Are you aware of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)?  If you aren’t and you are an American with assets outside of the country or have future plans to do so you should be very aware of it!

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FATCA is a typical omnibus bill which was originally hidden well inside the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act in 2010 but has not been fully implemented yet due to its complicated, far reaching consequences.  It is, however, now set to pass into legislation in the US on July 1, 2014.  To the average person it is incomprehensible with all sorts of forms like the FBAR, 1042 and W-8BEN.  Even to an advanced tax lawyer it is fraught with landmines.  But, in layman’s terms, the effect of FATCA is twofold:

  1. It has and will make it very difficult for American’s to have bank accounts outside of the US because foreign banks are not willing to go through the egregious filing requirements and potential penalties demanded on them by the US government if they do accept a US client.
  2. Any non-reporting of foreign bank accounts or assets under the act will bring harsh penalties… and most people don’t even know about the act or cannot figure out how they should comply.

In essence, the US government wants to know where all your assets are and tax you on them.  But it is much worse than that.  As pointed out above most financial institutions are now turning away US clients.  At least a few times per week we get an email from a US citizen who lives or does business abroad who has had their bank accounts closed.  FATCA, in that regard, is a nefarious form of capital controls.  

It is nefarious because the US government doesn’t say that you can’t take your money out of the US… but they have made it so onerous on banks worldwide that they won’t accept Americans as clients.

FATCA has been one of the main reasons for the record amount of Americans living abroad renouncing their citizenship… but for those who still don’t have their assets properly structured and internationalized time may be running out to do so as the US government has made it clear through the initially floated, Anti-Expatriation Act and FATCA that they are closing the doors rapidly to those who wish to move assets outside the country.

Another prior attendee has also booked for the Mexico conference but for different reasons.  He was so happy with how our team of experts had helped him and the information and advice he was given at the conference that he wants to return for two reasons.  One is that he would like to actually speak at the conference and let newcomers know about how happy he was with his experience and to be there to help others navigate their way to securing their own assets… and secondly, he enjoyed meeting and learning from all the other attendees and enjoying the cocktail parties and nightly five star dinners that he wants to attend again just to be around that sort of atmosphere again.

The conference is kept very small for a few reasons.  One is so that all of the internationalization experts have plenty of one-on-one time to go over the needs and wants of every attendee.  Each day has a portion of the conference exclusively for one-on-one meetings.  And, as stated above, so each of the attendees get plenty of time to get to know each other.  I can attest, many new friendships and contacts were made at the last conference.

THE TEAM

Our last conference was also our first conference we have held and many surprises came out of it.  Not least of which was how excited all the experts were about the synergies amongst one another all being in the same place.  Many of our trust, structure, banking, tax and passport experts all work from different locations and it is rare when we are all in the same place at the same time.

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But, we’ve been having regular conference calls since the last event and it is nearly overwhelming keeping up with all the changes going on.  Internationalization/Expatriation expert, Jim Karger, just exclaimed in a phone call we had a few hours ago after hearing an update from our trust experts, “Wow, I didn’t realize that the trust structures we offer can protect from an exit tax if someone did want to renounce their citizenship… that’s huge!”

Things are changing so fast and so many things are going on that Jim didn’t even realize some of the benefits of the structures until today when it was explained further to him.

Nearly every week some new event happens and Jim usually sends it to me including things like  Canada having now signed onto FATCA. Or that OECD countries just signed an agreement on  a new single global standard for the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities worldwide .

Jim remarked, “There is so much going on that is new that we need to hold our next conference ASAP to make people aware of all the changes.”

And it’s true.  Even in the two months between conferences there have been so many new tax, legal and political changes that there will be a lot of new stuff to talk about… and how to protect your assets from it.

The scary thing is that hardly any other group or entity on Earth is tracking all these things and making their clients aware.

I stated recently, “I think if people knew what was really going on we’d have thousands of people wanting to attend these conferences.  Unfortunately, by the time most people realize the truth it will probably be too late.”

IT’S NOT PARANOID IF THEY ARE REALLY OUT TO GET YOU

I get called a “fearmonger” from time-to-time by people who either don’t know what is going on or don’t believe it.  I tell them if they knew what I knew that they’d be ringing the alarm bells too!

In fact, at times I feel like I am not saying strongly enough how urgent and dire the situation is… because it truly is.

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Here are just a few risks that are plain to see and well-documented:

Capital Controls.  FATCA is a form of capital controls as are the cash sniffing dogs and customs officials on gangways at many international outgoing flights from US airports.

Taxation To Rise.  As the US government and most western governments continue into further debt they will be looking to take away more and more of their tax citizen’s assets.
Pension and IRA Confiscation.  Barack Obama through the first volley starting up a nationalized IRA called the MyRA which will be forced into confiscatory Treasury Bills.  And Congress has met in the past to talk about nationalizing all IRAs.

Loss of Property Rights.  More and more the US government is fining massive sums or jailing people just for living off the grid or having a pond on their property.

Dollar Collapse.  This, of course, is our main focus, covering the ongoing dollar collapse.  Russia just last week said they would destroy the dollar… and even if Russia doesn’t the Federal Reserve and the insolvent US government will.

Bank Account Seizures.  What happened in Cyprus will continue to happen throughout the western world as governments and banks continue to collapse under the weight of debt.  The Ukraine is just the latest country to consider this and Europe and Canada have already put in “bank bail-ins” into law.

Frivolous Lawsuits.  Epidemic in the US are frivolous lawsuits.  A new lawsuit is launched, on average, every two seconds in the US (15 million in 2011).  And often for the most ridiculous of reasons including recently an 18 year-old girl suing her parents for not paying for her college education.

Illegalizing Expatriation.  The US has already floated passing an anti-expatriation bill which will make it incredibly onerous just to expatriate from the US.  As well, the US has been pressuring other countries to make it harder for foreigners to get citizenship.

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And those are just off the top of my head.

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