All Expats Could Soon Feel the FATCA Pinch

Flickr Photo Credit - Steve Johnson

If you're an American citizen then you may be very aware of FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) if you are not an American, now may be the time for you to get educated because the UK and Russia are rolling-out their own versions of FATCA.

FATCA requires American citizens, including Americans living outside of the Unite States, to report their financial accounts held outside of the US. The act also requires foreign banks to report information about their American clients to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Thailand Business Law: Attorneys at Chaninat & Leeds are experts in company registration and business law

FATCA makes life for American citizens living abroad more difficult, so difficult that some Americans have considered giving up their citizenships. It has also recently been reported that American’s are increasingly being denied accounts at international banks as the financial institutions are reluctant to track and report data to the IRS as FATCA requires.

According to Thailawforum, the UK and Russia have recently drawn up their own versions of the tax law based on the American system. All expats should be aware, they too may begin to feel the pinch from their own government tax collection agencies.

Read more here.

Related Articles:
The US FATCA: “The Neutron Bomb of the Global Financial System”?
U.S. Expats Frustrated with Taxes, Giving Up Citizenship
FATCA: Where Does Thailand Stand?

Northern Ireland Makes Paying for Sex a Crime in New Law

According to The Guardian, Northern Ireland passed a controversial law on Tuesday, October 21, 2014 targeting prostitution clients by making it illegal to pay for sex.

The legislation outlawing buying sex is found in one clause in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, and was subsequently approved in the Stromont assembly’s affirmative vote on the overarching bill.

According to The Guardian, at least one politician, Justice Minister David Ford, opposed addressing several different issues in one piece of legislation, stating that he didn’t believe “the complexities of prostitution can be adequately addressed in a single clause in a bill.”

Chaninat and Leeds’ Thailand prenuptial attorneys are internationally recognized experts in the field of international prenuptial law.

A recent survey of Northern Ireland sex workers revealed that an overwhelming majority of sex workers also opposed the new law and didn’t believe criminalizing their clients would serve to “protect” them, but would actually have the opposite effect. According to The Guardian, “about 17,500 men pay for sex in Northern Ireland every year.”

Keep reading:

Northern Ireland: 98% of sex workers oppose new law criminalising clients

Northern Ireland ban on paying for sex is approved by Stormont assembly

Read more sex industry news:

Canada Sex Industry Study: ‘Sex Workers Are Average Canadians’

Dominatrix Kicked Out of Canadian Senate Hearings

Sex Prevention Officer Heads Prostitution Ring

Sex Workers Giving People with Disabilities “A Chance”

Watch these videos about the sex industry in Thailand:

Thai Prostitutes Helped by NGO Nightlight

London Gangs Capitalize on Legalized Same-Sex Marriages, Stage Fake Gay Weddings for Citizenship

At least one Romanian gang has found a way to exploit recently legalized same-sex marriages in England by arranging fake gay marriages for immigrants to apply for citizenship, according to BBC Inside Out.

BBC Inside Out exposed the immigration fraud after sending an undercover journalist acting as an immigrant illegally in the UK to meet with two gang leaders. In the BBC investigative segment, the men claimed to have experience successfully arranging many fake gay marriages to evade immigration officers.

The Bangkok divorce lawyers at Thai law firm Chaninat and Leeds are experts on Thailand divorce law and legal procedures in Thai family courts.

According to the BBC’s report, the practice of faking a marriage to obtain citizenship is not a new idea as it has previously been seen in cases with straight couples. Mark Rimmer, head of Registration and Nationality Services at Brent Council, said “up to 20 to 30% of [straight couple’s] marriages are actually for the avoidance of immigration control."

What is unique about the new boom in fake same-sex marriages for the same purposes is that registrar’s are not as familiar with the body language of same-sex couples to recognize fraud when they see it, according to Rimmer.

Keep reading “Gay Weddings Targeted for UK Citizenship” for the full story.


Related Stories:

England and Wales Say Yes To Gay Marriage

Thailand to Vote on Same-Sex Union Bill This Year

Detention of David Miranda

My colleague asked me this morning if I was interested in recording a video about David Miranda's detention.

David Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, who is better known as the journalist responsible for writing the stories in the Guardian about Edward Snowden.

However this week David was detained at Heathrow airport for just under nine hours under the UK Terrorism Act. He was passing through Heathrow on transit on his way home to Brazil. 

Schedule 7 gives officers power to question a person at an airport if they believe the person concerned involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

There appears to be no that authorities truly believed that Miranda is a terrorist, which suggests that his detention and questioning at Heathrow is down to the Snowden story.

Thailand Criminal Defense Lawyer 

Chaninat and Leeds specializes in international criminal cases in Thailand

Schedule 7 does not provide authority to detain and question partners of journalists simply because the state disapproves of the articles written by said journalist or the source of the information. 

This got me thinking whilst I was researching the story. I live and work in Thailand, but will be visiting friends and family in the UK over Christmas. However I have no desire to be detained by UK authorities when I land at Manchester airport.

Now clearly Greenwald is a much bigger fish to fry than me, but he has suggested this week that the detention of his partner was purely for intimidation reasons. The fact that it led to me question with my colleague whether this was a story I should step away from suggests that if this was the objective, then it has clearly worked.

The news this week has certainly made me question just how much further are authorities going to abuse their power in the future?

Related Video:

Flickr photo credit: eGuide Travel

Are English Prenuptial Agreements Enforceable?

Many people still believe that English prenuptial Agreements are still not legal valid, and whilst that is still technically true, English courts have in fact started to uphold them in the event of a dispute.

Prenuptial agreements can help create a financial plan that can be managed through the course of marriage and in the event of a divorce, to control the division of assets between the husband and wife.

Thailand Prenuptial Lawyer 

Chaninat and Leeds law firm specialize in drafting international prenuptial agreements 

In 2010, English courts upheld a prenuptial agreement, and since then, more and more courts have been showing a willingness to uphold and follow the terms of prenuptial agreements. This is of course still a discretionary power, as they is no specific law yet providing for prenuptial agreements in England, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

There is presently formal legal consultation ongoing about prenuptial agreements, and it is thought they could become legal towards the end of 2013/early 2014.

Thailand lawyers advise that prenuptial agreements will be null and void unless they are officially registered in Thailand before the marriage. Prenuptial agreements are not registered in Western countries.

Related Video:

Relevant Articles:  Prenuptial Agreements: US Law, Thailand Law and EU Law Compared                                              International Prenuptial Agreements: Conflicts of Law in the US                                               European Prenuptial Agreements and the Hague Convention                                              Prenuptial Agreements in Japan - the Devil’s in the Details                                              The New Developments in the United Kingdom

Has Kenneth Clarke Breached The Ministerial Code Over Bildeberg?

We reported only yesterday about the performance put on by bumbling British MP, Kenneth Clarke in the House of Commons, as he was asked a question regarding the recent hush hush Bilderberg conference.

Well today, the storm continues. Technocracy has been reported that Mr Clarke did not announce the 2012 meeting which he attended with many senior media executives in Chantilly,Virginia, USA while he was Secretary of State for Justice.

The Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, the Chairman & CEO of The Washington Post Company, the Chief Economics Commentator of  The Financial Times present just a taste of influential senior social media executives who were also in attendance. 

The Ministerial Code sets our acceptable conduct for government ministers: “the rule book for ministerial conduct, including the responsibilities of Ministers to Parliament.”

The trouble for Mr Clarke is that in 2011, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron ordered that the Code be amended to include the following:

“The Government will be open about its links with the media. All meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives will be published quarterly regardless of the purpose of the meeting.”

It seems however for reasons unknown, that Mr Clark failed to record his foreign attendance on his quarterly expense claim sheet.

Thailand Criminal Lawyer 

Chaninat and Leeds specializes in international criminal cases in Thailand

He may well have also breached the Ministerial Code by failing to declare the Bilderberg conference in his officially published transparency data. The same could very well be true for the Chancellor George Osborne.

How is it possible for the British public to retain any trust in their own Government when it has no transparency and seems unable to follow one of its own codes?  Surely this only reduces faith and flames cynicism about parliament. So much for  Mr Cameron’s promise to his country in 2010 that he would run the  ’most open and transparent government in the world’.

In the meantime, we look forward to seeing if a full and proper inquiry is undertaken into Mr Clarke’s abuse of the Ministerial Code.

Read the full article here

Relevant Articles: British MP Forced To Answer Embarrasing Bilderberg Question

                               Thailand’s Anti-Corruption Network Gets UNDP

 Thailand prenuptial attorneys, Chaninat and Leeds explain that prenuptial agreements which have international aspects to them, may fall under different legal jurisdictions which have different requirements. It is therefore important to ensure any Thailand prenuptial agreement addresses those needs and is valid under Thailand Prenuptial Law.

Prenuptial agreements are a specialized form of contract because governments play a far larger role in prenuptial agreements because they regulate family affairs. This is different to most standard legal contracts.

Different jurisdictions have different requirements for what makes a prenuptial agreement valid.

The important thing to remember about prenuptial agreements is that their quality  will only be tested when an attempt is made to enforce by one of the parties. Unlike  a new car, which can be test driven, or a a new electrical item which should offer a warranty allowing a defective or faulty product to be returned or exchanged, there is no way of knowing the validity of the prenuptial agreement you have entered into, unless divorce proceedings are commenced. If there is then an issue with the the prenuptial agreement being defective, it may be too late to change it.

Jurisdiction issues are better explained by way of an example.

If there is only one jurisdiction involved in a prenuptial agreement then matters tend to be straightforward. For example, Couple A live, get married, get divorced, and have all of their assets in California. Any prenuptial agreement should be relatively straightforward as there is only one jurisdiction - California.

In contrast, things can change when there are two or more different jurisdictions. Couple B met and got married in Thailand, but then moved to New York. After commencing divorce proceedings, Mr B decides to stay in New York, but Mrs B returns to Thailand. They have joint assets in Thailand and the US. Any divorce proceedings or enforcement of a prenuptial agreement would be far more complicated than in the first scenario because Thailand and the US operate under different legal systems. There could well be a conflict between those laws.

It is important therefore that any prenuptial agreements anticipates this issue.A consumer may therefore wish to consider instructing a practitioner who has both divorce and prenuptial litigation experience and is confident with international issues.

Watch the video here:

Related Documents: Thailand Prenuptial Law

Related Articles: U.S. Prenuptial Agreements in Thailand: Why Thai Law is Important
                                         International Prenuptial Agreements: Conflicts of Law in the United States
                                         Prenuptial Agreements: US Law, Thailand Law and EU Law Compared
                                         International Prenuptial Agreements: Issues for Prenuptial Agreements in the United States
                                         U.S. Courts and the Application of Foreign Law to International Prenuptial Agreements
                                          Prenuptial Agreements Could Be Challenged