Designed for Google and Amazon and applied to individual Americans abroad …
ADCS Press Release on the Transition Tax and GILTI: The Alliance For The Defence Of Canadian Sovereignty issued a press release on the impact of the “transition tax and GILTI” on people with tax residency in other countries. Although issued in November of 2017, it attracted a number of comments. These comments provide insight into how U.S. citizenship-based taxation damages people in other countries.
Comments made in November 2017 (before the world heard about the transition tax)
The comments (from November of 2017 which is well before the Section 965 transition tax was understood) are here.
Comments in September/October 2018
As described in this post, U.S. Treasury has been seeking comments about the Sec. 965 transition tax. The deadline for comments is October 9, 2018. You can read the comments here.
Comments that are particularly noteworthy are:
From American Citizens Abroad – on behalf of all Americans abroad
From James Gosart an individual
To: United States Department of the Treasury
Subject: Re: Proposed Regulations under Section 965 [REG 104226-18]
The transition tax is a killer for small American owned overseas businesses.
I am a small business owner of a consulting company in Hong Kong. Around the world, I’m sure there are thousands of small American business owners like me.
I formed the company in 2011 after spending more than 25 years based in China and Asia as an expat employee of a major US corporation. During the 7 years the company has been in operation, I have helped US companies and investors with their China and Asia strategies, ultimately growing their businesses in Asia and contributing to US based employment. My company paid corporate taxes annually in Hong Kong. I have now relocated to the US and I’m in the process of shutting the business down.
The new transition tax is so burdensome and complex that there is no way I would start such a business today. Nor would I recommend it to anyone else. For the US to decide to retroactively tax retained earnings of small US owned overseas businesses is so draconian and unprecedented that it will seriously impact the survival of countless numbers of such businesses. Even if a US owned overseas business is capable of making this payment, and many will not be able to, how can any business survive when faced with a 17.5% tax that their non-US owned competitors do not have? In addition, many thousands of Americans who use lawful local corporate entities as retirement savings vehicles will see their lifelong retirement savings decimated.
The Commerce Department has long estimated that for every $1 billion of business done by American business abroad 5,000 domestic US jobs are supported. Based on my own anecdotal experience I agree with that. No doubt the transition tax will cause thousands of American owned small businesses to close, or fail to start in the first place, will cause the loss of many thousands of US based American jobs, and will damage the lives of countless numbers of Americans living abroad.
I do not believe the transition tax for small business can be made fair or workable. It must simply be dropped altogether.
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And on the Home front …
The FATCA Canada lawsuit continues: The Alliance For The Defence Of Canadian Sovereignty announces the filing of its Memorandum of Fact and Law. The trial is expected to be heard in January of 2019.
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More on the U.S. “Transition Tax”
This is Part 19 of my series of posts discussing the Section 965 U.S. Transition Tax. This has been reposted with permission from Americansabroadfortaxfairness.org.
