Comments on: Chavez Wins Fourth Term in Venezuela

By: LongShortman

LongShortman — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:25:00 +0000

I can attest to what Rogelio and JustMe have written. My Venezuelan-born wife is much freer than I, an American, am living abroad. We both live and work in Europe. As a Venezuelan, she has had no issues in working with banks here, to the extent that my name is not also on the account. I, on the other hand, have been politely chased out of two banks this year due to a new US law called “FATCA”, although I am 100% US tax compliant. European banks just don’t want the bother and risk of having to comply with an extra-territorial US law and so it is easiest to boot out anyone with US citizenship. To simplify my life, I plan to renounce my US citizenship in the coming months. So much for the blah, blah of “land of the free”.

By: Just_Me_Also

Just_Me_Also — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 03:42:00 +0000

It is sad to think, that Venezuelan’s life abroad is more free than Americans who live abroad. I think Roger sums up the situation well. FATCA is turning American’s into pariahs, and Venezuelans have no such worries. Neither do they have to file FBARs back to Hugo, or submit tax returns. If they are living in America, they can open an account in American bank, without worrying that their bank will send their bank account data to Hugo, so he can tax them where they live. But America is exceptional, and with that comes the exceptionally long arm reach of the IRS. It knows no boundaries. It has no limits. Even Chavez knows his power ends at his border.

By: RogelioC

RogelioC — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:14:00 +0000

In spite of the
tragic loss of liberty for many Venezueleans as Chavez moves the country towards his final goal of making Cuba a communist state where the government owns everything and private property is only a memory, those Venezuelans who live abroad are free to do so with relative freedom from
the repression those back home suffer.

For example, they
do not have to renounce their Venezuelan citizenship in order to be able to
survive living outside of Venezuela. Their Venezuelan citizenship remains intact
even though they live permanently or temporarily outside of Venezuela. They pay
taxes to the country where they now live but are not subject to the Venezuelan
taxation on their incomes they receive while living, working or are retired
abroad and do not have to file income tax returns with Venezuelan tax
authorities if they are bona-fide residents of another country.

Unlike US citizens who live abroad, they do not have to
provide their home-country tax authorities with annual reports of the bank accounts
they have in the country where they live. And they do not have to
spend thousands of dollars for professional tax assistance in order to complete
and file a complex equivalent to the US FATCA tax form reporting on all their
financial holdings, retirement accounts, pensions, the actuarial value of future
foreign social security benefits, brokerage accounts, etc. to Venezuelan tax
authorities.

And they are not
prevented by local banks where they now live from opening or maintaining bank
accounts because foreign banks which have accounts held by Venezuelan
citizens are are not required to file annual reports on each of these accounts
with Venezuela’s tax authorities or be subject to a withholding tax on money
transfers from Venezuela. Such transfers from Venezuela are not even permitted.

They can make return visits to to their families
back in Venezuela without fear that they will be arrested and punished when they
step off a plane in Caracas for failing to have filed letter-perfect tax
returns, FBAR or FATCA reports on their non-Venezuelan source income or from
assets outside of the country.

So even though they do not enjoy many of the
liberties enjoyed by US citizens, there are certain liberties, described above,
which they do enjoy which Americans who live in a different country no longer
have.