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U.S.
FATCA tax law catches unsuspecting Canadians in its crosshairs - (finance.yahoo.com) A Calgary woman's developmentally disabled son
is caught in a U.S. tax quagmire that she fears may cost him the money she
spent years setting aside for his financial future. "He's entrapped,"
said Carol Tapanila, the 70-year-old mother. "There's no way out. He is
entrapped into U.S. citizenship." Her 40-year-old son was born in a
Calgary hospital, but automatically received U.S. citizenship because both his
parents were American. That simple fact may soon create financial woes for the
Tapanila family. Starting in July, a new U.S. tax law, the Foreign Account Tax
Compliance Act (FATCA), goes into effect. It requires banks around the world to
sift through client accounts to find anyone with U.S. connections and send that
information to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The law is aimed at Americans
who are hiding offshore accounts, but the information sharing is likely to
unearth many unsuspecting Canadians with U.S. citizenship, like Tapanila's son,
who didn't realize they were required to file U.S. taxes. Tax law expert Allison
Christians calls the Tapanila case "ridiculous" and a "classic
example of why the law is unjust." "[FATCA] was intended to find rich
American tax cheats hiding out in Switzerland," said Christians, who
teaches tax law at McGill University, but it "will now punish poor,
disabled Americans living in other countries, who are only American by
birth."
Mortgage forecasts lowered
for 2014 - (www.cnbc.com) Rising interest rates and a still slow housing
recovery have some of the nation's largest banks reporting huge drops in
residential mortgage originations. Both Wells Fargo and JP
Morgan Chase saw originations plummet in the fourth quarter of
2013, down 60 percent and 54 percent respectively from a year ago. "These
guys are stuck with a lot of liquidity and not a lot of loan growth," said
FBR analyst Paul Miller in an interview on CNBC. Barely an hour after the two
banks reported their quarterly earnings, the Mortgage
Bankers Association lowered its mortgage origination forecast
for 2014 by $57 billion to $1.12 trillion for the year.
Thai
protesters start Bangkok "shutdown" in bid to topple PM - (www.cnbc.com) Thousands of anti-government protesters began a
blockade at major intersections in Bangkok on Monday as they sought to paralyse
Thailand's capital, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra
to resign. Police and soldiers kept watch as the city of some 12 million people
ground to a halt, but there were no signs that the government was preparing to
resist the protesters with force. The upheaval is the latest chapter in an
eight-year conflict pitting Bangkok's middle class and royalist
establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and
her self-exiled brother, billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The Bullish Economic Story May Be On The Verge Of A Change -
(www.businessinsider.com) There's been a lot of talk lately about how the
U.S. economy seems to be breaking out, but it looks likely that such enthusiasm
may be tempered going forward. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note broke
through to a new multi-year high of 3.03% on the final day of 2013, following
the Federal Reserve's Dec. 18 decision to begin tapering down its bond-buying
program known as quantitative easing and the attendant sell-off in the U.S.
government bond market. Friday's release of the December jobs report, however,
sent yields tumbling 10 basis points in a single day, and they are now back
below where they were when the tapering-induced sell-off began. Last week,
before the jobs report, we highlighted Citi's Economic Surprise Index,
which stood at its highest level in nearly two years headed into the release.
The surprise index measures how much better or worse economic data progress
relative to the expectations of market economists, so a high number means the
data are blowing expectations out of the water.
U.S.
Regulators Said Ready to Ease Volcker CDO Limits for Banks - (www.bloomberg.com) U.S. regulators are set to give banks an
exemption from Volcker Rule limits for collateralized debt obligations composed
mostly of small-bank securities, according to two people briefed on the
agencies’ plans. The adjustment to the rule, which could come as soon as today,
would allow banks to keep CDOs backed by trust-preferred securities while
limiting the level of insurance and big-bank content, said the people, who
requested anonymity because the regulators haven’t acted. After regulators
approved the Volcker Rule on Dec. 10, smaller U.S. banks said it could force
them to take as much as $600 million in losses on certain CDOs held by about
300 firms. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp., Securities and Exchange Commission and Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency said they would consider exempting the securities and would deliver
their answer by tomorrow. The exemption would grant grandfathering protection
to CDOs held before last month, as long as they meet thresholds ensuring they
are largely tied to securities issued by banks with less than $15 billion in
assets, the people said. As a so-called interim final rule, it can be
implemented while still allowing the agencies to collect comments.
U.K.
Inflation Slows to BOE Target for 1st Time Since ’09 - (www.bloomberg.com)
Japan Current-Account Deficit Swells to Record on Weaker Yen - (www.bloomberg.com)
Japan Current-Account Deficit Swells to Record on Weaker Yen - (www.bloomberg.com)
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