Posts Tagged ‘Offshore investment’
Look to Europe for America’s Future
Austerity measures in France, Greece, and Spain demanded by these countries’ creditors have spurred unemployment, cuts in pension costs, and above all, politically motivated attacks on wealth. In France, socialist candidate Francois Hollande won a clear victory in the country’s May 6 presidential contest. Central to Hollande’s platform: an “end to austerity” and a whopping [...]
Attention: U.S. Expats in or Near Vienna, Austria
James C. Sexton, Jr., LL.M., one of my business partners, will be in Vienna Tuesday, June 5, 2012, to deliver a free presentation in English focusing on the U.S. tax and disclosure obligations for U.S. citizens or long-term residents living overseas. It’s entitled “Tax Obligations of U.S. Citizens Living Abroad“ and will focus on assisting U.S. [...]
FATCA: Big Brother Goes Global
Sometimes people ask what I fear most. My answer isn’t really what they expect. It’s not riots in central cities, a collapse of food supplies or other essential infrastructure, a terrorist attack, or even the growing U.S. police state. All of these threats are real, but all of them can be dealt with successfully through [...]
Will Mitt Romney Tone Down the U.S. “War on Offshore?”
I don’t spend much time following the U.S. presidential campaign. My assumption is that every candidate will promptly forget everything he promised as soon as he is inaugurated. This is particularly true if the promise is to limit governmental powers or authority. For instance, candidate Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay prison, end warrantless wiretapping, [...]
IRS: Offshore Banks Will Need to Disclose Precious Metals Held by U.S. Clients
Earlier this week, I participated in to a teleconference sponsored by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and the International Law section of the American Bar Association. The conference addressed the expanded offshore asset disclosure requirements brought into effect by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). (For background on FATCA see here, here, [...]
IRS Admits Offshore Enforcement Efforts Leading to Soaring Expatriation Rates
Occasionally, the U.S. Congress discovers to its great surprise that the agency it created to collect revenues for the federal government, the Internal Revenue Service, engages in systematic abuse of taxpayers. In one such moment in 1979, Congress created the Office of the Taxpayer Ombudsman as a taxpayer advocate within the IRS. This office eventually [...]