(OTTAWA) – Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada (Saanich-Gulf Islands), issued a letter to Stephen Harper, urging him to extend the IRS deadline for Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). “The private banking information of hundreds of thousands of Canadian citizens and permanent residents is set to… – Continue reading
A federal court judge dismissed an attempt to put an early stop to a controversial program in which the Canadian government agreed to share financial information of an estimated one million “U.S. persons” living in Canada with the Internal Revenue Service. Particularly troubling to some opponents is that the agreement… – Continue reading
Administrators of tax-qualified retirement plans (or their delegated payor) are responsible for both withholding on distributions and for reporting the tax withheld. If taxes are under-withheld, the administrator/delegated payor may be subject to penalties. Although the rules governing withholding on distributions to US citizens and resident aliens are clear and… – Continue reading
On July 9, 2015, India and the US signed an agreement to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) that will facilitate exchange of information between the two countries starting on October 1, 2015. FATCA was signed by Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das and US Ambassador Richard Verma in New… – Continue reading
An increasing number of Americans renounced their citizenship and cut-off long term residencies during the initial three months of 2015 due to a crackdown in the foreign tax rules. The exit wave went down a little in the second half, but has continued. The Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department… – Continue reading
Seven leading Democrat lawmakers wrote a letter on September 12 to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urging him to publish an annual list of companies that have undertaken corporate tax inversions, and to use the Administration’s executive authority further to discourage the use of inversion techniques. Tax inversion techniques are… – Continue reading
It may be a common misunderstanding that a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (Green Card holder) can give up their citizenship or surrender their Green Card and then as a non-U.S. taxpayer make gifts or pass their estate to U.S. taxpayers free of estate and gift tax. The IRS recognized… – Continue reading
A wave of wealthy Asians is hurriedly moving assets to the United States – to school their children, invest in property or even avoid political uncertainty in China. But few of those immigrants know just how much of their money will eventually end up in the hands of the feds…. – Continue reading
The EB-5 Visa program has been widely promoted as a legal basis for foreign business owners to gain conditional residency followed by permanent residency in the United States. The program is a great solution to the proposition “I want to live in America.” The decision to become a permanent resident… – Continue reading
The US State Department has issued an interim final rule that would extend the increase in its processing fees payable for renouncing US citizenship to those who relinquish their US nationality through other methods. While the majority of individuals giving up their US citizenship do so by “making a formal… – Continue reading
Stanley Amland threw it off. So did Ingrid Bracke. Rhoda May Derksen ditched hers, too. The names, picked at random for this article from the Federal Register, are among the 3,415 Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship or relinquished their residency permits last year. As a national debate rages about… – Continue reading
More than 900 people with six-figure incomes were obliged to contribute more. Hundreds of high earners who tried to use tax breaks and shelters to maximise their income ended up paying over €60 million tax under measures introduced in recent years. The high-income individual’s restriction was introduced following controversy that… – Continue reading
United Kingdom | August 31 2015 Last month, the UK government announced sweeping changes to the taxation of “resident non doms,” a classification of individuals who receive favorable tax treatment from the UK government. The UK tax obligations of an individual depend in large part on the individual’s “domicile” under… – Continue reading
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires, in essence, that U.S. citizens who reside outside the U.S. disclose to the IRS all of their foreign banking assets including retirement plans, savings accounts, etc. It also requires foreign banks to assist the IRS in applying the disclosure rules or else… – Continue reading
Security fears; Global authorities to begin sharing sensitive data If you have a bank account somewhere overseas, that information will make its way back to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in a couple of years. In 2018, international tax authorities will begin automatically sharing financial information under the terms of… – Continue reading
New investment structures are making it easier for people from outside of the European Union seeking to live in Portugal through the country’s golden visa programme, reports the Expats Forum. The initial minimum investment of €500,000 has been reduced to €350,000 for investment in properties located in districts designated for… – Continue reading
Despite some recent evidence that the natural forces of supply and demand are seeing some application of the brakes on the accelerating housing market, there is still concern about its speed. As we all hurtle along the highway to housing hell (or heaven, depending on your circumstances), the Government’s proposed… – Continue reading
Dubai – Cyprus’ recently revised taxation framework make sit the only citizenship-by-investment program in Europe to offer non-domiciled investors tax free profits. Will this new tax regime and business incentives attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country? Henley & Partners, the global leaders in residence and citizenship planning… – Continue reading
LUXEMBOURG On September 5, 2014, the Ministers of Finance of France and Luxembourg signed an amendment (Lux Amendment) to the double tax treaty entered into between France and Luxembourg on April 1, 1958, as amended by the 1970 exchange of letters and by the 1970, 2006, and 2009 protocols (FR/Lux… – Continue reading
American residents or nationals, citizens and green card holders – persons of interest – living in Jamaica are required to file US tax returns and must, by voluntary disclosure, fill out a form to disclose ‘foreign assets’. The filing of a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report (FBAR) is an… – Continue reading
The U.S. and China enjoy increasingly strong connections. Yet virtually no Chinese family or business relishes dealing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). American tax laws are famously complex, and dealing with the IRS can be like quicksand. Of course, whether they like it or not, U.S. citizens and green… – Continue reading
On 16 June 2015 the Department of International Tax Cooperation (the “DITC“) of the Cayman Islands government announced that it was moving forward with the implementation of the OECD Common Reporting Standard (“CRS“), via the introduction of Cayman Islands domestic law, by October 2015. The CRS represents a significant step… – Continue reading
Yet another American company has announced its intention to carry out a corporate inversion, a fancy term for buying a smaller company, completing some paper work and, for tax purposes, declaring its new headquarters are in a foreign nation. This time it’s Terex, a Connecticut-based heavy equipment and crane manufacturer,… – Continue reading
With the UK announcing new tax rules for foreigners living in the country, the government has been careful not to damage the country’s appeal to wealthy foreigners. The “non-dom” tax status “plays an important role in allowing those from abroad to contribute to our economy”, says George Osborne, the UK’s… – Continue reading
Surprising as it may seem, most of the advantages of the Cypriot Tax Regime were, up until recently, mostly directed to non- Cypriot Tax residents. This effectively meant that in order to enjoy the full benefits of the Regime one had to be a non-resident. The idea behind this was… – Continue reading
A “glimmer of hope” has emerged in the US for reform of the controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), which has caused extensive financial headaches for millions of American foreign assignees and even prompted 7,000-plus expats to renounce their US citizenships. The post-crisis act, originally intended to expose details… – Continue reading
Two Canadian women begin their Federal Court case in Vancouver on Tuesday, seeking to have a judge declare that Canada’s cooperation in supplying financial information to U.S. tax collectors is unconstitutional. Gwen Deegan, 53, a Toronto graphic designer, and Ginny Hillis, 68, a retired lawyer living in Windsor, were both… – Continue reading
India and the US recently signed a tax information sharing agreement that will facilitate exchange of information between the two countries, beginning October. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) was enacted by the US government in 2010, as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. Fatca requires… – Continue reading
Second-quarter data on US citizenship renunciations is out, with a surprising trend—the lowest quarterly number of people giving up their American citizenship since late 2012, according to a recent release by the Treasury Department, reports the Wall Street Journal. Since the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) was enacted in… – Continue reading
The UK Government has published draft legislation on devolving certain tax matters to Scotland (the Bill). It intends that the draft legislation should implement the terms of the devolution agreement made in November 2014 between the Westminster and Holyrood governments. Having looked over the Bill, it appears that the Scottish… – Continue reading
Thousands of expats living in Australia, many of them British with temporary retirement visas, want to become permanent residents but are told they are unable to do so despite funding their own lifestyle. Some have lived in Australia for over 20 years but the visa they hold was withdrawn to… – Continue reading
The abiding complaint of those who believe offshore buyers are driving the rise in real estate prices in Metro Vancouver is the lack of data to prove it. How can you identify a problem if you can’t quantify it? The corollary to that complaint is the provincial government’s apparent inability,… – Continue reading
The Indo-US deal on the Act will help both fight coountries tax evasion. Here’s a primer on how you could be affected The United States and India struck a bilateral deal on Thursday that would enable them to track the assets of nationals from both countries. As per the terms… – Continue reading
Around 700 people have applied for Malta’s ‘cash-for-passports’ scheme, described as on the most popular schemes run by Henley & Partners, their vice-chairman Andrew Taylor said during a radio interview on a South African radio station, reports the Maltese Independent. Extolling the virtues of the scheme, Mr Taylor said that… – Continue reading
When it comes to the topic of offshore corporations, some people immediately think of illegal tax shelters, but that is not the case. Currently, the IRS is working tirelessly to track down U.S. citizens and residents with unreported offshore income or assets and the new FATCA regulations make it virtually… – Continue reading
Last year at this time, more than a dozen U.S.-based corporations were threatening to move their legal residence to foreign tax havens in a paper transaction known as an inversion. Facing a wave of public opposition, some corporations abandoned these inversion attempts—notably, drugstore chain Walgreens put its plans on ice,… – Continue reading
Irish citizens holding bank accounts in Switzerland will no longer be able to avail of the traditional secrecy pertaining to Swiss bank accounts, MEP Marian Harkin has said. The European Commission and Switzerland this week signed an agreement that is intended to clamp down on tax evasion. Both sides will… – Continue reading
At least 800 British-born United Kingdom residents enjoy “non-domiciled” status, a tax break intended for temporary residents, according to data released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Reuters. Lawmakers said the information highlighted the need to change the tax rules to ban so-called “hereditary non-doms”, where… – Continue reading
Thousands of Indian citizens in the US – from IT workers, health professionals, students and everyone else under the sun – will soon be innocent victims to snooping by the Indian government. If an Indian citizen holds a bank account in the US, minute details about his/her bank account will… – Continue reading
Expat Americans have revealed they don’t feel well-represented by the US government, but many do not bother to vote in elections even if they can do so, research has found. There are an estimated 7.6 million Americans living abroad but a poll has found that only 58% of them voted… – Continue reading
As wealthy foreigners rush to get citizenship in Malta under a new programme, the residency requirement is taking many forms. Russians rent high-end villas, then stay in five-star hotels when they visit. An American financier plans to live in Switzerland but occasionally vacation in Malta. One Vietnamese businessman, eager to… – Continue reading
As another season of summer travel starts, Canadian residents with US ties should make sure they are thinking carefully about their tax obligations. Tax compliance may not be first in the minds of most people planning trips to the US, but Congress and the Obama administration certainly are thinking about… – Continue reading
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – a law passed in 2010 to tackle the abuse of using offshore financial accounts for the purpose of evading US taxes – is now in effect after a two-year delay. As it requires foreign financial institutions worldwide to identify and report to… – Continue reading
By stopping bogus claims of residency, his idea would force foreigners to pay capital gains tax when they sell a home in Canada OTTAWA — Inspired by the legendary FBI ploy to nab a notorious gangster, a B.C. immigration lawyer suggests the Canadian tax system be used to discourage the… – Continue reading
“Uruguay has now definitely earned its long-time nickname — the Switzerland of Latin America.” That’s what I wrote several months ago during my first visit to this small, south Atlantic costal country wedged between Brazil and Argentina. For the last week, I have been enjoying my second visit to Uruguay,… – Continue reading
A record 1,336 US taxpayers gave up their passports or their green cards in the first quarter of 2015, according to Treasury Department statistics published in the Federal Register. The Treasury is required by statute to publish a quarterly list including the name of each individual who has lost or… – Continue reading
KPMG in Saudi Arabia is hosting a seminar on taxation of US individuals and the impact of Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) at the Marriott Hotel in Riyadh on May 26. Under US tax law, US citizens and US permanent residents (green card holders) are required to file US… – Continue reading
On May 7th, 2015, the US Treasury Department published its first quarter 2015 list of individuals who have chosen to expatriate and it was yet again an eye opening number. The 1,335 published names is the highest quarterly figure ever reported in the Federal Register. The number of individuals voluntarily… – Continue reading
A mixed bag of topics for this week’s edition of Lifelines: ‘Gaijin card’ deadline looms First up are the new residence cards, which have replaced the old alien registration cards (aka gaijin cards) for foreign residents. If you are still using your old card, be aware that the deadline for… – Continue reading
HONG KONG (CNNMoney) -Hasta la vista, Uncle Sam! A record 1,337 Americans gave up their passports in the first three months of the year, according to new data released by the U.S. government. That’s nearly 40% of the 3,415 Americans that renounced citizenship last year, suggesting that U.S. renunciations will… – Continue reading
