Showing posts with label u.s.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label u.s.. Show all posts

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Krings et al on tax levels, scalar dumping, and democratic preferences

Professors Amy Krings, Dana Kornberg, and Erin Lane recently published Organizing Under Austerity: How Residents’ Concerns Became the Flint Water Crisis, Critical Sociology 45 (4-5), pp. 583-597 [gated]. The article examines the politics of austerity, of interest to tax researchers for lots of reasons but perhaps especially for the expression it gives to the connection between tax levels and democratic preferences through the phenomenon of scalar dumping. Here is the abstract:
What might it take for politically marginalized residents to challenge cuts in public spending that threaten to harm their health and wellbeing? Specifically, how did residents of Flint, Michigan contribute to the decision of an austerity regime, which was not accountable to them, to spend millions to switch to a safe water source? Relying on evidence from key interviews and newspaper accounts, we examine the influence and limitations of residents and grassroots groups during the 18-month period between April 2014 and October 2015 when the city drew its water from the Flint River. We find that citizen complaints alone were not sufficiently able to convince city officials or national media of widespread illness caused by the water. However, their efforts resulted in partnerships with researchers whose evidence bolstered their claims, thus inspiring a large contribution from a local foundation to support the switch to a clean water source. Thus, before the crisis gained national media attention, and despite significant constraints, residents’ sustained organization—coupled with scientific evidence that credentialed local claims—motivated the return to the Detroit water system. The Flint case suggests that residents seeking redress under severe austerity conditions may require partnerships with external scientific elites.
As to scalar dumping, the paper explains that:
A central feature of neoliberal governance in the United States has been the production of austerity conditions in cities. Jamie Peck (2012) has described how urban austerity regimes emerge through processes of scalar dumping, whereby financial responsibility for public goods is passed down from national to state and local governments. The logical priority that scalar dumping sets in motion is clear: cash-strapped cities must either raise revenue through taxes, fees, or service costs for public goods or they must cut spending. Scalar dumping disproportionately strains cities like Flint, which have already suffered severely because of deindustrialization, residential abandonment, aging infrastructure, high poverty rates, and racial segregation. Thus, although a city’s municipal budget is shaped by a range of economic factors beyond the control of city leaders, financial hardships tend to be borne by residents. 
When cities fail to be self-sufficient, officials may employ legal tools such as emergency management laws to label budget shortfalls as financial “emergencies.” This characterization can provide justification for punitive intervention—including democratic curtailment coupled with cuts to public services—by higher levels of government (state, national, or international). Thus, austerity is indeed a “politically imposed condition”. Additionally, by characterizing the city as experiencing a fiscal emergency, policies that entail additional public spending are removed from contention and effectively blocked from the political agenda. And by focusing on the short-term alleviation of fiscal problems, longer-term structural problems—such as the loss of revenue due to a declining tax base, decreases in state revenue sharing, and growing unemployment—are cast outside the sphere of public debate. [internal citations omitted]
The authors explain that “social action is necessary to counter the dangerous effects of austerity policies,” but note that “the possibilities for democratic influence have been severely curtailed. Additionally, as environmental regulatory rules are relaxed, 'the operating principle is that toxic chemicals are presumed innocent of harming human health unless proven guilty.'” They conclude by noting that the emergency management system that led to Flint's water crisis remains in place, and quote Clare McClintock of the Democracy Defense League that “This is a new model of governance that is dangerous and unacceptable. And it’s spreading to a town near you.”

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Spiro on Citizenship Overreach

The always excellent Peter Spiro has recently posted this new article on SSRN, of interest. Abstract:
This Article examines international law limitations on the ascription of citizenship in the context of U.S. taxation of non-resident citizens. U.S. citizenship practice is exceptionally generous, extending citizenship to almost all persons in its territory at the moment of birth. At the same time that it is generous at the front end, U.S. citizenship is sticky at the back. Termination of citizenship on the individual’s part involves substantial fees and tax compliance. It is difficult to shed a citizenship one may never have wanted in the first place. 
This stickiness would be inconsequential if few costs were associated with the status. But the United States taxes its citizens on a worldwide basis. The 2010 enactment of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act has ramped up historically lax enforcement and imposes substantial administrative burdens on even middle-earner citizens abroad. 
In this frame, U.S. birthright citizenship and expatriation regimes may violate international norms, especially with respect to those "accidental Americans" who departed the United States as children. Even in the context of extremely relaxed historical constraints on state nationality practice, there were acknowledged nineteenth century limitations on the extension of citizenship to individuals with insufficient connection to a state -- citizenship over-claiming, as it were. The article also describes the historical requirement that naturalization be volitional, a norm now appropriately applied in some cases in the context of birthright citizenship.  
To the extent the ascription of U.S. citizenship compromises individual rights, there are tax fixes and there are citizenship fixes. Citizenship fixes include opt-in and opt-out mechanisms for birthright citizenship. The better solution may lie in frictionless exit for those with nominal ties to the national community. Though reform is more likely to be accomplished through the tax regime, the moment highlights the over-inclusiveness of U.S. citizenship and the growing salience of international law to citizenship practices.
I'm less confident than Peter that reform will ever be delivered through the tax regime, but I am very glad to see this important contribution to the growing literature focusing on the citizenship/taxation link.

Friday, March 31, 2017

Shu Yi Oei: The Offshore Tax Enforcement Dragnet

Shu Yi Oei (Tulane) has posted an important new paper on U.S. offshore tax enforcement, of interest. Here is the abstract:

Taxpayers who hide assets abroad to evade taxes present a serious enforcement challenge for the United States. In response, the U.S. has developed a family of initiatives that punish and rehabilitate non-compliant taxpayers, raise revenues, and require widespread reporting of offshore financial information. Yet, while these initiatives help catch willful tax cheats, they have also adversely affected immigrants, Americans living abroad, and “accidental Americans.”  
This Article critiques the United States’ offshore tax enforcement initiatives, arguing that the U.S. has prioritized two problematic policy commitments in designing enforcement at the expense of competing considerations: First, the U.S. has attempted to equalize enforcement against taxpayers with solely domestic holdings and those with harder-to-detect offshore holdings by imposing harsher reporting requirements and penalties on the latter. But in doing so, it has failed to appropriately distinguish among differently situated taxpayers with offshore holdings. Second, the U.S. has focused on revenue and enforcement, ignoring the significant compliance costs and social harms that its initiatives create.  
The confluence of these two policy commitments risks creating high costs for the wrong taxpayers. While offshore tax enforcement may have been designed to catch high¬-net-worth tax cheats, it may instead impose disproportionate burdens on those immigrants and expatriates who have less ability to complain, comply, or “substitute out” of the law’s grasp. This Article argues that the U.S. should redesign its enforcement approach to minimize these risks and suggests reforms to this end.
The paper provides a thorough review of the panoply of offshore enforcement programs and mechanisms and documents the harms of their dragnet approach, especially on the most vulnerable and least likely targets. A significant contribution to the literature.



Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Taxation and Citizenship Workshop at U Michigan

This week at the University of Michigan Law School, Reuven Avi-Yonah and I are co-hosting an academic workshop on the topic of citizenship and taxation. Because it is a workshop, most of the papers are still in draft and won't be publicly available for some time. However, we will be doing a writeup of the proceedings and I'll post that when it is available, and of course I'll post when the symposium volume is published. Here are the speakers and topics:

  • Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan) Constructive Unilateralism : US Leadership and International Taxation 
  • Allison Christians (McGill) Uncle Sam Wants … Who? 
  • Wei Cui (UBC) Residence and Source as Interconnected Concepts 
  • Tessa Davis (South Carolina) Of Tax Crimes and “Bad” Citizens: How the Role of Tax Law in Making a Citizen Informs Tax Law and Policy 
  • Jane Frecknall-Hughes (Hull) Tax and the citizen: the philosophical underpinnings 
  • Christine Harlen (Leeds) Making America Exceptional: Perfectionist Civic Republicanism and the Taxation of Americans Abroad in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 
  • Michael Kirsch (Notre Dame) The Taxation (or Non-Taxation) of Citizens’ Foreign Income: Distilling the Competing Normative Arguments 
  • Sagit Leviner (Ono) Citizenship Transcendent 
  • Patrick Martin (Procopio) Tax Simplification: The Need for Consistent Tax Treatment of All Individuals (Citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, and Non-Citizens regardless of immigrant status) Residing Overseas, Including the Repeal of U.S. Citizenship Based Taxation 
  • Ruth Mason (Virginia) Citizenship Taxation 
  • Linneu Mello (Bichara) How the Brazilian Tax Authorities Control Information and What FATCA Has To Do With It 
  • Henry Ordower (St. Louis) Is the Expatriation Tax Constitutional? Mark to Market and the Macomber Conundrum 
  • Adam Rosenzweig (Washington St. Louis) Once a US Person, Always a US Person 
  • Daniel Shaviro (NYU) Taxing Potential Community Members’ Foreign Source Income 
  • Peter Spiro (Temple) Citizenship Overreach and the U.S. Tax Regime 
  • Saul Templeton (Calgary) Bill C-51, FATCA, and the End of Taxpayer Privacy 
  • Edward Zelinsky (Cardozo) The Problems of Defining Residence: The U.S. Experience
Student Panel

  • Montano Cabezas (Georgetown) Reasons for Citizenship-Based Taxation? 
  • Christine Kim (NYU) Considering “Citizenship Taxation” : In Defense of FATCA 
  • Gene Magidenko (UMich) – A Defense of Citizenship Taxation 
  • Gianluca Mazzoni (Brescia) The Interaction Between FATCA and Data Privacy 
  • Miguel Nicolas (UParis) FATCA and International Law 
The range of topics and viewpoints represented is encouraging and I look forward to the discussion.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Uber deemed an employer, not a partner, to driver in California

So says the California Labor Commission according to this story from Reuters, and I would guess other jurisdictions will follow. But Uber responds that:
"Reuters' original headline was not accurate. The California Labor Commission's ruling is non-binding and applies to a single driver. Indeed it is contrary to a previous ruling by the same commission, which concluded in 2012 that the driver 'performed services as an independent contractor, and not as a bona fide employee.' Five other states have also come to the same conclusion. It's important to remember that the number one reason drivers choose to use Uber is because they have complete flexibility and control. The majority of them can and do choose to earn their living from multiple sources, including other ride sharing companies."
I would guess it is precisely the definition of "complete flexibility and control" that will be at issue going forward. I think Uber is an employer of its drivers for tax law purposes and that its drivers do not have anything like complete flexibility or control in substance.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Updated: Gotcha! Yet another obscure asset reporting form for US persons

UPDATE: as of sometime this afternoon (depending on your time zone), the BEA has updated its website to extend the filing deadline to June 30 for all new filers. Moreover, it appears that the BEA definition of US Persons is generally limited to persons resident in the United States (with specific exceptions, see comment from Andrew below). As I mention in the comments, I am a bit wary about drawing conclusions of law from instructions to forms but I do think that the instructions at least form the basis for reliance that most physically non-resident US citizens should not be required to fill out the BE-10.  The sudden deadline extension nevertheless suggests that a number of people have been caught by surprise by the new reporting obligation, so that my main point about educating one's regulatory target is still apposite. I have revised this post accordingly.

It seems that in the United States, the asset reporting forms and non-filing penalties just keep on coming, and yet the will to inform individuals about their obligations--especially those who live outside of the United States and do not receive client alerts from big US law firms or big 4 accounting firms--remains curiously absent.  The Bureau of Economic Analysis does a survey of "US Direct Investment Abroad" every five years. In past years, if you were required to file, the BEA contacted you.

Not any more; now you are just supposed to know that the BEA exists and has its own reporting requirements, and that if you are a US person (which includes individuals), you are supposed to go and file a report to them, separate and distinct from all of of your other tax and financial asset reporting requirements. I do not know what the definition of US Person is for BEA purposes, and whether it includes US citizens and other persons, regardless of their residence--looking into that now. The definition of US Person for BEA purposes appears to diverge from that for tax purposes, such that in most cases reporting is required by those physically resident in the United States.

BEA reporting is subject to a civil penalty of $2,500 to $25,000 for nonfiling, plus $10,000, or a year in jail, or both, if the nonfiling was wilful. I am not sure who is responsible for collecting this fine but if it is the IRS (as is the case for FBAR), then I wonder why the Service doesn't bother to tell taxpayers about the form and its deadline anywhere at all on the IRS website.

A BE-10 form must be filed by any US Person that directly or indirectly held 10% or more of the voting securities ("US Reporter") of any non-U.S. business enterprise (a “Foreign Affiliate”). There are no de minimis exceptions: no matter how small your nonUS corporation might be (or have been-you must file for the year even if the corporation ceases to exist), you must report or face the penalty. US Reporters must file Form BE-10A for themselves and may have to file additional BE-10 forms for their corporations.

The deadline is tomorrow: May 29 now June 30. There is an extension available but it requires filing a request prior to the due date. Prepare for a delay in accessing that form right now--the BEA server appears to be overloaded. Possibly a request to extend filed today (if that is even possible from outside the United States) would be granted, I am not sure.

The BEA is a valuable source of information necessary for policy research, and I do not in any way object to the general need to collect information on US companies. What I object to is that again and again, US regulators seems to forget that "US Persons" includes a massive population of individuals who live permanently outside of the territory, who cannot realistically be expected to simply "know" about all the forms they are supposed to report, and who are dramatically underserved by the US agencies that continue to produce these requirements. US Persons are now potentially subject to three overlapping and duplicative reporting regimes, each with its own quirky forms, convoluted instructions, inconsistent deadlines, and heavy penalties: the IRS, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and now, every five years, the BEA, all with little to no effort to educate the population each agency expects to be fully compliant.

I do wish that US lawmakers would understand that when they enact complex regulatory regimes with hefty penalties, they have a responsibility to educate the targets of that regulation. I am not talking about large, multinational conglomerates or high net worth individuals with teams of legal counsel. They are protected: their counsel's job is to keep up to date on all regulatory compliance regimes, inform their clientele, and and make money off compliance fees. I am not worried about them. I am talking about the human beings who just happen to live and work in other countries. If they have small businesses, they may well have non-US corporations in those countries where they live and work.  Regulatory agencies that seek to regulate these individuals have a responsibility to inform that is global in scope. It seems to me obviously unjust to suddenly impose complex requirements, with attendant penalties, on a whole new population without making any effort to educate them that this is the new order of things. Today's last-minute deadline extension seems to acknowledge this basic issue.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Presumption against Extraterritoriality: Win for foreign insurers in Validus Reinsurance case

Tim Todd had an article in Forbes yesterday on the Court of Appeals grant of summary judgment in Validus Reinsurance Ltd. v. United States, decided May 26. This was a de novo review; the district court had granted summary judgment for Validus in 2014 (Mem. Op. Feb 5, 2014), and the government appealed on grounds that the district court had "adopted an overly narrow interpretation." From the Court of Appeals decision:
Because both parties offer plausible interpretations, we conclude that the text of the
statute is ambiguous with respect to its application to wholly foreign retrocessions [a type of insurance product at issue in the case]. The ambiguity is resolved upon applying the presumption against extraterritoriality because there is no clear indication by Congress that it intended the excise tax to apply to premiums on wholly foreign retrocessions. Accordingly, we affirm the grant of summary judgment, albeit on narrower grounds, on Validus’s refund claims. 
Tim explains the jargon in the case so I won't repeat that here, but his point of note is that:
Generally, courts presume that legislation operates only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Thus, unless Congress expresses an “affirmative intention,” statutes have no extraterritorial effect. 
Here, the retrocessions were extraterritorial: wholly foreign parties issued policies that were “negotiated, executed, and performed outside of the United States.” And, the court noted, the “government has identified no clear indication by Congress that it intended the excise tax to apply to wholly foreign retrocessions, and we have found none.”
This is an interesting area of law that I have not studied enough but would like to. I note that the Appeals Court observed that "At first glance, the plain text of section 4371 appears to extend the reach of the IRS Commissioner to any casualty and life insurance policy issued by a foreign insurer anywhere in the world," but that read in conjunction with its definitions clauses, the scope is more modest. The court engages in a step by step statutory analysis (always fun) and ends up engaging in a fairly detailed discussion of what it means to "cover" something. Having hauled out a few dictionaries, the Court decides that the language is ambiguous, hence the need to turn to the general presumption against extra-territoriality.

In the context of a globally networked financial system, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between something that is territorial and something that is extra-territorial in scope and reach. Here, the government had argued that the necessary nexus to the United States lay in the the underlying risks ultimately being insured--that is, "indirect" risk coverage. It seems that was one bridge too far for the DC Circuit.










Monday, April 13, 2015

Upcoming event on Delivering Tax Benefits through the Tax System

On April 24, the American Tax Policy Institute is live-streaming an all-day conference "Delivering Benefits to Low-Income Taxpayers through the Tax System."  The conference is organized by Les Book, Villanova University School of Law and Deena Ackerman, U.S. Department of Treasury.  

You can view the program and also register to attend the conference in person here.  


Beginning at 8:45 a.m. (EST) on April 24, you can view the livestream conference webcast

I will be presenting on panel 4, "The International Approach to Delivering Benefits Through the Tax System." 

One focus of this panel is a comparative approach to the delivery of benefits (US/UK/Australia), but I plan to focus on the international implications of the US approach to delivering benefits through the tax code from the perspective of a specific group of “end users” whose financial situations would make them eligible for benefits delivery but who are nevertheless systematically denied these benefits. 

This group is the globally dispersed population of “US persons” who are deemed to be permanently resident in the United States for tax compliance and financial reporting purposes but are not so deemed for purposes of benefits delivered through the tax code, notably, the earned income tax credit. 

The premise I am studying: The inclusion of all US persons in the tax base regardless of domicile, juxtaposed with the blanket denial of eligibility for income support based solely on domicile, reveals the manifest injustice of citizenship-based taxation. I'll examine three inter-related rights-based claims in support of this premise. First, dispersed geographically and without a unified voice in Congress, the diaspora is inevitably denied effective civil and political rights in the design of the US tax system. Second, subject to the most complex aspects of the U.S. tax code regardless of any activity in the United States, and facing extraordinary compliance costs and disclosure risks even for nil returns, this group is effectively denied the administrative rights articulated in the taxpayer bill of rights. Finally, this group is systematically denied income support accorded to similarly situated taxpayers, in contravention of any normative policy. 

These are ideas in progress, so I really look forward to having the opportunity to work through them a little further by participating in this event.




Thursday, February 19, 2015

ICYMI: Call for papers; Conference on Taxation and Citizenship

Together with Reuven Avi-Yonah, I am seeking paper proposals for a Citizenship and Taxation Symposium, to be held at the University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Friday, October 9, 2015. The call for papers closes on February 28.

This symposium will focus on ongoing developments regarding the unique US practice of taxing citizens who live permanently overseas. With the adoption of regimes such as the expatriation tax added by IRC § 877A and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the taxation of non-residents with US person status now has serious and tangible implications. 

Symposium Background 

 Like most countries, the United States claims the right to tax on a worldwide basis all of the people resident in its territory regardless of their legal status. But virtually alone in the world, the United States also claims worldwide fiscal jurisdiction over its citizens whether or not those persons are or ever have been resident within the territory. The legal claim over citizens dates to the first national income tax and has been continued through the present, but enforcement has always been an abstract ideal rather than a viable program. This status quo has dramatically changed as an unexpected side effect of the adoption of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010. By introducing an unprecedented regime for global third party reporting, FATCA enables the IRS to enforce citizenship taxation on a worldwide basis for the first time in the history of the income tax. As will becomes ability, the normative foundations of citizenship taxation are coming under intense scrutiny. 

To explore these issues, the symposium presenters will offer different perspectives on the meaning, feasibility, efficiency, and fairness of the U.S. practice of citizenship taxation, and will comment on the practical and policy effects of new legislative developments. We invite proposals that consider U.S. citizenship-based taxation from a historical, economic, social, political, institutional, or philosophical perspective. We welcome proposals from junior scholars and from scholars within and outside the United States.

 Symposium Participants 

 In addition to the conveners, the symposium will feature a panel of distinguished speakers, including:
  • Wei Cui, University of British Columbia School of Law 
  • Tessa Davis, University of South Carolina Law School 
  • Michael Kirsch, Notre Dame Law School 
  • Patrick Martin, Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP 
  • Ruth Mason, University of Virginia Law School
  • Saul Templeton, University of Calgary Faculty of Law 
  • Phil West, Steptoe & Johnson 
  • Ed Zelinsky, Cardozo School of Law 
Guide for Proposals
  • Deadline for proposals: February 28, 2015.
  • Paper proposals must be between 300–500 words in length and should be accompanied by a CV.
  • Successful applicants will be notified by the end of March 2015. 
  • Proposals should be submitted by email to Reuven Avi-Yonah and Allison Christians
  • Successful applicants must submit a working draft of their paper by September 8, 2015 for circulation among conference participants. 
  • additional info and updates on the symposium will available here.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Responses to Questions on Canada's Adoption of FATCA IGA

Back in November I noted that MP Ted Hsu presented an order paper question (OPQ 816) on the topic of the unusual process surrounding Canada's adoption of an intergovernmental agreement on FATCA. He asked a series of detailed questions about the treaty tabling and ratification process, and today he got his answers, the substance of which I have reproduced below; you can find the full document here.

I note that there is a common answer to many of the questions: "Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old is considered a cabinet confidence and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act." Therefore, most of the answers are: you will find out in 20 years.

Though the government continues to claim that it "followed the treaty tabling policy" and that it made procedural exceptions deliberately, according to stated procedures, and out of urgent need, the facts and the nonexistence of key documents declare otherwise.

Bottom line: if there is a treaty policy in Canada, it is that a sitting government can bind the nation to any agreement of any sort with no parliamentary oversight of any kind and with no transparency, and if that agreement violates existing laws and rights, then it will be up to those whose rights have been violated to mount legal action to assert those laws and get their rights restored. This is not just a matter of some arcane technical procedure. It is fundamentally a problem of access to justice. Law is not free. It is, in fact, quite expensive.

I note that all the answers below are from the Minister of Foreign Affairs except with respect to three answers from Finance, which are indicated in brackets.

ORDER/ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
No. Q-816
By Mr. Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) 
Date November 24, 2014 

With regard to the Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America to Improve International Tax Compliance through Enhanced Exchange of Information under the Convention Between the United States of America and Canada with Respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital (the Agreement), the government's Policy on Tabling of Treaties in Parliament (the Policy), and the statement of Peter Van Loan, Government House Leader, in the House on Monday, April 28, 2014, that "in this case, the fact is that the government, the cabinet, actually did grant such an exemption to the tabling policy. As such, the very words of the policy, the
requirements of the policy, have been followed. The processes for obtaining the exemption were obtained. As a result, the requirement that it be tabled in the House 21 days in advance of the legislation being introduced is not necessary and the policy is fully complied with" (the Statement):

(a) was an exemption to the government's Policy granted with respect to the Agreement;
Yes.
(b) what is the difference between an "exemption" and an "exception" in terms of the Policy;
Either term could be used in the context of the Policy.
(c) if the word "exception" is substituted for “exemption" is the Statement accurate;
Either term could be used in the context of the Policy.
(d) on what basis was the Statement made;
The Statement was made because the Agreement was granted an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy.
(e) how was the Government House Leader informed of the exemption or exception being granted to the Policy;
The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (the "Department") has no information on how the Government House Leader was informed,
(f) what documents or memos were created regarding this exemption or exception and what are their access or control numbers;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act
(g) who was involved in this decision to grant an exemption or exception and at what stage were they involved;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act
(h) what was the process, step-by-step, by which this Agreement was granted an exemption or exception;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act
(i) who reviewed the decision to grant an exemption or exception, (i) when, (ii) why, (iii) how;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
 (j) does the Policy apply to the Agreement, and how;
Yes. The Agreement was granted an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy,
(k) between what departments does correspondence exist-regarding the tabling of the Agreement under the Policy and what are the file numbers for these documents;
There is some correspondence between the Department, and the Department of Finance. There are no file numbers for the correspondence,
(l) on what date was the Agreement concluded;
[Finance] The Agreement was signed and made public on February 5, 2014.
(m) on what date was the Agreement tabled in Parliament;
In the context of the Policy, "If an exception is granted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification." (6.3b of the Policy), The Agreement was publicly tabled on September 15, 2014 by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as per Standing Order 32.2. That was the earliest opportunity for the Government to inform the House that Canada had agreed to be bound by the Agreement following its ratification - also the first sitting day of the House after the summer Parliamentary recess.
(n) on what date was the Agreement ratified;
Canada ratified the Agreement on June 27, 2014.
(o) when was the House made aware of the text of the Agreement;
In the context of the Policy, "If an exception is granted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification." (6.3b of the Policy)". The Agreement was publicly tabled on September 15, 2014 by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as per Standing Order 32.2. That was the earliest opportunity for the Government to inform the House that Canada had agreed to be bound by the Agreement following its ratification - also the first sitting day of the House after the summer Parliamentary recess. Additionally, the text of the Agreement was set out in Schedule 3 to Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
(p) how was the House made aware of the text of the Agreement;
[Finance] Legislative proposals to implement the Agreement with the U.S., including related amendments to the Income Tax Act, were set out in Part 5 of the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1 (Bill C-31 ). The text of the Agreement was provided in Schedule 3 of Bill C-31. Bill C-31 was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
In the context of the Policy, the text of the Agreement was publicly tabled in accordance with the Policy on September 15, 2014. Additionally, the text of the Agreement was set out in Schedule 3 to Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
(q) when was the House made aware of the granting of an exemption or exception to the Policy in the case of the Agreement;
The House was first informed of the exemption through the Statement by the Government House Leader on April 28, 2014. In the context of the Policy, the House was made aware of the granting of an exemption when the Agreement was publicly tabled in accordance with the Policy on September 15, 2014.
(r) how was the House made aware of the granting of an exemption or exception to the Policy in the case of the Agreement;
The House was first informed of the exemption through the Statement by the Government House Leader on March 28, 2014. In the context of the Policy, the House was made aware of the granting of an exemption in the Explanatory Memorandum which accompanied the Agreement when it was publicly tabled on September 15, 2014.
(s) when and by what means is the House usually informed that an exception has been granted to the Policy;
In the context of the Policy, the House is usually made aware of the granting of an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy in the Explanatory Memorandum which accompanies the treaty when it is tabled publicly.
(t) in the absence of the point of order prompting the Government House Leader's response, how and when would the House have been informed of the exemption;
In the context of the Policy, the House would have been made aware of the granting of an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy in the Explanatory Memorandum which accompanies the treaty when it is tabled publicly.
(u) what steps and measures are in place to ensure that Parliament is informed of exceptions being granted to the Policy;
The Policy states: "If an exception is granted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification."
(v) what steps are in place to ensure that Canadians are informed when exceptions have been granted;
Informing Parliament publicly, as described under (u), is effective as a means of informing Canadians.
(w) what steps and measures are in place to ensure that Parliament is informed of exemptions being granted to the Policy;
The Policy states: "If an exception is granted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification."
(x) what steps are in place to ensure that Canadians are informed when exemptions have been granted;
Informing Parliament publicly, as described under (w), is effective as a means of informing Canadians.
(y) what does "urgent" mean in the context of the Policy;
The term "urgent" is not defined in the Policy.
(z) how was the ratification of the Agreement determined to be urgent;
The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA") was enacted by the U.S. in March 2010. FATCA requires non-U.S. financial institutions to report to the IRS accounts held by U.S. persons. Absent the Agreement, obligations for Canadian financial institutions to comply with FATCA would have been unilaterally and automatically imposed on them by the U.S. as of July 1, 2014. These obligations would have forced Canadian financial institutions to choose between (a) entering into an agreement with the IRS that would require them to report directly to the IRS on accounts held by U.S. residents and U.S. citizens, which would raise concerns about consistency with Canadian privacy laws; or (b) being subject to the 30 percent FATCA withholding tax on certain U.S.-source payments for not complying with FATCA.
The Agreement takes into account the objectives and provisions of the FATCA, while supporting Canada's objectives for improving the integrity and fairness of the Canadian tax system. The Agreement addresses the Canadian concerns about FATCA described above, as well as others. It was realized that observing the Policy's requirement of waiting 21 sitting days would have made meeting the U.S. FATCA deadline of July 1, 2014, unachievable. As a result, the ratification of the Agreement was determined to be urgent, and a request for an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was granted.
(aa) who made the determination in (z), (i) how, (ii) on the basis of what information, (iii) with what authority, (iv) under what criteria;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(bb) how was the decision in (z) reviewed, (i) by whom, (ii) how, (iii) when, (iv) by what criteria;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(cc) who are or were the lead ministers with respect to the Agreement in terms of the Policy and how was this determined;
The Minister of Finance is the lead Minister with respect to the Agreement. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is responsible for tabling treaties under the Policy.
(dd) when and how did the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the lead ministers seek approval from the Prime Minister for an exemption to the treaty tabling process;
Approval from the Prime Minister was sought. Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(ee) when was the approval in (dd) granted and how;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(ff) what correspondence is available -with file and control number- to corroborate the information provided in response to (dd) and (ee);
Approval from the Prime Minister was sought. Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(gg) was a “joint-letter that clearly articulates the rationale to proceed with the ratification, without tabling in the House of Commons" created;
No.
 (hh) with respect to the letter in (gg), (i) who created this letter, (ii) when is it dated, (iii) how can it be obtained, (iv) who has access to it, (v) to whom is it addressed;
No such letter was created.
(ii) was the letter drafted in consultation with the Treaty Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the relevant Secretariat in the Privy Council Office;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(jj) what documentation exists - with file or control number for each document - to corroborate the information provided in response to (ii);
No such document exists.
(kk) who is responsible for retention and access of such joint letters;
There are no special provisions for retention and access of such joint letters. Joint letters would be subject to the normal retention and access legislation, regulations, and guidelines for the Government of Canada.
(ll) with respect to the Agreement, were the responsible ministers and the Minister of Foreign Affairs aware early on of the need to request an exemption to the treaty process prior to obtaining Cabinet authority to sign a treaty;
Yes.
 (mm) how is "early on" defined for purposes of the Policy;
The term "early on" is not defined in the Policy.
 (nn) how is "aware" defined for purposes of this provision in the Policy;
The term "aware" is not defined in the Policy.
(oo) was a request made in a Memorandum to Cabinet, seeking policy approval for the Agreement;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(pp) what Memorandums to Cabinet exist relative to this agreement, (i) what are their dates, (ii) are they subject to privilege, (iii) who made them, (iv) what are their record or control numbers;
The Department of Finance will respond to this question and sub-questions. Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act
[Finance] Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old is considered a cabinet confidence and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(qq) which document in (pp) can be said to "clearly articulate the rationale for the exception to the treaty tabling process";
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(rr) what is the rationale for the exception to the treaty tabling process with respect to the Agreement;
The response in (z) outlines the rationale for requesting an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy.
(ss) who determines the rationale per the Policy;
The rationale was prepared through consultations by officials on behalf of the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of National Revenue.
(tt) what is an acceptable rationale per the Policy;
There is no definition of “acceptable rationale” under the Policy.
(uu) how is rationale defined in terms of the Policy;
The term "rationale" is not defined in the Policy.
(vv) is there a minimal level of sufficiency for a rationale per the Policy and if so what is it;
There is no definition of a "minimal level of sufficiency" for a rationale under the Policy.
(ww) when was the exception granted;
Information pertaining to Memorandums to Cabinet which are less than 20 years old are considered cabinet confidences and details of these are excluded from disclosure under the principles of the Access to Information Act.
(xx) did the Minister of Foreign Affairs "inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification" per the Policy;
Yes. The Agreement was publicly tabled on September 15, 2014 by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs as per Standing Order 32.2.
(yy) when did the actions in (xx) occur and how;
The Agreement was publicly tabled on September 15, 2014, which was the first sitting day of Parliament after the Agreement was ratified.
(zz) in 2014, how many exemptions or exceptions were granted under the Policy before the Agreement;
In 2014, there were two exemptions granted under the Policy. The first was concerning the Agreement. The second was concerning the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement.
(aaa) in 2014, was the Agreement's rationale for exception unique;
Yes. The ratification of the Agreement was determined to be urgent, and a request for an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was granted.
(bbb) in 2014, was the Agreement the only item determined to be urgent in terms of the Policy;
In 2014, the Agreement was one of two items determined to be urgent in the context of the Policy.
(ccc) is the Government House Leader always informed of exceptions and exemptions under the Policy and, if so, how;
The Department has no information on how the Government House Leader would be informed of exemptions to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy. There are no special provisions under the Policy to inform the Government House Leader of exemptions.
(ddd) is the House always informed of exceptions or exemptions under the Policy and, if so, how;
In the context of the Policy, "If an exception is granted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will inform the House of Commons that Canada has agreed to be bound by the instrument at the earliest opportunity following the ratification." (6.3b of the Policy).
 (eee) how early could the Agreement have been tabled in Parliament;
It was realized early on that observing the Policy's requirement of waiting 21 sitting days would have made meeting the FATCA deadline of July 1, 2014, unachievable. As a result, the ratification of the Agreement was determined to be urgent, and a request for an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was sought, and subsequently granted. Since an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was granted, the Agreement was to be tabled at the earliest opportunity following ratification. This was done as early as it could have been when the Agreement was tabled, in accordance with the Policy on September 15, 2014. It should be noted that the text of the Agreement was also set out in Schedule 3 to Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
(fff) how was the date in (eee) determined;
Since an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was granted, the Agreement was to be tabled at the earliest opportunity following ratification. This was done as early as it could have been when the Agreement was tabled, in accordance with the Policy on September 15, 2014. It should be noted that the text of the Agreement was also set out in Schedule 3 to Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
(ggg) if the Agreement could have been tabled earlier in Parliament than the date in (o), (i) why was it not, (ii) what decisions were made in this regard, (iii) who made these decisions, (iv) how, (v) on what basis; and
Since an exemption to the normal treaty tabling process under the Policy was granted, the Agreement was to be tabled at the earliest opportunity following ratification. This was done as early as it could have been when the Agreement was tabled, in accordance with the Policy on September 15, 2014. It should be noted that the text of the Agreement was also set out in Schedule 3 to Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which was introduced in the House of Commons on March 28, 2014.
(hhh) if the Statement could have been made sooner in the House than Monday, April 28, 2014, (i) why was it not, (ii) what decisions were made in this regard, (iii) who made these decisions, (iv) how, (v) on what basis?
The Department has no information on this question.

Reply by the Offices of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council
With regard to the Agreement, the Privy Council Office has no information in relation to part (ii) regarding a letter drafted in consultation with the Treaty Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.




Thursday, January 15, 2015

The Mercedes Benz of state tax competition

State-to-state tax competition continues unabated: Georgia has successfully lured Mercedes Benz away from New Jersey, presumably with a very generous package of employer- and capital-friendly tax and other regulatory policies. Politicians everywhere run on jobs & growth. Tax competition is about seeking a temporary displacement to your jurisdiction at the expense of another. Temporary because you are only as good as your last tax break, zero is not the bottom, and excessive tax reductions are unsustainable.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

UPDATE: China does NOT follow US lead, taxing its global diaspora. (If they did, it would be a terrible idea).

This is an update of an earlier post. Earlier today I wrote that the NY times reported that China is embracing US-style citizenship-based taxation, by enforcing "a little-known and widely ignored regulation: Citizens and companies must pay domestic taxes on their entire worldwide incomes, not just on what they earn in China." The update is that this is entirely wrong, and that the NY Times just completely mangled this story by failing to understand the difference between defining income and defining residence (a distinction to which I alluded in my original post, below).

The reality is discussed at length by Eric over at Isaac Brock, who explains that "No, China does not have citizenship-based taxation." Eric's interpretation has been confirmed to me by a couple of people I know who are Chinese tax experts. So, I invite you to go there to read the full account, which I won't repeat here except to quote the takeaway, which is:
China as a country has many flaws and lacks many freedoms, but at least it uses the same basic system of taxation followed by nearly every democracy and dictatorship: a system which avoids placing unreasonable barriers in the way of the basic human right to leave a country.
Thanks to Eric and thanks to my colleagues who took the trouble to write me personally to correct the record. I hope that the Times acknowledges the errors and writes a new article on the subject to confirm that yes, the US is alone in its comprehensive treatment of non-residents as if resident solely on the basis of legal status as nationals.

In my earlier post I noted that last year when reviewing constitutional articulations of the taxing power, I noticed that China's constitution would suggest that its tax authority could have a global reach:
Article 56: It is the duty of citizens of the People's Republic of China to pay taxes in accordance with the law.
Accordingly, though it seems that China's constitution leaves open the possibility for China to follow the flawed US approach, it thankfully does not. The Times reported that the move would "[put] China on the same side as the United States in a global debate over whether taxation should be primarily national or global," and then says "On the other side of the issue are European nations, Japan, Australia and Canada, all of which tax people within their borders but exempt most expatriates and overseas subsidiaries from paying income taxes in their home countries."

This is not quite right. There is a global debate about taxing multinational companies on their worldwide (group) incomes, or not. However, there is no global debate about taxing individuals on the basis of their nationality. There is the United States, and then there is the rest of the world, with a very few and very limited number of exceptions (discussed below). If China were to align with the United States on this, it would be very big news not just for the global Chinese diaspora, but also for the ongoing OECD project on automatic exchange of information and for FATCA, because both regimes will struggle to implement the impossible demands of birthright tracing, which is necessary to enforce citizenship taxation.

The taxation of citizenship is about the definition of tax residence, rather than the definition of income.  Many or perhaps most developed countries tax all individual residents, regardless of nationality, on their worldwide incomes. This makes sense because taxation is the pooling of resources for shared expenditures, and nationality and citizenship are irrelevant to this project. It would be absurd to only require citizens and nationals to pay for health care, schools, roads, police, courts, financial systems, etc, when the population using all of these goods and services includes noncitizens and nonnationals. Likewise,  it is absurd to expect individuals to pay taxes in your country merely because your citizenship laws have conferred a legal status on them.

As a result, the OECD's AEoI project envisions a global system to identify the tax residence of every individual that owns virtually any financial asset, anywhere in the world, so that governments can assess their residents' tax obligations. The US project on FATCA goes further, requiring the global system to identify the nationality of every individual that owns virtually any financial asset, anywhere in the world. It won't be easy to build the OECD's residence identification database, but it is perhaps possible, with the help of tax treaties that resolve dual-residence problems. On the other hand, if the whole world gets into the business of nationality identification, we are going to have problems. This involves tracing bloodlines and will quickly become extraordinarily complicated, if not impossible, as we have already seen with FATCA.

Every income tax system necessarily has extensive residence assignment rules, including the United States; it is just that the United States also includes nationality in its definition, while almost every other country does not. The United States does this even if such persons achieved US nationality through the accident of birth, even if they never stepped foot in the United States and have never used any US goods or services of any kind, even if they are also citizens and permanent residents of other countries from their birth, even if they have never has a social security number or a US passport, even if they do not know that that they are US nationals, and even though the claiming of persons as subjects by birth by a distant sovereign was the foundation for America's war for independence.

All other nation-states tax on the basis of residence, not nationality, with a few minor and limited exceptions. Here they are:
  • Eritrea taxes nonresident citizens permanently, at a reduced flat rate of 2% of worldwide income. It does this to finance an ongoing war, and had been denounced by the United States and the UN for the practice.
  • Finland treats nonresident citizens as tax resident for three years after the emigrate unless they demonstrate that they no longer have any ties to Finland. 
  • France treats nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents if they move from France to Monaco, per a treaty between the two nations.
  • Hungary treats nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents of Hungary, unless they also have another nationality or reside in a country which has a tax treaty with Hungary. 
  • Italy treats nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents if they move to a blacklisted tax haven unless they demonstrate lack of ties to Italy. 
  • Spain treats nonresident citizens as tax residents for five years following a move to a blacklisted tax haven.
  • Turkey treats nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents if they work for the Turkish government or Turkish companies but exempts income that is taxed by the country where it is earned. 
Some countries used to but no longer practice citizenship-based taxation:
  • Bulgaria used to treat nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents, but ended the practice with the adoption of a new income tax in 1998. 
  • Mexico used to treat nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents, but ended the practice with the adoption of a new income tax law in 1981.
  • Myanmar used to tax the foreign income of nonresident citizens at a flat rate of 10% but ended the practice in 2012. 
  • The Philippines used to tax the foreign income of nonresident citizens at reduced rates of 1 to 3% but ended the practice with the adoption of a new tax law in 1998.
  • The Soviet Union used to treat nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents, but after the country was dissolved in 1991, none of its successor states continued the practice. 
  • Vietnam used to used to treat nonresident citizens as permanent tax residents but ended the practice in 2009. 
We can easily see how global AeOI might make it possible to reverse this trend. If China was to adopt citizenship taxation and exert the same pressure as the US has with FATCA to achieve it, two very important countries would be stretching the residence definition beyond the OECD's global AEoI database. Bearing the extra costs and burdens of these extra measures would surely convince other countries to consider following suit.

That's why I think this would be a terrible idea. Fundamentally, taxing on the basis of citizenship is wrong from a normative point of view. But it is also a terrible idea for practical reasons. First, it's invasive (to say the least) to make access to basic bank accounts contingent on tracing bloodlines. Second, doing so globally, including forcing the world's poorest countries to play along, is a huge waste of administration resources by everyone. Third, creating global asset databases for tax exchange purposes creates massive security issues that have not been assessed in light of the fact that this will be done on the basis of nationality rather than residence. Finally, and in the long run, taxing on the basis of citizenship effectively restricts labour mobility, serving a goal I have not heard explained by anyone.

In a world in which state's tax subjects include their globally dispersed diasporas, global asset information exchange will make it a duty of every state to sort its population for differential treatment according to the birthright laws of the other states. This has never been an agenda item on any of the discussions I have seen regarding tax information exchange. It should be.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Top Tax on Twitter

I was very pleased to be included on a list of the top tax feeds on twitter, recently compiled by Kelly Phillips (aka @TaxGirl). I follow many of those listed, especially in the IRS, government, and media categories. Many useful sources here.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

On Paperwork and Punishment: It's Time to Fix FBAR

I published this last month but neglected to post it: my latest column in Tax Notes International takes a look at the foreign bank account report, or FBAR. Feel free to download it, early and often, right here. Here is the abstract:
The Foreign Bank Account Report, or FBAR, is part of a regime designed to stop terrorists, money-launderers, and tax evaders. Unfortunately, its increasingly draconian requirements and consequences now apply to millions of innocent bystanders who are collateral damage in the ongoing battle against financial crime. Their inclusion in the FBAR regime is a massive waste of both government and taxpayer resources, effectively criminalizing activities that are wholly unconnected to financial crime, and perversely discouraging compliance. All of this is unnecessary because as the administrator of FBAR, Treasury can immediately fix the problems. The difficulty is that FBAR is still relatively obscure to those not caught in its grasp, and the extent of the damage it is doing to U.S. taxpayers and to the integrity of the tax system is thus under-appreciated. This damage is real, but it can be reversed by re-focusing FBAR where Congress intended: on likely criminal activity. In short, this Essay demonstrates that the FBAR regime is broken and it is time for Treasury to fix it.
As always, I welcome comments.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Litigation over new US citizenship renunciation fee

The grassroots group that is challenging the validity of Canada's implementation of FATCA with respect to Canadian citizens and residents has released a letter to the U.S. State Department regarding the recent decision to increase the fee for renouncing U.S. citizenship--which is now $2,350. In 2009 the fee was zero. It was introduced in February 2010 (just before FATCA was enacted) and went into effect 6 months later, following Administrative Procedure Act requirements.

You can read the full letter here. In brief, the right to leave a country is not only a universally accepted human right, it is also enshrined in U.S. law. The letter challenges the fee in substance as an unlawful infringement of that right, and in process as a violation of the APA, as the State Department did not observe the procedural requirements for increasing the fee 500% even though it had done so in initially introducing it. Presumably, the group will commence litigation to enjoin the State Department from both legal violations.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Dawn of the Delta: Taming International Derivatives Tax Abuse

I recently contributed to the Columbia Tax Journal's Tax Matters Series, on Congress' attempt to constrain a particular form of international tax avoidance. The constraint in question is a fairly technical provision found in 871(m), which was enacted as part of the 2010 HIRE Act (also the source of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). You can find my overview at the link above, where I explain what section 871(m) was intended to achieve (it is an anti-abuse rule to stop people avoiding dividend withholding taxes) and how Treasury sought to achieve it with a test (called the delta test), and observe that this test has prompted criticism for being too broad, capturing more transactions than intended. I asked the practitioners to address the mischief of the over-breadth and what could be done to overcome this but still achieve the legislative aims. The practitioners responded as follows:

Section 871(M) and Delta: When Should a Dividend Equivalent be Treated like a Dividend?
By Mike Farber

Taxation Without Authorization: The Proposed “Dividend Equivalent” Withholding Regulations Under Section 871(m)
By Linda Z. Swartz, Shlomo Boehm, and Jason Schwartz

The Most Recent Proposed Regulations Under Section 871(M): The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
By Andrew Walker Read DOC or PDF

Enjoy.


Tuesday, August 12, 2014

FBAR e-filing: violates Taxpayer Bill of Rights, challengeable under Haar

Eric Kroh of Tax Analysts has a story today [gated] on the basic nonsense that is the FBAR (foreign bank account report) e-filing system. As he reports, in defiance of common sense, FinCEN's system does not work for normal users. It does not work on a mac at all, and it does not work on a PC if you have Adobe Acrobat installed (the user must uninstall and use adobe reader instead). So now in addition to frightening people by forcing them to register themselves for monitoring by "Financial Crimes Enforcement," making them feel like criminals just by visiting the website, the US Treasury is all about making sure the user encounters error after error, frustration without end, with no alternative because e-filing is required.

I'll make two points here. First, I think the entire FinCN experience violates the Taxpayer Bill of Rights recently adopted by the IRS, and second, I think the e-filing requirement is susceptible to legal challenge under the recent decision of the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board in Haar v Commr. Let's look at the TBOR first.

Kroh's article demonstrates that FinCEN's FBAR system pretty clearly violates provision 2 of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which guarantees taxpayers a right to quality service. Kroh describes how ridiculous it is to have a form-filing system that conflicts with one of the most ubiquitous pieces of software out there, namely, Adobe Acrobat. He notes that the FinCEN website fails to explain the known issues and offers no promises about maybe fixing this very basic problem. IRS: no blaming things on FinCEN to get out of your obligations. You're administering this mess. (FinCEN is a bureau of Treasury separate from the IRS, but IRS has responsibility for enforcing FBAR by levying penalties for non-compliance.)

The FinCEN experience also violates provision 10 in my view. Provision 10 says taxpayers have the "right to a fair and just tax system." It is neither fair or just in my view to force individuals to register and transmit sensitive personal information on a website that is built for the sole purpose of detecting money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes, where no evidence exists that the individuals have perpetuated or are planning to perpetuate any such crimes. This process constitutes an intimidation tactic. If you don't believe it, I invite you to visit the FinCEN website, register yourself, and file an FBAR form as a civics lesson.

I am not saying Treasury doesn't need the information FBAR requires (though much or most of it is egregiously duplicative with IRS forms that non-resident US persons already have to file). But I am saying there is no way that Treasury needs to extract this information by making individuals register on a website that so clearly transmits the message: "you are a suspected criminal and we are watching you."

Remember, we are talking about millions and millions of people who have "foreign" bank accounts because they live in foreign countries; most are citizens of those foreign countries where they live; and their banks are local to them. Congress treats these people as if they live in the United States, when they do not. But Congress does not similarly treat their local bank accounts as local (Congress should do so, and would fix many problems if they did, as I argued in a Tax Analysts column in 2012). This mismatch of fiction against fact does not make people money launderers or tax evaders. Many, many of these individuals are unjustly caught up in the US tax net because of the madness of citizenship taxation. Also: consider that the FBAR instructions even say that kids ought to fill out their own FBAR forms. Come on.

Taxpayer Rights, yes. But remedies? Not so Clear.

Whether violating the taxpayer bill of rights creates grounds for a lawsuit remains to be seen; I think Congress' continuous failure to codify the TBOR is precisely to prevent this possibility (I discussed the issue here). But the recent case of Haar v Commissioner suggests that a lawsuit challenging the requirement that FBAR forms be filed electronically would have merit. I note from Kroh's article:
According to a FinCEN FAQ, failure to comply with the electronic filing mandate could result in civil penalties, including a $500 fine for each negligent currency transaction. Exceptions to the mandate are allowed only in some limited circumstances, according to the agency. 
Now comes Haar:
This appeal involves the Commissioner’s assessment of a $100 penalty... because of the appellant’s failure to electronically submit [a payment in connection with an extension of time to file]...
 Mr. Haar maintained that the Commissioner’s electronic payment mandate is a “serious invasion of both [his] privacy and [his] personal business practices,” as it exposes his finances to risk of cyber attack.  On his abatement application, Mr. Haar explained, “I intentionally do no electronic banking nor direct bill paying, I have none of my credit cards linked to my bank accounts directly and I think anyone who does any of the above is exposing themselves to multiple risks of cybercrime and identity theft.”  At the hearing, Mr. Haar testified that he does not link his “bank account information in any electronic way to any other electronic medium” because he believes it is a “very foolish thing to do.” Mr. Haar further expressed doubts as to the security of the computer systems used by the Department of Revenue (“DOR”), noting that “if the Pentagon can be hacked,” he had little confidence that DOR could protect his – or any other taxpayer’s – personal data from theft. 
To which the Commissioner responded:
It was the Commissioner’s position ... that... she has the authority to mandate electronic filing and payment and to assess penalties if, after notice, a taxpayer failed to comply with the prescribed filing and payment mandates.  While ... penalties may be abated if a taxpayer can demonstrate “reasonable cause” for non-compliance, the Commissioner maintained that the appellant did not establish reasonable cause because Administrative Procedure 633 (“AP 633”) provides that “[t]he fact that a taxpayer does not own a computer or is uncomfortable with electronic data or funds transfer will not support a claim for reasonable cause.”  AP 633(II)(D). 
But the Appellate Tax Board saw things differently, noting that Treasury has steadily expanded e-filing requirements, but that there is no federal requirement that individual e-file their annual tax returns, and that reasonable cause is an objective standard that can't be eliminated by a mere declaration by Administrative Procedure. The ATB concluded:
On the facts of this appeal, particularly the appellant’s credible testimony concerning his consistent practice of avoiding the payment of his bills electronically, the Board found and ruled that the appellant exercised the degree of care that an ordinary taxpayer in his position would have exercised when he made his timely payment by check, contrary to the Commissioner’s electronic payment mandate.  The Board therefore found and ruled that the appellant met his burden of proving reasonable cause under § 33(g) for his failure to remit payment electronically in connection with his extension application for the tax year at issue. 
Accordingly, the Board issued a decision for the appellant in this appeal and granted an abatement of the $100 penalty, along with statutory additions. 
I note that Haar represented himself in that appeal. When I saw that FinCEN had made e-filing mandatory, I wondered if it would spark lawsuits. The Haar case suggests that such lawsuits might prevail if the facts and legal standards align.

Lawsuits are not the only way to protect taxpayer rights in this case, however. If the US practiced residence based taxation like the rest of the world, the universe of US taxpayers who have foreign bank accounts but who aren't rich enough to employ others to deal with complex US filing obligations will shrink to a negligible number and the issue all but goes away. Until then, Treasury can act, and act quickly to resolve the technical problems here, even if we have to wait for Congress to fix the underlying defect of citizenship taxation.

The solution is clear: Treasury should abolish FinCEN registration for FBAR purposes alone and the FBAR should be treated like other tax forms since it is administered by the IRS. The IRS should make the FBAR form available as a regular pdf on the IRS website like all the other tax forms, and have a link so people who choose to e-file can do so.


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Christians on Regulating Tax Preparers: A Global Problem for the IRS

I have a new column this week in Tax Analysts: Regulating Tax Preparers: A Global Problem for the IRS, in which I discuss the challenges of protecting a global taxpayer population from fraud and abuse and make (yet another) plea for sanity in the form of abandoning citizenship taxation and turning to residence-base taxation. Here is the gated published version; here is the SSRN version (ungated). And here is a brief abstract:


The IRS recently announced that its mandatory registration regime for paid tax return preparers, struck down in the Loving decision, would henceforth be offered as a voluntary program. But the authors of this program appear to have forgotten that the US system is perfectly global in reach, thanks to its permanent inclusion of citizens and others with legal residence status no matter where in the world they live. Protecting a global taxpayer population from fraud and abuse is an enormous task, with massive legal, administrative, and even diplomatic factors to consider. Citizenship taxation plagues the project of tax return preparer regulation, just as it does all aspects of US tax law. Accepting the universally practiced norm of residency-based taxation is the only viable solution. If Congress cannot do so, it will always be the case that for the IRS, thinking locally truly means acting globally.
Just as this was published, a friend sent me an email about a growing problem of FBAR fraud, in which criminals attempt to get personal & financial information from people by sending them serious looking notices. Here's an example, from Tax-Expatriation blog:


I'm sorry I didn't see this before I published my column, as I would have mentioned it as a significant issue. Capitalizing on the ignorance and fear of regular (non-rich) US persons outside the United States will be all too easy for criminals, I am afraid. I hope that the IRS and FinCEN can figure out a way to warn people--but I don't see how they can really do that on a global scale, especially since FATCA's job is to funnel information about millions of people to the IRS, and not the other way around. At minimum, every government that signs an agreement to implement FATCA should be sending out the warnings, since each is undertaking a huge responsibility in implementing US citizenship taxation on their own residents.


Monday, July 28, 2014

Sheppard on International Tax: What's Gonna Work? Teamwork.

Lee Sheppard has a nice column today on dual consolidated loss rules and BEPS (gated), in which she states:
Would-be reformers of the corporate income tax like to believe in the tax equivalent of a single game-changing player. They want an instant, simple solution -- be it a territorial system or formulary apportionment. They don't want to have to think about the grunt work of making an international system work. They don't want to have to think about the heavy lifting of rewriting the source rules. They don't want to think about detailed anti-hybrid rules. 
Of course she uses Argentina v Germany rather than the Wonder Pets, but same idea.

She goes on to explain the multiple problems posed by hybrid entities and how the BEPS hybrid draft has, and has not, addressed these. Sheppard's article demonstrates yet again that making income taxation work today means regulatory globalization that parallels the scale and scope of economic globalization.

The magnitude of the task is vividly demonstrated in FATCA: a concise statute that has rapidly expanded into thousands of pages of regulations, guidance, and agency explanations, a bilateral agreement network that dwarfs the US tax treaty network, and the spawning of a global compliance industry trucking in data collection, transfer, and analysis in both the private and public sectors. BEPS would be no different. it would require the same type of global infrastructure and the same level of sustained commitment. But it is clear that while the US has a great appetite for making FATCA work, and has directed all of its economic might to that effort, it is much, much less interested in seeing BEPS through. The ultimate outcome of BEPS is all too predictable from past OECD efforts that were not initiated by the US.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Potato Salad

If you don't immediately know what this post is about, then you are really missing out.  Here is the kickstarter campaign. I used a kickstarter question on my tax exam last year so a student sent me this. Then I found this article about the hysterical reaction. I sent it to my student, who thought if it happened to him he would appear on TV with a new rolex and carrying the potato salad in one hand, making the following entrance:



Yes, that looks just about right.

Tax Foundation has already posted an analysis concluding that the cash is taxable income. I disagree: though that is the presumption for kickstarter campaigns, presumptions are rebuttable with different facts and circumstances. In my view this campaign clearly sparked individuals to give out of detached and disinterested generosity, and therefore the full amount is excludable from income as a gift for tax purposes.