THOUGHTS on the 'quest' for information ( is it the impossible dream?):

A) Why is the world aghast at the revelations of Edward Snowden; that the U.S. National Security Agency is looking at all emails, monitoring all phone calls, domestic or foreign? Perhaps I've lived in China too long but I know that the Public Security Bureau of the PRC knows everything about me that they want to know. Long ago and far, far away, I was a president of AmCham. My phone was tapped - and it was obvious, as they did such a poor job when it came to 'subtlety'! So my email is monitored ... big deal! One learns that since the phone, since Skype, since email is no longer private, then private matters are not to be communicated via these 'public' methods of communication. Frankly, I don't fear any government knowing what to do with all the information they may have gathered about me....on the other hand, I fear the exploitation of this information from a private entity such as Google.

B) Is the U.S. Internal Revenue Service snooping into telephone calls and emails, too? I guess that I am cynical enough, because I wouldn't be surprised. But why worry about it since the IRS still hasn't got a clue regarding getting its current computer generated letters correct. Ask any letter recipient who has actually attempted to translate the letter they received into user-friendly English and then attempted to verify its correctness, rather than paying off the billing (albeit incorrect) in order for it to 'go away': the overwhelming majority of letters sent out are still incorrect and I'd bet that the IRS realizes this but is stonewalling information about this, too, from the general public.

C) Are you aware that with FATCA registration, soon coming on the horizon, those who wish to be in compliance, from inception, will be required to do an e-filing of an application for registration? Are you aware that in the 18 June issue of Worldwide Tax Daily of Tax Analysts, an 'unnamed' IRS official bluntly stated that that initial filing, for a global intermediary identification number is only a precursor to foreign financial institutions' compliance with FATCA - that's where the real paperwork shuffle comes in - it's either that or a 30 percent penalty - or threat of not being able to do any financial business in or through the U.S. And in that same article, that same, unnamed IRS official discussed starting that application (and go on the IRS's new data base that much sooner!) immediately, but holding off submitting it until all the loose 'nuts and bolts' of information asked for can be provided, signed and attested to by - at least - two officers/directors of the applying business.

D) Ah, but why suggest going online, immediately? Want to bet (I'd bet the house on this one!) that the information provided - even though it has not been formally submitted, immediately goes into that growing data mining co-operative venture between the Criminal Investigations Division of the IRS and the US Department of Justice? And once you have been added to that data base, outside of the United States, would anyone be surprised if the NSA also got into the act and that your company, its website and its online files will be data mined by the U.S., too?? Let's face it - the current computer system of the IRS ain't worth a damn. Thus, data mining ala Google became the IRS's modus operandi from 2009, onward. Is it working? Who knows??? What I do know is that they still don't generate correct letters off of their system ...

E) Hey, I hate this as much as you do! Yet this is the way that governments - at least those governments in the lands in which I live - act. IRS code is nearly 78,000 pages long. Aside from supporting a tax industry of workers at all levels of the financial spectrum, there is so much in there of which we are not aware, that I suppose we, the U.S. tax filing public, are all 'criminal' in the eyes of the new divisions created by an IRS which has gone from an enforcement agency to both a law making and enforcement agency. Will this trend continue?

F) Praise be the National Council, the lower house of Swiss government! They take the Don Quixote award of 2013 for fighting directly against the US windmill. On Tuesday, 18 June, as reported that same day in the Wall Street Journal (a supposedly authoritative source), the lower house of the Swiss parliament, by a vote of 126 for to 67 against, voted against even considering the FATCA agreement reached by and between the Swiss and US governments, to allow Swiss banks to circumvent the Swiss Federation secrecy laws and turn information over to the U.S. government. The Swiss cabinet, obviously scared because they want to protect their banking system from the wrath of the U.S. government, urged the upper house of Parliament, to which the rejected bill is now returned to pass it again and send it back to the lower house. Now wouldn't things get interesting if the upper house rejected it, this time around?

Earlier this year, Wegelin & Co. the oldest bank in Switzerland, was hit with U.S. indictments and is now out of business. In 2010, UBS paid USD 780 million in fines and turned over what was initially thought to be 4,450 client files to the IRS. I can tell you, authoritatively, that 4,449 files were turned over because I was one of a few - if not the only - American professional who, on behalf of a Swiss law firm, communicated directly with the Swiss Federation Tax Administration regarding clients involved in this matter. I can also tell you that the IRS simply did not anticipate the volume of paper work they received and I am still questioning the IRS capability of reviewing all of what they received.

So, what do I think the outcome will be regarding the 'recalcitrant' Swiss parliament and the IRS? Well the first thing that comes to mind is that subsequent to the Second World War, the only war the U.S. has won has been the war against Switzerland and its secrecy. Were the U.S. to decide to throw its financial weight around, it would obviously win in perhaps the only area it is still capable of winning a war. But what if the upper house defies pressure and as a result, the Swiss legislature totally defies FATCA? Will others rebel? Surely, with China and India not being part of the FATCA regime over half the world is not 'on board FATCA'. At what point will others opt to get off FATCA? The cost is not worth it because there is no benefit to offset the cost.

O.K. Enough of the dreamer in me .... Switzerland will cave in - there will simply be too much pressure from the U.S., otherwise. FATCA will eventually fail but only upon becoming the fiasco that I believe it will become. Oh, and I also believe that until the FATCA fiasco, I'm going to write a lot more articles about it all!!