I've said it before - Congress will never change CBT. It is too easy to collect tax money from people who have no representation and they can easily claim the moral high ground. If you compare Rand Paul's backers to his opponents on CBT, he doesn't stand a snowball's chance. My guess is that the screws will continue to be turned tighter.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a brief blog on the high cost of renouncing U.S. citizenship. It references a Federal Register document that contains this interesting comment: "At one post alone, renunciations rose from under 100 to more than 1,100 in the first ten months of 2014." The post mentioned is undoubtedly the U.S. Embassy in Bern.

A journalist might want to follow up with Amb. Suzi LeVine to obtain a full count of expatriations (renunciations and relinquishments) for 2014 that occurred in Switzerland. I would expect it to be around 2,500-2,600.

If a journalist were successful in obtaining a figure for Switzerland, it would still be an undercount because many dual citizens with U.S. citizenship in Switzerland have travelled to other U.S. embassies and consulates across Europe to give up their U.S. citizenship.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/08/24/...r-citizenship/

Just to clarify that 100 figure is from 2009 up to over 1,100 in the first ten months of 2014.

Mr. FATCA, Robert Stack, US Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary, will give a speech in Zurich on September 23:

https://www.amcham.ch/events/p_event...on.asp?EId=920

It was Robert Stack who wrote the "Myth vs. FATCA" work of fiction that included such memorable statements as:

"Myth No. 2: Some claim that U.S. citizens living overseas will become outcasts in the international financial world."

"Myth No. 3: Some claim that Americans living abroad will give up their U.S. citizenship because of liabilities and burdens created by FATCA."

http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog...-vs-FATCA.aspx

But we'd have to pay him to listen to him. Who's his audience?

My chrystal ball prediction:
If Swiss - he'll go on to say how tame the wolf in sheepskin is so that the banks does business with the Americans again; and then there will be another "security breech" with another list, etc, etc.
If American expats and other collateral "Americans" - maybe reaching out to our representatives finally made enough waves?

Does he get an honorarium for his speech?

Too bad he and the American Embassy don't have the balls to organise a roundtable session for US citizens when he's in town for his boondoggle trip. There'rd probably be too much shoe throwing anyhow.

Anyhow, it only re-emphasizes they'll do anything for big business but nothing for mere small fish citizens. We are still only collateral to the big machine.

I really start to wonder what 'services' Americans abroad get for their tax money?, especially as renunciation fees easy pay for a large percentage of embassy costs and overhead. US embassy Bern must now be the cash cow of the State Department.

But don't big businesses run BECAUSE of the small fish? It is the small fish who move around the world, open accounts, transfer money and other assets, etc. I hope enough schools of fish continue to make waves until they are heard and effect the much needed change back to reality.

Bring extra shoes to the meeting, see how good of a dodger this one is.

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If it would bring-in a few extra votes "at home", I'm sure there are enough politicians who'd hand out shoes at the door...
;-)

I have no horse in this race, I'm just a by-stander.
But you Americans here are truly in a losing position.

Back in the US, nobody cares about Switzerland (less than 50% of people vote anyway, on a national scale, and of the other 50% how many could find Europe on a map without labels - much less Switzerland?).
Even to Germany, what happens to German people in Switzerland is mostly irrelevant to German politicians.

The big mistake about all this FATCA/FBAR transparency thing that Switzerland made is that they should have insisted on reciprocity from the beginning.
The US is fast demanding changes from others - but very slow implementing them on their own turf...

So, out of curiosity ... have there been any recent renunciations here and what were the experiences?

«The Canadians to Save Us from FATCA? Maybe...» — Nestmann

An excerpt:

"[T]he IGAs the IRS has signed with more than 100 countries, are, in effect, a complete fabrication. That’s because even though the agreements call for the reciprocal exchange of information, US law doesn’t permit the IRS to send tax information to any other country. The only exception is if that country makes a specific request about a specific taxpayer, and also has a “double taxation agreement” in effect with the US. In other words, information flow under an IGA is only one-way. The Obama administration has proposed legislation to deal with this omission, but it’s gotten nowhere in Congress. Many in Congress justifiably fear that foreign investors could pull trillions of dollars out of US banks if the proposal becomes law. That could dramatically reduce foreign purchases of US Treasury debt and crush the US dollar.

"Yet without actual reciprocity, I think foreign governments could quickly tire of sending information on US taxpayers to the US, and getting nothing in return."

__________________
"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant

By agreeing to FATCA, Switzerland's government demonstrated its greatest weakness: a lack of self-confidence. Had it come to a national vote, the Swiss would not have allowed such a treaty.

Maybe we can start a grassroots campaign to bring it to a national vote to repeal, then.

I believe that's already been tried — repealing Switzerland's acquiesence, not repealing FATCA (which only the US Congress can do). There aren't enough Swiss who care to sign such an initiative in the first place, though if it were to appear on a ballot, they'd likely well vote it down.

A poster over on IBS has just reported that the vice consul told him that while relinquishments were rare (consul had only done 4), renunciations were running at 3-5 a day, every day of the working week. Assuming the Swiss working year of 220 days that makes it between 660 and 1,100 a year renouncing here in Switzerland still, even with the fee increase.

Also got an appointment within 3 weeks of his first call to them so they're either really on the ball now or he managed to get a cancellation slot.

The U.S. ABC "Nightline" news program is looking for an American who is in the process of renouncing his/her US citizenship, according to a posting on Isaac Brock Society yesterday. Here's the message:

"ABC News’s Nightline would like to interview an American overseas who is IN THE PROCESS of renouncing his/her US Citizenship. Geoff Martz who is the show’s producer and with whom I am working on this story about our plight is especially interested in those who are renouncing because of the consequences of FATCA (Foreign Account Compliance Agreement). If necessary, Nightline would be willing to wait to broadcast until after the renunciation is complete (i.e. until the individual obtains his/her Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN)). If you are interested in letting Nightline chronicle the days leading up to your renunciation, please contact Geoff Martz at geoff.martz@abc.com or private message Keith to discuss further."


https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmericanExpatriates/523975671101843/?notif_t=group_activity

A poster on IBS says that Munich no longer deals with renunciations/relinquishments. Seems the only one that does in Germany now is Frankfurt.

Another lawsuit, this time to get rid of citizen based taxation in the States.

http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/11/...s-cbt-lawsuit/

The main reason for the existence of political parties is not because of the differences in their platforms, but rather to enable the mechanism of political discourse in representative democracies. The US are pretty economical here; they only have two. Switzerland have more. But parties can get in the way of political discourse. One worries more about keeping one's party happy than consequently debating a given issue.

Information technology has filtered out to the populace to a sufficient degree to enable more direct participation in democracy, which could theoretically reduce the need for representative democracy and therefore political parties.

There are still problems to be overcome -- when I've seen meaningful debate on topics in social networks or discussion groups, this debate can often get hijacked by heckler's vetoes, whereby one individual or a small group start drowning out any formation of consensus by non sequitur posts that consume bandwidth but add no value. Another problem is, that since the costs of participating are so low, everyone wants to have their say just to say they've been there and gotten the t-shirt, even if their contributions are largely repetitive. What's behind both of these problems is a limited ability to assimilate the opinions of others.

But what I find most amazing is, I really see no initiative towards overcoming these issues. One simply assumes that representative democracy is here to stay, and that one should leave it to the politicians. This has led, among other things, to a perpetuation of the FATCA/CBT mess long past when it could easily have been solved.

Record number give up US citizenship, green cards – US Treasury

Excerpt:

«The underlying cause behind the massive increase in renunciations is believed to be the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which came into force in 2010.»

Gee, they've finally admitted it have they? About time.