Yesterday's German "Welt am Sonntag" has an article on Americans giving up their citizenship due to the complexity of US taxation. It concludes:

"It is like a jealous husband who falsely accuses his wife for years of infidelity until she finally files for divorce. In the end America gets its money and maintains its law but it loses something which money cannot buy."

German:
http://www.welt.de/print/wams/politi...der-Fahne.html

Translated to English:
http://translate.google.com/translat...der-Fahne.html

Like most articles on the topic, the latest by Welt am Sonntag it is far from perfect and has many mistakes. I listed a few in the comments section.

With 17 trillion debt, the US government will seek to collect your retirement savings in 30 years. The general mentality in the US seems to still be focused on spending on things like a big military and such. So, I can't see the situation improving anytime soon. Did you read about America's little Greece, Puerto Rico? It's massive debt is, well, typical American.

Interesting article on who is and isn't actually that bad at being a tax haven.

http://www.acfcs.org/as-fatca-nears-...eping-its-own/

Some more action on getting FATCA booted off the law books:

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/12/...comment-765030

Let's hope it produces some results.

Is this the official Republican platform or that of the Republicans abroad?

Republicans Overseas it says.

Notification received today from UBS that "accountholders that are deemed to be US persons are no longer permitted to hold investments in securities. Affected customers must sell their UBS Vitainvest fund investments by June 30, 2014."

Section 7 in their updated regulations.

Oops, guess nobody warned him.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics...l?cid=37756662

They've got you now Johnny.

But the bigger question is how does he manage to keep a swiss bank account? Presumably he needs one to pay the tax and electricity bills in Gstaad. But as a US resident and tax payer, he should be reported by swiss banks by FATCA.

Preumably he's wealthy enough the banks will let him keep it even though he's moved. Assuming he's actually told them in the first place. They probably didn't even know until the investigation started. Wonder what his reaction will be when the bank sends him a W-9.

Another interesting post over at IBS, this time on Belgian banks freezing accounts until proof of US tax compliance is provided by clients.

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/01/...ericansabroad/

«They got their orders to block all US citizens accounts until they can prove that they dont owe taxes to the US.»

How (one wonders) are they supposed to prove a negative like that? What are they expected to do, show up with a letter from the IRS saying they're all paid up? (Good luck with that! )

The bank account closures keep on coming. Picked this up over on IBS.

http://translate.google.com/translat...americains.php

Axa Bank closing American clients' accounts.

Whew. This is getting worrisome. I checked with Raiffeisen last week and they told me that I'm OK for now ... However, I don't have a loan with them.

Found this on the IBS website initially:

http://www.lesobservateurs.ch/2014/0...aradis-fiscal/

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/fatca/

Are we surprised? Not in the least. Make everyone do their dirty work for them and then get an opt out so they don't have to reciprocate. What a joke.

Even the Swiss based tax preparers are beginning to struggle with the increase in demand for their services:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics...l?cid=38035476

Five Americans share their experience of renouncing US citizenship with CNNMoney. Two are from Switzerland:

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2014...hip/index.html

It is sad that the US government treats its overseas citizens like chattel property.

The US government is also in violation of citizenship status discrimintion, national origin discrimination, harassment and human rights violations. Yet, it views all of such as being acceptable when practiced outside of US jurisdiction and it has the might to make such crime "right".

Do you have some backup for those bold statements? As best I can tell, the U.S. treats its citizens abroad the same as it does at home - they all must comply with FATCA no matter where they live on the planet. It doesn't matter if they hold another citizenship, what race or religion they are, etc.

This concept suggests that Switzerland is US territory, meaning that all residents of Switzerland must be equally treated as American citizens while they reside in the American territory of Switzerland.

Yet America does not treat all the residents of the American territory of Switzerland equally since Switzerland is actually not US territory. This means that all residents of Switzerland are subject to Swiss jurisdiction, not US jurisdiction. America has no right to force US jurisdiction upon Switzerland.

By forcing US jurisdiction upon certain individuals subject to Swiss jurisdiction, America causes citizenship status discrimination, national origin discrimination, harassment and human rights violations by treating individuals unequally in the same jurisdiction.

US laws prohibits citizenship status discrimination, national origin discrimination and harassment, meaning that America has no right to force its crimes upon Switzerland.

Yet, since the US government honors crime outside of US territory and has the might to make crime "right", it causes citizenship status discrimination, national origin discrimination and harassment outside of US jurisdiction since nobody has the power to tell America that such is a human rights violation.

Thus, the US government is a US federal criminal because it knows that it can get away with crime.