Perhaps it’s more honest to acknowledge that America has lost its ideals but we ARE in unprecedented times economically. Though part of me would love to escape all this by renouncing, a more honourable side to me feels that to do so is a rather cowardly, selfish thing to do. Nothing will change for the better for US citizens abroad if everyone simply quits rather than doing everyhting possible to get the tax laws reformed.
Mona, how in the heck is renouncing cowardly? I’m doing it because I fear that living a “productive” life abroad without a US bank account is going to eventually become extinct.
America’s Founders renounced their British citizenship on the 4th of July 1776.
Should they be considered dishonorable cowards?
Everyone has their own choices to make and paths to take. I wish you luck with yours.
Sparty
@Mona
@Geeez
This is not the first time this issue of “cowardice” has been discussed. Check this out:
Of course, staying or going is a highly individual decision. But I have to agree with Spartacus that perhaps the only way to generate real attention–attention that would demand a response from the powers that be–would be mass renunciations. To get those numbers up would require that more Americans overseas come out of hiding and make a decision. And my hunch is that a vast majority of Americans overseas are just not filing. In my small circle, I would say most have simply turned a blind eye to the whole matter.
@Geeeze, I’m not judging you, it’s more a case of my own conflicting ideas. I feel very torn as well as frightened of what might happen. Perhaps it’s more realistic, given the current political climate, to do whatever you feel will be best for you. I also have a complicated situation which leaves me in limbo until my statutes of limitation run for my delinquent fbars and amended returns.
I do hope though that by the time I would be safe to renounce that things will have improved enough for me not to have to. It would be heartbreaking if I still had to.
I do appreciate your concerns about having all your local accounts closed. It’s a shambles. This is the toughest thing I’ve ever had to face.
They can call me all the names they want to. Sticks and stones may break my bones…. but I never earn money in America. I haven’t stepped foot there in 6 years. Yet the have the potential to enact laws that will make it almost impossible for me to live overseas! And I’m just supposed to bend over? Ahh.. gimme a break. I’m willing to go stateless temporarily to taste “true” freedom.
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
– Thomas Jefferson
@RogerConklin
I know the current Senate Finance Committee Chairman is someone named Max Baucus. I don’t know what his position on this issue is but I do know he is not regarded as a “friend” of Canada in anyway some of which is complicated in fact by coming from a border state Montana. Baucus was an opponent of signing the original Canada US Free Trade agreement and has strongly criticised Canada in the softwood lumber dispute. While I have never heard the full details of the story supposedly Baucus once crossed the border from Montana into British Colombia to attend an environmental hearing in Cranbrook BC on a proposed mine to be located near the US Canadian border. The local member of BC legislature a man named Bill Bennett(who himself had a colorful to say the least political career in British Columbia before and after) immediately recognised Baucus at the event and went up to him and screamed What are YOU doing here? and then said get the “f***” out of my country.
@Mona
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
– Edmund Burke
Burke was one of the few British MPs who was sympathetic to the plight of the American colonists.
@Cato, you’re right; I’m admittedly living in deep fear right now. Not proud if this, but there you have it…am also grappling with turmoil due to still strong family ties in the US.
@Mona
I feel so very sorry for the conflict you are experiencing — I can tell it is so painful for you. I remember someone (recalcitrant I think) that compared what you are feeling to what is often termed ‘battered wife syndrome’ which I thought a great analogy.
Many of us are choosing to leave this ‘marriage’ and it has nothing to do with cowardliness. It has to do with saving ourselves for ourselves, for our families, for what we believe is the right thing to do — for us.
@Mona:
Everyone’s situation is different so we all have to follow our own instincts and make our own decisions.
“Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
– Kahlil Gibran
Cal and Cat, thank you both for your kind words. I am indeed going through my own Hell right now. I have torn loyalties, it’s true. But regardless, I will have to postpone my decision till my SOLs have passed, which won’t be for several years yet
@All
IRS Commissioner Shulman was supposed to respond to Nina Olson and the Taxpayer Advocate Service by 26 January. I haven’t been able to find anything online about whether he responded to any of the criticisms at all. I take it that the media silence means that he himself was silent? Disappointing, if unsurprising 🙁
Can I give my US citizenship to one of those so wanting into the US? No strings attached.
They can have my social security # too.
Yes that too, a nice package deal — I’ll even tie a red ribbon around it all.
@ Tim,
Max Baucus, the current chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has announced he will not seek reelection this years. He as been very popular among his consitituents, but he has apparently had his credibitity hurt for, after staunch opposition to certain provisions of Obamacare, changed his position in exchange for some concessions granted to his home state. This apparently landed like a lead baloon among his solid suppport back home and he saw the handwritting on the wall with respect to the upcoming elections.
An earlier comment referred to the fact that 6 million overseas American voters could have a powerful voice in Congress. The problem is that no one represents them in Congress. Several countries have legislators elected directly by overseas consitutents who are able to do an effective job of representing them, but this is not true in the US. Overseas residents are allowed to vote in the district where they last lived before going overseas. That means that their voice is diliuted over all 50 states so it is so diluted that it isn’t even a peep.
Even Colombia in South America has a representative in its legislature that lives overseas and was elected by the Colomian diaspora. He live in Miami, but flies back to Bogota for legislative sessions where he indeed does have a voice and a vote. Some other countries have several legislators elected by their residents who live outside of their home countries. But all efforts to introduce this in the US congress have died in committee. Washington DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands (overseas US territories) have elected representatives in Congress who have a voice, but no vote. But at least they can introduce legislation, even though they cannot vote on what they introduce, or on anything else. This sort of an arrangement has also been proposed for US citizens abroad, but it has never prospered.
Puerto Rico, by the way, is the only place in the Universe where a US citizen can live and not be subject to US income tax on their income from sources in Puerto. Puerto Rico residents pay income tax to their own government, but their income is excluded from US income tax under an agreement signed between the US and Puerto Rico a few years after Puerto Rico was ceeded by Spain to the US by the Treaty of Paris that closed the Spanish American War. Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Puerto Rico tax laws are similar to those of the US, but they are not the same. There is a full exchange of information between the IRS and Puerto Rico’s Departmento de Hacienda.
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing.”
– Jean-Baptiste Colbert
With no representation in congress, Americans abroad cannot even hiss.
I can’t wait to toss my U.S. citizenship in the garbage, it will be the most expensive thing I’ve ever done since I have to buy my freedom paying a 30% expatriation tax on my worldwide assets.
The crazy thing my CPA told me this year is that I need to track all foreign currency expenditures to determine if there was a gain against USD between when I earned or purchased the foreign currency and when I spent it.
@ Tim
Mr Baucaus was a chairman of FATCAT. Another reason to love him. 😉
@Rick If you live in Canada and all your assets are here, then you don’t have to pay 30% of nothing. The exit tax can only apply to a non-resident if the IRS has some leverage that they can use against you: an asset in the US (sell it before you renounce); an potential inheritance, Social Security, a company pension.
Also the exit tax only applies to you if you are a covered expatriate, on capital gains (marked to market) after the first $600,000. The first 2 million thus are exempted if you are below that threshold. If above that, then only on capital gains above $600,000. If you are paying over about150K in tax liability, then you may also be covered.
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Perhaps it’s more honest to acknowledge that America has lost its ideals but we ARE in unprecedented times economically. Though part of me would love to escape all this by renouncing, a more honourable side to me feels that to do so is a rather cowardly, selfish thing to do. Nothing will change for the better for US citizens abroad if everyone simply quits rather than doing everyhting possible to get the tax laws reformed.
Pingback: Penalty for having any American Association – The Citizenship Discrimination | The Isaac Brock Society
Mona, how in the heck is renouncing cowardly? I’m doing it because I fear that living a “productive” life abroad without a US bank account is going to eventually become extinct.
America’s Founders renounced their British citizenship on the 4th of July 1776.
Should they be considered dishonorable cowards?
Everyone has their own choices to make and paths to take. I wish you luck with yours.
Sparty
@Mona
@Geeez
This is not the first time this issue of “cowardice” has been discussed. Check this out:
http://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/patriotism-and-renunciation-of-u-s-citizenship/
Of course, staying or going is a highly individual decision. But I have to agree with Spartacus that perhaps the only way to generate real attention–attention that would demand a response from the powers that be–would be mass renunciations. To get those numbers up would require that more Americans overseas come out of hiding and make a decision. And my hunch is that a vast majority of Americans overseas are just not filing. In my small circle, I would say most have simply turned a blind eye to the whole matter.
@Geeeze, I’m not judging you, it’s more a case of my own conflicting ideas. I feel very torn as well as frightened of what might happen. Perhaps it’s more realistic, given the current political climate, to do whatever you feel will be best for you. I also have a complicated situation which leaves me in limbo until my statutes of limitation run for my delinquent fbars and amended returns.
I do hope though that by the time I would be safe to renounce that things will have improved enough for me not to have to. It would be heartbreaking if I still had to.
I do appreciate your concerns about having all your local accounts closed. It’s a shambles. This is the toughest thing I’ve ever had to face.
They can call me all the names they want to. Sticks and stones may break my bones…. but I never earn money in America. I haven’t stepped foot there in 6 years. Yet the have the potential to enact laws that will make it almost impossible for me to live overseas! And I’m just supposed to bend over? Ahh.. gimme a break. I’m willing to go stateless temporarily to taste “true” freedom.
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
– Thomas Jefferson
@RogerConklin
I know the current Senate Finance Committee Chairman is someone named Max Baucus. I don’t know what his position on this issue is but I do know he is not regarded as a “friend” of Canada in anyway some of which is complicated in fact by coming from a border state Montana. Baucus was an opponent of signing the original Canada US Free Trade agreement and has strongly criticised Canada in the softwood lumber dispute. While I have never heard the full details of the story supposedly Baucus once crossed the border from Montana into British Colombia to attend an environmental hearing in Cranbrook BC on a proposed mine to be located near the US Canadian border. The local member of BC legislature a man named Bill Bennett(who himself had a colorful to say the least political career in British Columbia before and after) immediately recognised Baucus at the event and went up to him and screamed What are YOU doing here? and then said get the “f***” out of my country.
@Mona
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
– Edmund Burke
Burke was one of the few British MPs who was sympathetic to the plight of the American colonists.
@Cato, you’re right; I’m admittedly living in deep fear right now. Not proud if this, but there you have it…am also grappling with turmoil due to still strong family ties in the US.
@Mona
I feel so very sorry for the conflict you are experiencing — I can tell it is so painful for you. I remember someone (recalcitrant I think) that compared what you are feeling to what is often termed ‘battered wife syndrome’ which I thought a great analogy.
Many of us are choosing to leave this ‘marriage’ and it has nothing to do with cowardliness. It has to do with saving ourselves for ourselves, for our families, for what we believe is the right thing to do — for us.
@Mona:
Everyone’s situation is different so we all have to follow our own instincts and make our own decisions.
“Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
– Kahlil Gibran
Cal and Cat, thank you both for your kind words. I am indeed going through my own Hell right now. I have torn loyalties, it’s true. But regardless, I will have to postpone my decision till my SOLs have passed, which won’t be for several years yet
@All
IRS Commissioner Shulman was supposed to respond to Nina Olson and the Taxpayer Advocate Service by 26 January. I haven’t been able to find anything online about whether he responded to any of the criticisms at all. I take it that the media silence means that he himself was silent? Disappointing, if unsurprising 🙁
Can I give my US citizenship to one of those so wanting into the US? No strings attached.
They can have my social security # too.
Yes that too, a nice package deal — I’ll even tie a red ribbon around it all.
@ Tim,
Max Baucus, the current chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has announced he will not seek reelection this years. He as been very popular among his consitituents, but he has apparently had his credibitity hurt for, after staunch opposition to certain provisions of Obamacare, changed his position in exchange for some concessions granted to his home state. This apparently landed like a lead baloon among his solid suppport back home and he saw the handwritting on the wall with respect to the upcoming elections.
An earlier comment referred to the fact that 6 million overseas American voters could have a powerful voice in Congress. The problem is that no one represents them in Congress. Several countries have legislators elected directly by overseas consitutents who are able to do an effective job of representing them, but this is not true in the US. Overseas residents are allowed to vote in the district where they last lived before going overseas. That means that their voice is diliuted over all 50 states so it is so diluted that it isn’t even a peep.
Even Colombia in South America has a representative in its legislature that lives overseas and was elected by the Colomian diaspora. He live in Miami, but flies back to Bogota for legislative sessions where he indeed does have a voice and a vote. Some other countries have several legislators elected by their residents who live outside of their home countries. But all efforts to introduce this in the US congress have died in committee. Washington DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands (overseas US territories) have elected representatives in Congress who have a voice, but no vote. But at least they can introduce legislation, even though they cannot vote on what they introduce, or on anything else. This sort of an arrangement has also been proposed for US citizens abroad, but it has never prospered.
Puerto Rico, by the way, is the only place in the Universe where a US citizen can live and not be subject to US income tax on their income from sources in Puerto. Puerto Rico residents pay income tax to their own government, but their income is excluded from US income tax under an agreement signed between the US and Puerto Rico a few years after Puerto Rico was ceeded by Spain to the US by the Treaty of Paris that closed the Spanish American War. Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Puerto Rico tax laws are similar to those of the US, but they are not the same. There is a full exchange of information between the IRS and Puerto Rico’s Departmento de Hacienda.
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of hissing.”
– Jean-Baptiste Colbert
With no representation in congress, Americans abroad cannot even hiss.
I can’t wait to toss my U.S. citizenship in the garbage, it will be the most expensive thing I’ve ever done since I have to buy my freedom paying a 30% expatriation tax on my worldwide assets.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97245,00.html
The crazy thing my CPA told me this year is that I need to track all foreign currency expenditures to determine if there was a gain against USD between when I earned or purchased the foreign currency and when I spent it.
@ Tim
Mr Baucaus was a chairman of FATCAT. Another reason to love him. 😉
@Rick If you live in Canada and all your assets are here, then you don’t have to pay 30% of nothing. The exit tax can only apply to a non-resident if the IRS has some leverage that they can use against you: an asset in the US (sell it before you renounce); an potential inheritance, Social Security, a company pension.
Also the exit tax only applies to you if you are a covered expatriate, on capital gains (marked to market) after the first $600,000. The first 2 million thus are exempted if you are below that threshold. If above that, then only on capital gains above $600,000. If you are paying over about150K in tax liability, then you may also be covered.