The IRS has introduced an additional form – Form 8938 – which is a Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets, that needs to be filed along with income tax returns from 2012. This is in addition to a similar form that taxpayers are required to file – Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report or FBAR.

Both the forms are intended to secure more information about financial assets and transactions of US citizens and residents with respect to their overseas bank accounts.

These forms are designed to help the IRS in identifying international tax non-compliance of American taxpayers. Form 8938 asks questions such as whether the bank account was opened during the last financial year. Answer to this question can provide a prompt to the IRS for further investigation of overseas accounts.

Tax experts feel that these forms are designed to specifically track the overseas accounts in Switzerland and India. Earlier in 2011, the United States Justice Department conducted a probe into bank accounts of US residents with HSBC India, which remained undisclosed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The new Form 8938 – will have to be included with the 2011 returns, if applicable. The form is not limited only to US citizens, but also applies to US residents as well.

Who needs to file Form 8938

Certain US taxpayers holding specified foreign financial assets with an aggregate value exceeding $50,000 will report information about those assets on new Form 8938, which must be attached to the taxpayer’s annual income tax return.

You must file Form 8938  if:

1. You are a specified individual AND

2. You have an interest in specified foreign financial assets required to be reported AND

3. The aggregate value of your specified foreign financial assets is more than the reporting thresholds that applies to you

Read Form 8938 instructions on IRS website (PDF file) for more information on assets that do not have to be reported.

Indians in the US will need to incude share holdings, mutual fund holdings, ULIP and insurance policy holdings, pension plans and bank balances in India.

Interestingly, for the purposes of Form 8938, financial assets do not include physical assets like property, silver and gold. Of course, investment in gold via ETFs (Exchange Traded Fund), will need to be declared.

Taxpayers will have to disclose the maximum value during the tax year of each financial asset included on Form 8938. For the purposes of conversion, the taxpayer can use the currency rate on the last day of the tax year.

Finally, Form 8938 must be filed by 17 April 2012 for US tax year 2011.

(This is not financial guidance. Please consult your accountant for professional advice.)

But the numbers are not in favour at this stage. Just over 61,000 babies were born in New Zealand in 2011, the lowest in the last five years. At the same time, 1640 more people died in 2011 than the year before, partly because of the Christchurch earthquake. The number of deaths in 2011 exceeded 30,000 for the first time.

“The number of deaths is gradually increasing due to population growth in the older age groups,” says Statistics New Zealand’s population statistics manager Andrea Blackburn.

With these birth and date numbers, the Kiwi population increased by 31,400 people – the lowest since 2006. That’s before taking into account emigration – people leaving the country.

As many as 1855 more people left New Zealand than those that arrived in the country.

Asians will comprise 16% of the total population by 2026

The country has lost 44,900 people to Australia alone. After considering this migration effect, the country recorded only 0.7% population growth which is only 29,600 people, again the smallest rise in a decade.

Also, the population loss due to emigration is now different from the last decade. Young professionals and parents in their thirties are leaving the shores, as against a younger population in their twenties leaving in the 1990s.

Statistics NZ’s projections indicate that deaths will continue to increase, and are expected to surpass 40,000 in 2029 and 50,000 in 2042.

Two in three people (67%) leaving New Zealand on long-term basis were citizens of the country (year ended June 2011), while only 28% of New Zealand citizens have returned.

Clearly, the gap needs to be filled, and it will need to be filled by migrants. And where will these migrants come from? Maybe the past numbers can be an indication. The largest net inflow of permanent migrants to New Zealand was from India (6,000), followed by the United Kingdom (5,200), and China (4,200) during the year ended June 2011.

There were also inflows from the Philippines (1,800), Germany (1,400), the United States, Ireland (each 1,100), Japan, and Samoa (each 900).

Here’s the good news – while New Zealand is faced with the problem of ageing (read ‘non-working’) population, the long-term migrants it is attracting is an ideal match. Half of long-term arrivals were 15–29 years of age – just the right group to train and assimilate the youth in the Kiwi culture.

Ironically, the numbers also show that non-citizens are less likely to leave New Zealand, and citizens are less likely to return to New Zealand.

Here are numbers – in the June 2011 year, 60,200 non-New Zealand citizens migrated to New Zealand, compared to only 23,800 New Zealand citizens returning. New Zealand-citizen departures numbered 53,700 in the same year, while non-New Zealand citizen departures were only 26,400.

Let’s bite the bullet and accept that New Zealand needs migrants for its economy to sustain its pace, and those migrants are likely to be from India, China, the UK and Philippines.

Between 2006 and 2026, the broad Asian, Pacific, and Māori ethnic populations are all projected to grow faster than the New Zealand population overall.

The most significant change will be to the broad Asian ethnic group, comprising 16% of the total population by 2026, up from 10 percent in 2006.

However, there’s no need to panic about “ethnic invasion”. ‘European’ will still be the largest ethnic group, making up 70% of the total population in 2026, although this is a drop from 77% in 2006.

It’s about time New Zealand immigration opened its borders; and Kiwi employers opened their arms and hearts to utilise the inflow of skilled migrants.

Auckland to lead by example

When it comes to such ethnic diversity, the Auckland region will have to show the way to the rest of the country. As a region with most jobs in the country, it will be a natural attraction for migrants.

About two-thirds of the growth in the Asian population during 2006–21 is projected to occur in the Auckland region, and almost half of the national growth is projected to occur in Auckland and Manukau cities. In Auckland city, one-third (34%) of its residents will identify with an Asian ethnicity by 2021, up from one-quarter (25%) in 2006. In fact, Auckland, Manukau, North Shore and Waitakere cities will be home to 65% of New Zealand’s Asian population in 2021, compared with 64% in 2006.

Iris Pabayo, who recently migrated to New Zealand from Philippines, found contacts through Facebook.

“The highlight of our settlement journey to New Zealand is Facebook,” says Pabayo, who has been in New Zealand for a month now. “Through Facebook we got referred by a family member, to someone they knew in Auckland, who could help us with accommodation upon our arrival.”

New migrant Iris Pabayo enjoying Kiwi summer with her daughter

Pabayo also found a support network group, Settlement Support Auckland, on Facebook. More than 2000 newcomers contacted Auckland’s four Settlement Support New Zealand (SSNZ) initiatives for assistance in the last six months, resulting in 3,739 referrals to other service providers. Over 505 activities and workshops were provided to newcomers, to help them settle, make connections with their local communities, find employment and learn English.

Pabayo says making connection with a local church was very important for her family.

“We consider ourselves religious and being in a new country, especially around New Year’s time can get very lonely.

“We were referred to a church by someone we knew and it was great luck for us! We met so many Filipinos at the church; the pastor even helped us with schooling information for my girl,” Pabayo says.

“When I went into SSNZ Auckland profile, I saw other Filipinos in the friends list and made instant connection with them.

“Through the church connections, we met so many people as well. While my husband and I are looking for work, knowing that there are people and organisations that we can go to, or talk to, helps a lot.”

Connecting socially with others is a sure way of finding useful support, becoming better informed, and feeling more at home in a new city, says Dr Mary Dawson, Chief Executive of Auckland Regional Migrant Services (ARMS).

Settlement Support NZ Coordinators have been providing information particularly to newcomers from India, China, Philippines, Japan and Fiji. These include work permit holders, family members of skilled migrants, visitor visa holders and international students.

Nearly 300 service providers belong to the regional and local Settlement Support networks which hold forums for newcomers and service providers twice a year.

Visit Settlement Support New Zealand website

Diwesh Kumar Sharma was arrested from Fiji by New Zealand Police, on charges of murdering his wife, 28-year old Ranjeeta Sharrma, by setting her on fire in an attack. She died on the side of a Huntly road in January last year. She was cremated in her hometown of Nadi in Fiji.

Just a day after Ranjeeta’s body was found, the 29-year old Sharma fled the country with his four-year old son.

Soon after being detained by Fiji police and brought back to New Zealand, he was sent to a mental health facility for a psychiatric check up, and his lawyer told reporters that Diwesh was fit to plead in the court.

Ranjeeta had come to New Zealand only five years ago and was working as a nurse at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital.

As many as 39% of New Zealand women suffer physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime, according to a study by Janet Fanslow and Elizabeth Robinson.

Police estimate only 18% of domestic violence incidents are reported.

The two million pound payout involved detention of 40 children, 25 of which aged between 14 and 16, from countries including China, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, Eritrea, Uganda and Somalia, the Guardian newspaper reported.

The children, including a 14-year old Sri Lankan girl, were survivors of torture and some of the girls were also victims of rape and sexual violence, the report says.

The UK Immigration had wrongly detained the children as adults, based on appearance. The children were then asked to prove they were not adults.  At some Immigration Service offices the rate of error was 78% of those assessed as adults who were later accepted to be children by the UK government, says Bhatt Murphy, the law firm representing the refugee children.

The affected children went through extreme hardships during the detention. “I couldn’t believe it. I had fled Eritrea to escape prison and thought I’d arrived in a safe country, but now I was being locked up again,” one of the girls told the Guardian newspaper.

The children’s solicitor, Mark Scott says that it is obvious that vulnerable children who have done nothing other than to seek help should not be locked up by the state.

“The coalition government decided to end this abhorrent practice in 2010, such that it is of great concern if some child asylumseekers continue to be detained contrary to policy. This comes at a time when government cuts to legal funding for people on low income will make it increasingly difficult to hold the State to account in the courts”.

It has been the UK’s overriding policy that children who arrive in the UK separated from their families, should not be detained by the Immigration Service, save in exceptional circumstances and then only overnight whilst arrangements are made for the child’s care, says the law firm.

”Concern has been expressed by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons about the absence of child protection procedures within Immigration Detention Centres, thereby putting children at risk.

“The Home Office accepts that the conditions within Immigration Detention Centres are unsuitable for unaccompanied children.

“
Despite this, the Home Office’s age dispute policy prior to November 2005 allowed nonspecialist Immigration Officers to refuse to accept an individual’s age if they claimed to be a child and instead to treat them as an adult if their appearance and/or demeanour strongly suggested they were 18 years or older’.

“This test permitted immigration officers, with no training in working with children, to assess an individual’s age purely on the basis of their appearance. The individual would continue to be treated as an adult for all immigration purposes until s/he could obtain evidence that s/he was a child.”

Hosted by Human Rights Defence India (HRDI), a New Delhi-based organisation, the conference on ‘Human Rights Concerns of Indian Diaspora’, will be inaugurated by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of Art of Living Foundation.  He has also co-founded the International Association for Human Values which has worked in conflict-prone countries across the world fostering interfaith harmony.

There are cases where Indian migrants are denied the basic human right of equality, social justice and human dignity, says a statement by the organisers.

“They are being constantly discriminated in Caribbean and Gulf countries and various Western nations among others. Their rights to follow religion and language, which are the essential carriers of our culture, have often been denied.

HRDI Secretary General Rajesh Gogna says there is a need to formulate a comprehensive policy on human rights concerns of the Diasporic community members and cultivate an informed interest in it.

“There is also a pressing need for the creation of an effective coordinating mechanism for addressing the routine Diaspora affairs and to achieve international consensus on a more rational approach to migration and migrants.

Gogna says the conference hopes to provide an opportunity to sit for some hot debates, and to reach each other to discover new identities, deeper connectivity, and explore synergies.

Gouri Shankar Gupta, an educationist and social reformer, will be the chief guest for the conference. Additional Solicitor General of India A S Chandhiok, Bangladeshi human rights lawyer Ravinder Ghosh, Dr. Richard Benkin of Harvard University, P Waytha Moorthy of HINDRAF and Datuk Vithilingam of Malaysia are among some of the speakers for the conference.

Conferred with the prestigious ‘Sikh of the Year 2010’ Award, Chandhiok, a humanitarian, has worked for the betterment of the society and has arranged special treatments for the lower strata of the society by providing means to run charitable clinics.

Ravinder Ghosh, a well-known human rights activist and lawyer in Bangladesh has worked to bring before the UN stories of human rights violation in Bangladesh. He is also the president of Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM).

Dr. Benkin is an independent human rights activist who has worked towards the correction of injustices worldwide.  Waytha Moorthy is a Malaysian lawyer of Tamil origin who has fought for the human rights concerns of Malaysian Hindus. Datuk Vithilingam is the president of Malaysia Hindu Sangam Association.

Visit the event on Facebook

New Zealand women think about their weight  several times a day – just as often as they think about their partner, sex, food and sleep. What’s worse, they believe good looking people tend to get more opportunities. Two out of three women believe that good-looking people are more likely to succeed.

According to the latest study by the Next magazine, Kiwi women don’t like their appearance, are obsessed with weight – and believe good looks and success are intrinsically linked.

The magazine spoke with more than 1500 women  across age groups and backgrounds, and discovered that three out of four women are unhappy with their weight, with 43% keen to lose at least five kilos.

And it’s clearly a topic which is at the forefront of their minds, as 86% think about their weight daily.

Environmentalist Robyn Malcolm goes nude for the Next magazine

Good looks lead to success

The survey found 89% of women believe the way they look and present themselves is very important to succeeding in life, and 79% are of the opinion good looking people tend to get more opportunities. Two out of three women believe that good-looking people are more likely to succeed.

Next editor Sarah Henry has been surprised at the findings: “We always knew appearance was important to women, but we underestimated just how much impact body image has.

If women are happy with what they see in the mirror they generally have a positive outlook. However, when they dislike their reflection, this feeling can manifest itself in all aspects of their life.”

According to Next’s research, size 10-12 is no longer the norm – as of those surveyed 49% are size 14 or bigger. Less than a third are a size 10 or smaller (28%).

Breasts are best

The part of their bodies Kiwi women most dislike is their tummies – with 65% saying this is what they like the least in their build. The part they like the most is their breasts – 37% said they are one of their best features.

Open to plastic surgery

While 63% of those Next surveyed would consider plastic surgery, it seems Kiwi women are not dieting. Speaking anonymously, 54% told Next they don’t diet but instead set themselves rules about what they eat – and 17% said they never diet.

“It’s great to see we’ve ditched the dieting in favour of making healthier eating choices, but the high link to the idea of plastic surgery suggests we have a long way to go before we’re in control of our body image,” says Sarah.

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The Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPC) is sending a 10-member delegation to Auckland for business meetings with local buyers and importers.

India is the world's largest exporter of cashews

The delegation comprises of prominent cashew industrialists from India who are keen to use this opportunity to discuss possible business associations.

India is the largest producer and exporter of cashew kernels in the world, accounting for over 65% of the world exports. Indian cashews are consumed in as many as 60 countries all over the world,  with the United States being the largest exporter (US$162 million in 2009-2010). However, Australia and New Zealand account for a very minor share. The delegation is also visiting Australia.

Similarly,  India’s Plastic Export Promotion Council is bringing a plastic trade delegation, and  Chemexcil (Basic Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics Export Promotion Council of India) is sending a chemical delegation to New Zealand.

When, where

CASHEW DELEGATION: 27 February from 10.30am onwards at Sentosa Conference Room, Stamford Plaza, Auckland.  Visit the council website  for more about India’s cashew industry.

PLASTIC:  24 February between 9.30am and 2.00pm  Quality Barry Court, Parnell, Auckland

CHEMICAL: 26 March, venue to be confirmed

A team of 20 medical staff attended to the 3-pound infant, soon after she was born with a heart beat of 45; a healthy new-born has a heart beat of 120 to 140.

The child, born 9 weeks prematurely, had very grim chances to survive, as she was diagnosed in the womb with a severe heart ailment.

Doctors at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital had told the Indian parents,  Leanne Maharaj, 26, and Kamneel Maharaj, 31, during prenatal visits that their daughter suffered from congenital heart block, and they would have to induce labour and force the baby to be born as early as possible to correct the ailment before her heart failed, the Associated Press reported.

“The only way to save this baby was to deliver the baby right away and then the pacemaker,” said Dr. Katsuhide Maeda, the surgeon whose steady hand stitched the pacemaker’s electrical leads to Jaya’s walnut-sized heart. Stanford announced details of the operation this week.

The doctors set out  to do a delicate set of calculations and decided on 31 weeks as the delivery date.

“Typically in such cases, a surgeon would connect wires attached to a pacemaker outside the body then perform a second surgery weeks later to install a permanent device,” the media report says.

However, Jaya’s doctor decided to tackle the more difficult challenge of inserting the permanent pacemaker immediately to avoid the second surgery.

The pacemaker should last Jaya about 10 years, the doctor says.

The surgery could encourage other children’s hospitals to undertake similar efforts, says Dr. Michael Artman, the chief pediatrician at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

“What really distinguishes this is just the fragility of this premature baby and the condition in which this baby was born,” Dr Artman says.

Jaya is now three months’ old and weighs a healthy 8 pounds.