I think the Taiwan government will initially agree to do whatever the U.S. IRS and Treasury dept wants. Then as time goes along there will be delays and more discussion. I think FATCA is inevitable and Taiwan will treat it like that but not be in a hurry (like other countries) to torture their banks to comply. Most countries will be watching their banking industry’s ability to comply and setting up schedule when overall situation becomes more clear. Meanwhile, we must keep watching related news about all of the IRS plans to fine U.S. citizen abroad into poverty.
From the information I have gathered Taiwan will sign the FATCA legislation in July. However, with the recent protests, it could be delayed a few weeks, a month at most…
Of course Taiwan will do whatever the US wants. Taiwan will be getting something in return. Banks are already working on getting in compliance, but I highly doubt everything will be ready. But the first data transmission will be in January 2015. There are currently several lawsuits pending for a court data against the IRS from Ameicans abroad. Those lawsuits will start going to court in 2015-2017 I think. That is a still a few years away all the while the IRS screws more people. Like you said, there will be more and more cases. With the FBAR penalties especially abusive I am sure there will be lots and lots of news on it. But of course the main stream media will say wow, look at all those people with overseas bank accounts finally getting what they deserve! :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume: :fume:
Americans abroad best hope is contact your congressmen at this point and ask them to support a repeal FATCA and support a residency based taxation system. This is what will reduce costs to the US government and reduce stress and burden of Ameicans abroad. Keep writing these letters, do so every month or every two months if necessary, and do not assume other people are doing it, actually write the letters!
I will be interested to see how much fall out there will be from this after it goes into effect and the people start wondering what’s going on.
Just a quite note, to make it EASY for everyone to send letters to their respective representatives in congress ACA has prepared a form letter.
Go here: americansabroad.org/issues/f … out-fatca/
Make sure you read it as it does ask your voting district information that you have to manual type in yourself.
Well here are two reasons why Taiwan has probably agreed to sign the FATCA legislation…
TAIWAN WILL LOSE BIG ON FATCA IF NO CONSENSUS REACH (WantChina Times/ April 11)
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140411000004&cid=1201
[quote=“Flakman”]TAIWAN WILL LOSE BIG ON FATCA IF NO CONSENSUS REACH (WantChina Times/ April 11)
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140411000004&cid=1201[/quote]
Yeah I saw that last week. Taiwan is going to lose big if they sign it also. There was an article in the China Post last week as well.
Why isn’t the media commenting on why this is extortion by the US government rather than how much Taiwan will lose if they don’t sign it. It just boggles the mind… :fume: :loco: :loco:
I think most media except those in finance/law industry can’t get a grip on what is really happening with all of this FATCA stuff. Would be interesting for the Taiwan media to pick up on this as so many Taiwanese are dual citizens.
I think you are right. I have been saying it for awhile, it is the more horrible tax law ever that no know has ever heard of. So the media has no idea, and whatever information they do have, is not very accurate.
I have seen some articles in Chinese in some of the papers, but it’s all negative - Fat Cat mentality… Which is not what FATCA is all about anymore…
New articles concerning the most disgusting tax law ever…
A very great video on how to kill a financial system: This Is Exactly How You Destroy A Banking System: zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-0 … ing-system FATCA talk starts around 12 minutes in if I remember.
Just in case you did not see…IRS and Treasury Dept must be extremely happy they can fine 87 year old man 150% of his account balance. $2.4 million in fines on an account balance of $1.6 million. Well, at least they did not get their original fine request of $3.4 million.
Jeff,
Foreign real estate does not need to be reported:
irs.gov/Businesses/Corporati … -Form-8938
Q3. Does foreign real estate need to be reported on Form 8938?
Foreign real estate is not a specified foreign financial asset required to be reported on Form 8938. For example, a personal residence or a rental property does not have to be reported.
If the real estate is held through a foreign entity, such as a corporation, partnership, trust or estate, then the interest in the entity is a specified foreign financial asset that is reported on Form 8938, if the total value of all your specified foreign financial assets is greater than the reporting threshold that applies to you. The value of the real estate held by the entity is taken into account in determining the value of the interest in the entity to be reported on Form 8938, but the real estate itself is not separately reported on Form 8938.
For people to purchase real estate, one would have to transfer the funds into a bank then that account is to be reported. Once the funds used, the report can then stop. Is this how that works?
[quote=“fh2000”]Jeff,
Foreign real estate does not need to be reported:
irs.gov/Businesses/Corporati … -Form-8938
Q3. Does foreign real estate need to be reported on Form 8938?
Foreign real estate is not a specified foreign financial asset required to be reported on Form 8938. For example, a personal residence or a rental property does not have to be reported.
If the real estate is held through a foreign entity, such as a corporation, partnership, trust or estate, then the interest in the entity is a specified foreign financial asset that is reported on Form 8938, if the total value of all your specified foreign financial assets is greater than the reporting threshold that applies to you. The value of the real estate held by the entity is taken into account in determining the value of the interest in the entity to be reported on Form 8938, but the real estate itself is not separately reported on Form 8938.
For people to purchase real estate, one would have to transfer the funds into a bank then that account is to be reported. Once the funds used, the report can then stop. Is this how that works?[/quote]
Not yet perhaps! And I am not 100% up on the real estate part, so I cannot comment too much, however, the problem lies when you go to sell the property as I think I mentioned before in another thread.
[quote=“Flakman”]Just in case you did not see…IRS and Treasury Dept must be extremely happy they can fine 87 year old man 150% of his account balance. $2.4 million in fines on an account balance of $1.6 million. Well, at least they did not get their original fine request of $3.4 million.
Yep, I saw it. Juries are not always the brightest. They don’t understand the issue. They think, rich guy, didn’t pay taxes, GUILTY! And that’s the end of it. Nevermind his age, the fact that he lived overseas, the fact the IRS is targeting expats, the fact that for not filing one little piece of paper that he probably may not have known about, that they should fine him about 80% or more of his total wealth! The problem with this case as it may set a presidents, which is scary. As I recall there are many cases already, but I am not sure if this is the most significant of them or not.
I guess my suggestion would be, don’t get rich, and if you do, renounce!
This verdict just re-emphasises the need to get rid of FATCA, get rid of the IRS and in the meantime push your congressmen on passing a law to allow Americans overseas RBT! Call your senators and representatives and talk to them about the problems. Writing letters is useless!
I am not sure if I wrote about it or not, but I contacted one of my senator’s offices about 3 weeks ago, the guy who answered the phone was dumbfounded by all this, they did not know anything about FATCA, and although the senator might, the staff had no idea how serious this problem is. They passed it on up, it’s in Washington now and they are trying to get it in front of the senator. I will be supplementing as much information as I can to them via articles and what not.
If all of us band together on this we may have a fighting chance not to get spied on, but if this thread is any indication of how many people care or know about this law, it’s going to be a long road!
Not sure if this has been posted. As of April 2014, there are 48 countries signed already:
Yeah 48 countries with no balls. And by the end of June I am sure the IRS is going to be announcing another 30+ and Taiwan’s name sadly will most likely be on the list…
I really have no idea but my feeling is that many U.S. citizens here simply do not file taxes and have dropped off the grid. Perhaps many are married and just keep a small amount of funds in their bank account with other money is wife’s name at bank. For them they will just keep doing what they are doing. They might get a notice from IRS that they are being fined for not filing paperwork but for last 10 years they haven’t heard from IRS so don’t fear they are noticeable now. Well, if IRS contacts them they will close their accounts and really be off the grid.
My long term concern is that IRS will ask Taiwan government to revoke visas/ARCs for those U.S. citizens who do not pay IRS fines. At same time, U.S. government will put your name on a list (persons with police record) circulated to Taiwan government which is enough to give Taiwan government reason to not approve your next visa/ARC application. I really think the U.S. government will try everything to get those fines paid. However, if this happens and U.S. citizens are forced to return to U.S. then the fun begins. If the U.S. citizen was unwilling or unable to pay the fine while abroad I doubt if can/will upon return to U.S. Will we see more Americans in jail due to not paying huge fines for not filing pieces of paper?
You mean huge fines for tax evasion right? It must be hard for some Taiwanese to get their heads around the fact that a government will really chase them for taxes.
My Taiwanese friends are amazed at how high fines can be for just not reporting your overseas accounts. The usual response is that “the U.S. must really be broke to do such things.”
[quote=“Flakman”]I really have no idea but my feeling is that many U.S. citizens here simply do not file taxes and have dropped off the grid. Perhaps many are married and just keep a small amount of funds in their bank account with other money is wife’s name at bank. For them they will just keep doing what they are doing. They might get a notice from IRS that they are being fined for not filing paperwork but for last 10 years they haven’t heard from IRS so don’t fear they are noticeable now. Well, if IRS contacts them they will close their accounts and really be off the grid.
My long term concern is that IRS will ask Taiwan government to revoke visas/ARCs for those U.S. citizens who do not pay IRS fines. At same time, U.S. government will put your name on a list (persons with police record) circulated to Taiwan government which is enough to give Taiwan government reason to not approve your next visa/ARC application. I really think the U.S. government will try everything to get those fines paid. However, if this happens and U.S. citizens are forced to return to U.S. then the fun begins. If the U.S. citizen was unwilling or unable to pay the fine while abroad I doubt if can/will upon return to U.S. Will we see more Americans in jail due to not paying huge fines for not filing pieces of paper?[/quote]
Let’s not give them any new ideas eh! 
The reality is at this point is that if banks in Taiwan start denying banking services to US persons, then US persons can’t logically pay their taxes. Basically US persons need to comply with the law or renounce. Until something changes for the positive for us, this is what we have to do or should have been doing. Unfortunately many people were caught up in the mess, and didn’t know the laws, and still don’t know the laws, and like you said, many have no interest in complying with the law, they keep minimum money in the bank so they don’t have to file FBAR, so they don’t have to worry about this part of the law. If they keep money in their spouses name, the Taiwan tax authorities may start asking questions about where that money came from, hopefully it will never come to this, but with so many countries copying the US ways right now, something might change.
Off the grid is probably the best thing.
I am not sure he means evasion or just simply not knowing the law, there is a huge difference here that needs to be understood. Knowing and Willfully not paying your taxes, and unknowingly or making a mistake. The IRS can determine that, which is unfair actually, as many people did not know they were supposed to be filing tax returns, and the fine for not filing an FBAR is ridiculous! Not filing one paper can cost you between 10,000 or 100,000 or half the balance in the account at the time of non-compliance. It’s insane!
[quote]Postby Flakman » 01 Jun 2014 21:27
My Taiwanese friends are amazed at how high fines can be for just not reporting your overseas accounts. The usual response is that “the U.S. must really be broke to do such things.”[/quote]
They should be. The US is not that broke, but they are trying to break the country that’s for sure. See this lovely report if you have not already. "This is exactly how you destroy a banking system! zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-0 … ing-system