Bank of Israel implementing FATCA rather than waiting for data exchange agreement
Last week, I reportd that the Bank of Israel was going to enter into a data exchange agreement with the US Internal Revenue Service to spare the banks having to report information on US citizen accounts in Israel to the American authorities. Now, apparently stung by US investigations into the activities of the Swiss branches of Israeli banks, the Bank of Israel has decided to implement FATCA immediately.
The banks must apply FATCA by mapping their US customers and having
them sign the appropriate forms. The Bank of Israel is ordering the
banks to appoint an officer responsible for the matter, establish work
procedures, and reporting processes to management. The banks will also
examine the need to sign an agreement with the US authorities and to set
procedures for handling uncooperative customers - including "the option
of refusing to provide banking services to a customer who does not
cooperate with the implementation of the provisions."
Most, if
not all, of Israel banks are ready to implement FATCA and have signed
their US customers on the forms. As a consequence, the banks have lost
quite a few customers, who decided to withdraw their money and close
their accounts. "Globes" has estimated that more than $4 billion have
been withdrawn from accounts in Israeli banks.
Last week, "Globes" reported that the Ministry of Finance
is in advanced talks with the US Department of the Treasury on an
agreement for the sharing of information on bank accounts held by
foreign residents, and that the economic social cabinet will discuss the
agreement soon.
The agreement will supersede the US government's
demand that Israeli banks will report directly to the US authorities.
Instead, the banks will send the information about US customers to the
Israel Tax Authority, which will send it to the IRS. Despite the
advanced stage of the talks, it is unclear whether an agreement will be
signed before FATCA comes into effect in July.
The Bank of Israel is
demanding that the banks prepare to implement FATCA whether or not the
agreement is signed. "A financial institution that does not cooperate
with the US authorities is liable to various sanctions, including a 30%
deduction from payments originating in the US," it says.
For the record, if you're a US citizen, you're a US customer. And that's making a lot of Americans give up their US citizenship.
Facing an increasingly out-of-control federal government
in Washington, D.C., record numbers of Americans are giving up their
U.S. citizenship in an effort to escape onerous requirements enforced by
the IRS — which apply no matter where in the world a citizen lives.
Because the IRS requirements have already become so bad, a growing
number of banks around the world are refusing to even accept American
customers in an effort to avoid U.S. government bullying and mountains
of regulations. Following a trend in recent times, with citizenship
renunciations continuing to hit new records, some members of Congress
are slowly starting to take notice.
According to official figures and experts cited by the Wall Street Journal,
almost 2,400 people so far this year have either given up their U.S.
citizenship or turned in their green cards. That means the numbers thus
far are up by at least 33 percent over 2011, when 1,781 did so, more
than twice as many as in preceding years. In 2012, meanwhile, almost
2,000 people reportedly decided to permanently sever Uncle Sam’s grip,
and experts say the real numbers are even higher. By comparison, just
742 renounced their citizenship in 2009.
The exodus is widely expected to continue or even accelerate —
especially among the wealthy and mobile — unless and until Congress
takes action to rein in the IRS and reduce the draconian burdens imposed
on Americans abroad. The U.S. government, of course, is almost unique
in the world in that it demands that citizens pay U.S. taxes and file
massive amounts of complex paperwork no matter where on the planet they
reside and work. According to reports, the only other government in the
world to seek tribute from citizens abroad is the one ruling Eritrea.
Does the American government want us to give up our citizenship? It sure feels that way.
The agreement will be an alternative to the provisions of the US
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which requires non-US
financial institutions to sign the agreement directly with the US
authorities to send them information about American customers.
As
"Globes" has reported, the new agreement will be reciprocal. "The
agreement will include an option under which, subject to certain
conditions, information will be sent from the US tax authorities to the
Israeli tax authorities about the income of Israeli residents in the
US," states the document.
The document predicts that the
agreement will boost Israel's tax revenues, because the Tax Authority
will obtain information about Israelis' financial assets in the US. It
cautions, however, that the amount of these revenues cannot be
estimated.
It seems, however, that the sharing of information between Israel and
the US is not equitable. While the Israeli authorities will
automatically send the US all information about US persons, the US
authorities will only send information to Israel in special cases.
Israel is not the first country to sign such an agreement: the US has
similar agreements with the UK, Denmark, France, Japan, and Spain, and
more countries have expressed a willingness to sign such agreements in
the future. The agreement with Israel will include provisions for
protecting the information's confidentiality and for restricting its use
by the IRS, due to privacy concerns.
If you're a US citizen living in Israel, you have a choice. You can give up your American citizenship. There's been a lot of that since President Hussein Obama took office. But if you need to travel to the US for any reason, you may not want to give up that citizenship after all. There's recently been an 80% increase in rejections of applications from Israelis for US tourist visas.
Lois Lerner takes the 5th and what it has to do with Israel
For those of you who think that this story has nothing to do with Israel, please keep in mind that we know of at least one pro-Israel organization that was denied tax-exempt status because it opposed the 'two-state solution.' And the IRS admitted it.
The second revelation was one made by Bloomberg News.
That media agency obtained IRS documents revealing that, in addition to
the terms Tea Party and 9/12, other terms were used in flagging
organizations seeking tax exempt status for additional scrutiny. While
the headline of the article, and what was the object of most media
attention, was that terms that suggested not just conservative groups,
but also liberal or progressive groups were given the IRS evil eye –
words such as “occupy” and “progressive” were allegedly triggers, as was
the word “Israel.”
But far down in a long article the Bloomberg reporter explains that, “Disputed Territories” was considered problematic. To wit:
‘Disputed Territories”
The November, 2010 [BOLO - Be On the Look Out] list also has terms
that could be related to Israel, looking for applications that ‘deal
with disputed territories in the Middle East’ and ‘may be inflammatory.’
Well, golly! What kind of a group calls a particular area of land
“disputed territories,” which the vast majority of people, either for
ideological or simply conformity refer to as the “West Bank?” Yes, that
would be strong Zionist groups such as Z STREET.
Good news for Americans abroad: Republican National Committee calls for repealing FATCA
At its annual meeting in Washington on Friday, the Republican National Committee backed a resolution that called for the repeal of the Federal Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), an act whose effective date has been delayed several times, and which has caused nightmares for American citizens residing abroad.
The 2010 law which goes into effect in July requires foreign
international financial institutions to provide the Internal Revenue
Service with information on U.S. citizens living abroad who hold more
than $50,000 in their accounts at the end of the year.
Congress
passed the law in an effort to crack down on Americans who evade paying
taxes by hiding financial assets overseas. But the law has been sharply
criticized by banks, libertarian groups, and Americans living in Canada
and overseas who say it's made it very difficult for them to open bank
accounts, obtain loans or conduct other financial transactions because
several foreign financial institutions won't take them on as clients
because they don't want to have to deal with the IRS.
Some U.S.
ex-patriot groups say the law is partially responsible for the increase
in the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship. That number has
grown from 742 in 2009 to more than 1,854 last year, according to State
Department figures.
By the way, I went to renew my US passport last week, and renouncing your American citizenship will set you back $450 (compared with $110 for renewing your passport). Just being informative....
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/25/215744/rnc-approves-fatca-repeal-resolution.html#storylink=cpy
This insistence by the IRS that Z STREET had a remedy for its legal
claim: it could be assured that the court would provide it with a
constitutionally valid process and given an up or down decision pursuant
to a Section 7824 ruling, ultimately brought the judge to ask the
Justice Department lawyer a critical question. She asked whether, in
the opinion of the IRS, there is any way for Z STREET to obtain the
relief that it – not the IRS’s mischaracterization of its claim - has
repeatedly stated in every court filing it wants. In other words, can Z
STREET find out whether the IRS violated its constitutional rights by
treating its application differently on the basis of its viewpoint.
No, according to the IRS, it can’t.
In other words, the IRS says you can get the little ticket that comes
out of the black box called “IRS Tax Exempt Determinations,” which will
say either “approved” or “denied,” but you cannot, no way, no how, lift
the lid off that black box and look inside.
But looking inside that black box is precisely what Z STREET wants.
It is the only way to determine whether the IRS violated the
constitutional rights of Z STREET and of any other organization which
complains, at any time, of a discriminatory process employed by the IRS
in making its determinations.
Judge Brown asked Z STREET’s lawyer, Jerome M. Marcus, whether the
organization could use the Freedom of Information Act to get at the
information it is seeking in its lawsuit.
Marcus pointed out that route would not be productive. There are
numerous FOIA exceptions which the IRS would certainly use as a shield
to prevent the black box from being opened. FOIA is not an option.
Nope, it’s either a court which will allow citizens who believe their
constitutional rights have been violated by the IRS to provide the
mechanism to find out, or the IRS will be, as so many Americans already
believe it to be, a rogue agency able to act with impunity, and able to
invoke immunity from prying eyes.
So it comes down to this: Z STREET has alleged that the IRS employed a
constitutionally tainted process to evaluate certain applicants for tax
exempt status, while the IRS’s position is that there is no way for any
complainant to inquire about that process.
Obama's half brother close friends with Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, IRS gave their foundation preferential treatment
In this photo, from the Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) website,
headed by Malik, Omar al-Bashir can be seen dressed in black, to the
right. Another man to take notice of is seated directly to the right of
Bashir; his name is Suar Al Dahab.
A foundation headed by President Obama's half brother Malik, and called the Barack H. Obama Foundation received an IRS tax exemption within a month of its application despite having connections to the terrorist Bashir regime in Sudan (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) is linked to top Sudanese officials, a regime accused of terrorism and genocide. Walid Shoebat reported:
It has been learned that the relationship between President Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik Obama and Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir is much closer than previously thought…
…In 2010, Malik Obama attended the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO)
conference in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. One of the objectives of
the IDO is to spread Wahhabist Islam across the African continent.
Al-Bashir wasn’t just present at the conference; he supervised it.
I had seen something about Pam Geller not being invited to CPAC this year. Being in Israel, I may not follow everything in the US as closely as I should. But this story might be connected to that one.
I was surprised and honored that Jihad Watch was among the nominees for the People's Choice Blog Award, sponsored by Right Wing News and TheTeaParty.net, to be awarded at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2013.
As you can see from the vote above, Jihad Watch won decisively,
getting over 50% of the vote in a field of fifteen. And I received
confirmation of the victory from one of the organizers of the CPAC blog
awards when I asked him when voting officially ended:
From: XXXXXXXXX Subject: Re: You've Been Nominated For A People's Choice Award At the CPAC Blogger Awards Date: March 2, 2013 2:58:26 AM EST To: Robert Spencer
Robert
It officially ended at midnight. You won!
But as time went by and no announcement was made of this victory, and
the voting continued despite my having been told that it officially
ended last Friday night and that I had won, and the promised
links and other placement promised to the winning blog didn't
materialize, I started to wonder. So I contacted the organizer who had
written me telling me I won and asked him what was going on.
He told me that there was a slight problem: the Tea Party group,
which co-sponsored this People's Choice Blog Award, didn't want to allow
me to receive it at CPAC next week unless I promised not to criticize
Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan as I accepted the award.
I told the organizer that I couldn't agree to that. He asked me if I
had planned to talk about Grover and Suhail. I said no, I hadn't, but I
had to now.
So that's that. The People's Choice Blog Award is now the Grover's
Choice Blog Award. I will not be going to CPAC and will not be receiving
this award.
And since I will not be allowed to receive this award at CPAC, I will talk about Norquist and Khan here.
There was a President named George W. Bush who had a very simple test for Islamic terrorism: Are you with us or with the terrorists? I don't care how anti-tax Norquist and Khan are if they're pro-Hamas. And Robert Spencer (of whom I already had a high opinion) has just gone up some more in my book.
The next time the 'Palestinian Authority' asks for money, tell them to ask Hamas
The next time the 'Palestinian Authority' comes to the 'international community' and to Israel to schnorr, they ought to be told to go ask Hamas for money. Hamas? The poor Islamists who run the Gaza Strip? Yes, Hamas. The group that makes $1 million per day on 'taxes' collected from tunnels through which goods are smuggled from Egypt.
Hamas is making at least a million dollars a day in “tax” money from
Gaza smugglers, a senior IDF officer said Monday. Colonel Wael Tafesh,
who is a top IDF officer in the IDF's coordination unit with the
Palestinian Authority, said that Hamas provided “protection” to
smugglers and collected payments for the service, and often used the
smugglers to order goods for their own use.
According to Wafesh, Hamas is in full
control of what goes in and comes out of the smuggling tunnels. News
reports and PA officials have sought to paint Hamas as unable to cope
with the “wily” smugglers who were able to operate under the radar, but
speaking to Israel Radio, Wafesh said that Hamas knew the smugglers,
what goods they brought into Gaza, how much they were worth, and how
much tax money smugglers could afford.
Among the goods smuggled are food,
agricultural products, electronics, machines, building supplies, and a
long list of items that the IDF had banned from bringing into Gaza out
of fear that they could be used to build weapons. As it turns out, that
fear is probably unfounded, said Tafesh – because smugglers were just
importing the weapons themselves now. The weapons have their source in
Libya, as well as Iran.
Many stolen cars are brought into Gaza via
the smuggling tunnels daily as well, Tafesh said. There are hundreds of
tunnels under the Gaza border with Sinai, of all shapes and sizes, he
added.
If a Republican said this, the media would rightfully brand it anti-Semitism
If a Republican accused Jews of voting for a Democrat because they're rich people and want a tax cut, what do you think the reaction would be? I think that Republican would rightfully be branded an anti-Semite. But when a Democrat makes a comment like that, it slips right under the media's radar range. Especially when the Democrat is none other than Queen Nancy Pelosi.
Let's go to the videotape. The part I want you to see is between 6:00 and 7:50. More below the fold.
So there it is. Queen Nancy says that Jews are using Israel as an excuse to vote Republican because what they really want is a tax cut.
Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition reacted to Pelosi’s remarks in an e-mail to Right Turn. He told me: “The one thing I can agree with Nancy Pelosi on is that Jewish Republicans are ‘smart people.’ We’re smart enough to know that when it comes to Israel we can do a lot better then Barack Obama. Obama has publicly called for ‘daylight’ between the US and Israel, called for Israel to return to the indefensible ‘67 lines as a precondition for peace talks, and condemned Israel for building in . . . Jerusalem.” He then took strong exception to Pelosi’s claims of “exploitation”: “So, sadly, while I appreciate Pelosi saying Jewish Republicans are smart, we most certainly are not being “exploited.” Given the facts and I only wish that when it comes to Israel Nancy Pelosi and other defenders of Obama’s failed Israel policies were as smart as us Jewish Republicans.”
Pelosi tried to walk the statement back on Saturday. Mitt Romney, who is overseas (in Israel, in fact) won't comment right now.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
