was after 911 under Bush.

Warren and the Democrats want a wealth tax, those of us who are fighting against FATCA know that if Warren gets what she wants Americans overseas will be once again be targeted.
Biden is a corporate democrat, which is not good for us either. However, no president so far has done jack squat for us. Promises made, but nothing ever happens. The RNC wants to do something, we have Meadows ear, but that’s about it. Everyone else is kind of ignoring us because we do not have representation. Paul was helping fight FATCA for awhile, but no one cares about him. It was suggested by one that we get a lobbyist. Where is the money going to come from?!

Where are the lawsuits in Taiwan against the government and FSC for violating our privacy? I’d gladly be the leader to sue them, but where is the money for the lawyers going to come from? There is a lawsuit in the UK and it is making some headway, but the total costs now are over 100,000GBP. And their claim is that FATCA violates GDPR, which it does! But there is no such law in all of Asia that I am aware of.

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The problem is Taiwan wants to be cozy with America they are unlikely to object to anything America does.

And ones rich enough to afford lobbyists are often not affected by regulations because they know (or can hire someone who knows) every loophole in the law.

Taiwan punished “rich” expats by cutting pension and stuff. My dad is very unhappy with what they did.

Taiwan, like many countries are so utterly dependent on America they do not want to risk pissing them off by objecting to various laws.

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What about this?
https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=I0050021

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Unfortunately and fortunately, lol, you are right. But one cannot have their cake and eat it too I suppose. The problem here lies that the US has not totalization agreement with most countries, including Taiwan.

There are very rich people who could afford a lobbyist yes, but they hide their money well already with the help of wealth advisors that they can afford. They are always one or 10 steps ahead of the government, so you and I will always be the target. And dual passport holders in Taiwan are treated unfairly, blamed to be rich and people think they are privileged, some are, some are not, but they are not treated well. So of course they wish to stay hidden from all of us and probably would not help fight FATCA or make noise. And most Taiwanese would certainly think FATCA is fair for the same reasons I stated above.

Taiwan punishing rich expats shouldn’t happen. They contribute just as much and they pay taxes also. Sometimes two taxes. They should get two benefits. The WEP law in the US is also insane. If you are required to pay two taxes, you should enjoy two benefits. Period!

I do not think Taiwan would necessarily risk making the US angry over FATCA, but who knows.

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Thank you for this. I am not a lawyer and you know, Chinese would prevail in any legal suit. So the English version would only be for a basic reference. Banking law and national law seems to have some issue also as the FSC feels they can do whatever they want. I’ve heard lots of stories from banking people on how the FSC has asked them to do something illegal for their own benefit, and the banks don’t refuse because they don’t want to get on the FSC’s bad list and get audited.

Again though, who is going to fund the lawsuit? And a bigger question is though IS FATCA in Taiwan violating any privacy laws or not? I cannot answer that, I can only assume that it is, but…

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Now probably most Americans in Taiwan are filing all necessary FATCA related forms. I think in the end Americans in Taiwan are going to be a sidenote during the catching of all the Taiwanese with dual Taiwan/American citizenship. There are so many and the amount of taxes they have “avoided” over the years through not legally filing taxes is substantial…way, way beyond what the few Americans here pay. The U.S. is widening the net and some big fish are eventually going to be caught.

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I have yet to file one FATCA form. My accountant has not mentioned anything about it. Taiwan banks are sending data to the US. But they are mixing it all together if you never signed the forms. Inside information has told me that basically if you reside abroad the IRS and Treasury aren’t really looking at your accounts, but who knows. As for dual nationals, yep, but many never opened an account with their US passports, nor tell the truth when they open new accounts, if names are different the banks wouldn’t know any different anyway, but yeah, eventually the system may track down these people, who knows. The USG has so much data right now they don’t know what to do with it. They are spending billions a year to get millions, this is just how ineffective and inefficient this whole thing is. I seriously doubt they are ever going to catch the people they want. So the rest of us suffer. But all of this can be avoided simply if the USG would change to a residency based tax system.

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Trying to make the USG more efficient? That will never happen.

If anything they’ll become less efficient as a bunch of often conflicting laws get passed without a thought on how it would be implemented.

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Of course, and under a Biden administration things are going to get 10 fold worse for us in a very short time.

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I have met with two bank managers who wanted to explain why they were bothering me about FATCA. Both told me that the banks were under pressure to be ready to move beyond sending data about Americans living in Taiwan. One manager showed me a powerpoint page from a IRS training which says the next step is use big data to track down the dual citizens. So yes, the dual citizens can lie low by using various actions like family members names on accounts. But there is alot of data out there which existed before everyone tried to start avoiding FATCA.

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Ahhh but you are forgetting that the banks need to pay for that software where they have already spent millions for other FATCA software. Some banks will some banks won’t. And even if they do find them, send the data to the Treasury and then what? It sits in a warehouse for decades. The US now has so much data they don’t know what to with it.

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For anyone interested, here is the UK lawsuit. If you have spare change please support it.

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So my question is, why are banks complying with American laws? I can see if the bank is owned by American companies, but why should a UK bank follow US laws that is in violation to UK laws? Are they doing this voluntarily or is there coercion involved?

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If banks don’t comply, the US can issue a 30% fine on the bank’s US assets / transactions or something like that. It’s typical bullying of smaller countries because the US is in a position of power. Meanwhile the US is the biggest tax haven and refuses to share financial info with other countries, and helps foreign citizens tax evade in the US banking system.

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Not to mention unconstitutional as hell too…

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Banks are sending foreign + domestic account info to the USG. As they cannot separate the data, it is a huge privacy violation, in fact, because the banks do not tell the customer what is in the report it is a data breach and highly illegal, yet they are getting away with it. And yes, the US became the biggest tax haven in the world when they refused to sign CRS.