2014 was the year when ‘Yes, we can’ finally became ‘No, I couldn’t’. It is all over bar the shouting, and Mr Obama is reduced to bumping wedding couples off Hawaiian golf courses so that he can get on with one of the remaining functions of his office.

In fairness, it isn’t just the President who should be swallowing his words. Congress will discover in 2015 that in one area at least –  international taxation – it is being hoisted on its own petard.

The FATCA  ‘spill-the-beans-to-Uncle-Sam-or-he’ll-rip-out–your-windpipe-with-a-pair-of-pliars’ rules  that were conjured up in 2010 have spawned a revolution in international taxation. The big loser is going to be the US of A.

When the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act was legislated, it was designed to ensure that  income rightly taxable in the US could not be sheltered overseas. Execution involved steamrollering the rest of the world into accepting horrific compliance costs, just so Uncle Sam could relax at the side of his Florida condo pool.

The world, sick of being cowed into submission by the western juggernaut, struck back. What was good for the goose was good for the gander. Countries demanded reciprocal arrangements – which the US agreed to, comfortable in the knowledge that Federal Law did not permit the gathering of such information. America was still riding high.

But if reciprocal arrangements were on the cards, why stop at bilateral arrangements with the US? There was a serious, and soon to be succesful,  move towards the Automatic Exchange of Information between just about everybody.

Aye, Mr United States Congress, there’s the rub. Because, once old orders disintegrate, there tends to be a domino effect. If the game was up for dirty money, why not deal with slightly-soiled money as well? National Parliaments started to make noises. Then came the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative of the OECD, sold to the world by David ‘I play cricket’ Cameron and Vladimir ‘I play dirty’ Putin. All of a sudden, bringing together the international community to ensure that multi-national companies pay their fair share of tax in countries hosting their activities was not just a pipe dream. Meaningful transfer pricing based on real activity, country-by-country reporting, sharing the cake of the digital economy, updating archaic permanent establishment rules and unravelling hybrid transactions, were all within sight. What is more, it didn’t really matter if the BEPS action plan would be formally adopted or not – the international mood was to enact unilateral legislation and take it from there.

The bottom line is that, in 2015,  Uncle Sam’s FATCA is going to turn around and bite him on his bum. Why? Because the vast majority of reshifting of profits will be away from the US. It is true that much of the profits now being claimed from US multinationals by countries such as the UK and France are currently parked offshore – but, were the dysfunctional US Congress and President to stop squabbling like alley cats in a garbage can, they could pull in those earnings at the stroke of a pen. That will not be the case, however, once they disappear legitimately into the coffers of other sovereign states.

So, President Obama, Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner, the message from the world beyond New York Harbor is: ‘Yes, we can’. And we are going to. Anyone for golf?