Charles Schwab, the San Francisco-based, NYSE-listed financial services giant that was in the news recently after it announced certain cutbacks and changes to its services for some of its American clients resident outside the U.S., is today reported by The Financial Times and other media outlets to be closing in on a US$25bn deal to acquire a smaller rival, TD Ameritrade.
First, U.S. investors living in Europe had to face FATCA. Now it’s the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).
Here, Jonathan Lachowitz, of Lexington, Massachusetts-based White Lighthouse Investment Management and chairman of the American Citizens Abroad, outlines the difficult position in which the legislation puts middle-class, overseas Americans when trying to buy simple exchange-traded funds (ETFs). (Such difficulties are, in fact, said to be behind reported plans by the European Commission, disclosed last week, to review and potentially make changes to the notoriously vast and complex MiFID legislation...)
Once again the latest quarterly renunciation data from the U.S. Treasury Department shows what appears to be a significant plunge in the number of individuals who officially renounced their U.S. citizenships in the most recent three-month period. However, Treasury spokesmen and even some citizenship renunciation experts are urging expats not to read too much into the numbers.
In an appearance on a well-known Canadian radio talk show on Friday, Toronto lawyer John Richardson explained how U.S. regulations that require Canadian (and other non-U.S.) banks and financial institutions to report to the Internal Revenue Service on their American account holders work, and described them as "incredibly intrusive".
The European Union is "preparing to re-tune" some of its MiFID II market rules from 2020, less than three years after they were first implemented, in response to criticism from investors and regulators of the controversial legislation, the Financial Times has reported.
At the same time as many of his fellow Canadian citizens are struggling with tax issues having to do with their dual American citizenships, and in some cases trying to give up their U.S. passports altogether, Neil Young has come forward to detail how he is fighting to become an American.
When news emerged earlier this month that Charles Schwab Corp., the major, NYSE-listed U.S. broker, bank and asset custodian, had been contacting clients in Europe to tell them that they needed to take certain actions with respect to their accounts before the end of the year, many American expat investors wondered whether other firms would soon be following Schwab’s lead...
First, U.S. investors living in Europe had to face FATCA. Now it’s the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). Here, Jonathan Lachowitz, of Lexington, Massachusetts-based White Lighthouse Investment Management...
Nov-20-2019
