86 thoughts on “Fox News Video: Increasing numbers of U.S. citizens renouncing”
@Petros I think that leverage is called extradition.
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
@Rick The Canada USA Extradition treaty does not include FBAR or taxes and not the exit tax or fines. So my lawyer, said. So says the treaty itself: http://www.lexum.com/ca_us/en/cts.1976.03.en.html
Note the treaty only covers the actual list of offenses in the schedule.
I am more optimist. All we have to do is to try to organize ourselves better. ACA and AARO could work more together and register the Americans Abroad by the States where they vote. We can vote and eventually the candidates in each State will know that we are going to vote. Since 2007 there is an “American Abroad Caucus” that has 16 Congressmen. If you all want I could spell their names. I sent a fax to the one from my State with a paper I wrote about my plight. I could not e-mail him because he his site only accepted e-mails from zip codes of his area. I was surprised that his secretary called me in Brazil saying that they were going to send my paper to the IRS -without identifying me except for the Country weher I am. I agreed. They them sent back the IRS respose, very business like just talking about “the law”. I responded to this response with an e-mail that I got from them and they sent my response to trhe IRS. It seems the IRS did not rerspond yet.Maybe will not respond. But here is an example of me being in contact with a member of the Caucus for Americans Abroad and getting some attention from him. I think since there are so many issues we shoudl focus one or two. Perhaps FBARS. Perhaps we should focus on two things to start with: 1. There is a difference between Americans living in the USA and earning US dollars who invest in foreign countries and hide if from the IRS, and the Americans licing and working abroid who earn foreign money from their work and have investments in the countries where they live. 2. That Americans Living Abroad are not against filing FBARS every year where they will specify where they earned the money that have invested in their Country of redience. 3. That since a great majority of Americans Living Abroda never heard of FBARS that they could start reporting without being faced with any penalties. Three things. I am going to copy this to ACA and AARO. What do you think?
Carolyn Maloney Chair D-NY, Michael Capuano, D´-MA, Andre Carsonb D-IND, Donna Christensen D-VI, Jim Clyburn D-SC,Steve Cohen D-TN, Micahel Conaway R-TX, Connolly Gerald D-VA, Susan Davis D-CA, Mike Doyle D-PA, Mike Doyle D-PA, Charles Gonzalez D-TX, Kay Granger R-TX, Alcee Hastings D-FL, Michael Honda D-CA, Rush Holt D-NJ, James McGovern D-MA, Jim Moran D-VA, Gregory Meeks D-NY, Donald Payne D-NJ, Gregorio Sabaln, I-MP, Loretta Sanchez D-CA, Janice Schakosky D-IL, Chris Van Hollen D-MD, Henry Waxman D-CA, Joe Wilson R-SC, Frank Wolf E-VA. This is the American Abroad Caucus (2007). I think we could try to contact these Representatives from the States we came from. Let´s plan.
@Mark
I admire your optimism. However, I personally would not accept anything less than real representation in congress for the American Diaspora and an end to citizenship based taxation.
The current state of affairs being no representation in congress and citizenship based taxation with no benefits are human rights abuses, regardless of how anyone tries to sugar coat it.
But any letters written to the powers that be to raise the awareness of the plight of Americans abroad would be helpful and most welcome.
Unlike you, I lost my optimism a long time ago and chose to renounce.
My loyalty is to the principles upon which America was created, not the laws that were made afterwards that threw the original principles out the window.
Spartacus
@Petros I understand extradition agreements fairly well, but nothing prevents the U.S. Government from just making up some extra charges like money laundering to get you extradited like they are doing with Kim Dotcom “Megaupload” in New Zealand because their is no agreement to extradite for copyright related issues.
I just want to sleep at night not worrying about the US destroying my life in my new country so I’ll end up paying the stupid expatriation tax since I’m a covered person.
@RIck
If you are really a “covered person” talk to a good Canadian lawyer and your local MP before you send a check to the IRS. As much as others talk about the exit tax here I don’t think anyone of yet has actually been in the position of being covered by it. See if your local MP can get you an audience with Department of Finance Tax Policy Division and the Department of Justice as to what the view of the exit tax is from a Canadian legal perspective(I mention the Department of Justice as their in charge of extradition). Jason Kenney, the current immigration minister has said quite clearly that no Canadian citizen has anything to fear from a foreign tax administration. Make the government of Canada back these words up.
This what Jason Kenney had to say back in the fall:
Q: What if it’s more indirect in the sense the Eritrean government is raising money in Canada, then using a portion of its budget to support Al-Shabab?
A: We have clear laws on this. We expect Canadians to respect those laws, and our law enforcement agencies to ensure they are applied. What I’m saying is that, generally, if there is any foreign government using intimidation to extract payments from Canadian citizens, that would be very disturbing to us.
Q: Eritrean-Canadians complain they have come to Canada as refugees to get away from the Eritrean regime, yet find themselves pressured to give money to the very government they had fled.
A: A point well taken. I would just encourage any Canadians to realize they have no obligation to a foreign government, that if they see any illegal conduct going on they should report it to the relevant law enforcement agencies, and they have no reason to be afraid of the activities of a foreign government in Canada. People who come here, particularly those fleeing persecution, enjoy Canada’s protection, and if in any way they’re being pressured by a government that was the source of their persecution, they should report that to the relevant authorities.
Petros,
One clarification: If you are a US citizens and expatriate and meet the income/assets threshould, then the market-to-market expartriation tax is levied on your world wide assets, not just those in US.
As an ACA member I can assure you that it has worked very diligently in the area of voter registration and there is extensive information on its website http://www.aca.ch which is available to all, members and no-members on how to register and how to vote. Individuals, however, must do their own registration in accordance with the respective laws of the states where they are allowed to register and vote. I voted in every election during the 11 years that I lived in Peru and Brazil.
Generally citizens abroad may register and vote in the last state where they lived before going abroad. In some cases states may allow citizens who were children when their parents relocated abroad to register an vote in their parent’s last state.
State laws and regulations on overseas voters have some variations so it is best to access the website of your specific state to understand the regulations of that particular state.
@ Roger, I understand this. But I am saying that a person who is Canadian, whose assets are in Canada, and who expatriates, that it is immoral for the United States to think that the person should owe the IRS anything just because he used to be a United States person. Frankly, he can ignore the United States and its laws because he is not under the jurisdiction of the United States.
I may take this approach myself–of just ignoring the exit requirements. Not because I would be a covered expatriate, but because the Form 8854 is a violation of my constitutional rights, and especially the filling out of the form could be a violation of my Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate myself.
Frankly, the exit requirements are violation of human rights in an enlightened age and the barbarians running Congress should have read their country’s founding documents before they passed the HEART Act and the Reed Amendment, and any other act designed to impede or hinder our inalienable right, given to us not by the Constitution or by statute, but by God (cf. the Declaration of Independence). So if the assets are in the states, fine. There’s nothing you can do–and perhaps even the exit tax is just. But if you are expatriating and all your assets are in Canada or elsewhere, then I am not going to recommend that anyone write a cheque to the IRS unless they claim that their own government (not the USA) is going to put them in jail or extradite them if they don’t. Essentially, it fits into my view of civil disobedience, when you can disobey an unjust law and when you must do what is expedient. See http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/01/04/civil-disobedience-fbar-and-form-8854-form-8938/
@ Rick: Without knowing your circumstances or the placement of your assets it is hard to say what is good to do. I agree with Tim’s suggestions.
In your own scenario, you would be entitled to an extradition hearing as well, in which case the US would have to show reasonable evidence that you committed a crime covered under the treaty. I also don’t know how much business you do with the US. If it is none, or you can easily extricate yourself from such dealings, and if you are a Canadian and you are an innocent person (your money has been legally obtained), then I’d like someone to tell me what could go wrong.
I am very sick of the United States thinking that they are entitled to anything that belongs to our people up here in Canada. We didn’t become a prosperous nation by paying tribute to the United States. I don’t think we should start now. if the US wants tribute, then make them invade us now. Let’s not just hand it to them without their first earning it through conquering us in a war.
@Tim – thanks for your comment and discussion regarding the Exit Tax. That may help a lot of people sleep a little better if it is the case. The thought of the US being able to tax, especially the huge gains in Canada of our personal residences not to mention that everything else must be considered sold the day before renunciation, seemed and seems reprehensible.
@Petros
Dont give them too many ideas. They might just try to annex CA like Hitler’s anschluss with Austria.
Sparty
@Calgarly411: Reprehensible it is. It is my opinion that the probability of an individual dual US-Canadian citizen to get this US law changed is probably Zero. The only real hope that I can see is if the Canadian Government choses to formally protest the right of the US government to do this, but I suspect that the clause in the US-Canada tax treaty in which Canada has granted the US the authority to subject US citizens resident in Canada to US taxation would make such action rather difficult.
@Petros
I agree but I would say that if you actually are a “covered expatriate” such as Rick I would probably want a little more cover from the Canadian government than what they have given so far. I would say though that Flaherty and Kenney’s statements were pretty unequivical and I believe a Canadian court would view them as such. I guess the third person I would like hear from is Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. I would say though that if Canada were to be seen as “sheltering” tax expatriates it could cause a major blowup in US Canadian relations given the emotions of the issue in the US even though I think it is a perfectly legitimate fight for Canada to have. As I have alluded to earlier Canada has stuck up for its citizens in the past in cases such as Sherritt International who were “breaking” US law Canada found unjust. I’ll only say that Sherritt had fairly extensive consulations with the Canadian Government to ascertain what type of protection they would get from Canada after the US went after them. I suspect for example Kim Dotcom would be in a lot better place if he actually cleared what he was doing with the New Zealand Copyright Office, the US may not have liked it but they would have had less opportunity to go after him in NZ.
@Sparticus: What happens when a nation that has a powerful army goes bankrupt? They go to war. I listen to Marc Faber, and he’s predicted war when the world’s economies collapse. What will stop the United States from blaming Canada, when oil goes up to $1000 per barrel? What if it goes up to $10,000 per barrel? How long do you think it will be before the United States uses the most powerful military in the world to annex Canada’s resources?
Well, I can think of one thing that would stop the US. [Actually two things].
I’m saying today, that we shouldn’t just hand them our wealth without them first conquering us the old fashion way.
@ Tim To be sure.
From a moral point of view, I agree with you totally and completely. Not being a lawyer or barrister I don’t know the effect of the US-Canada tax treaty in allowing the US government to collect from you.
Certainly if the IRS is after you it would probably be the discreet thing to do to avoid traveling to the US., or via the US to another country. I know that is how at least one of the Swiss bankers who was accused, arrested tried and convicted of assisting US customers in evading US taxes by hiding assets in Switzerland. He had traveled from Switerzland to Mexico with either a stop or a change of planes in New York, so when he got of the flight in New York he was placed under arrest.
@ Roger Very true what you say. I am not yet a fugitive. However, I am already avoiding the United States, because I am, as Mona has called me, the ringleader.
From my understanding of what Finance Minister Flaherty said, the CRA will not collect for the IRS from a Canadian citizen. Thus, any penalties assessed to me via the failure to file the 8854, are essentially uncollectable, because they would be assessed only after my becoming a Canadian.
But any assets in the United States may be a problem. So I’ve told my Dad to disinherit me and give to my brother who needs it more than me. I also told him to enjoy his money while he is alive–which is the important thing.
Petros. Sounds wise. By the way any assets located in the US inherited by a foreign non-US resident are subject to Us estate tax. That includes stock, bonds, etc. in a US company, real estate, bank accounts, etc. etc. The US also taxes foreign estates on the value of US assets.
@Petros
I think many political scientists agree that whenever an industrialized democratic nation gets into serious economic trouble, the government tends to take the country to war. And some believe the US is just getting warmed up.
I fully agree that Canada has the moral obligation to protect its citizens and its own sovereignty. I just hope it steps up to the plate when the time comes.
Yours in liberty,
Spartacus
One thing I’ll mention is despite Canada reputation for strict gun control there are supposedly seven million guns in Canada in a country just under 35 million. Canada is terms of gun ownership on per capita basis ranks up pretty highly with the like of the US itself and Switzerland. One of the reasons Hitler never wanted to invade Switzerland was because of huge numbers of Swiss who had firearms. Canada at the end of the day is a pretty inhospitable place for those who are not welcome. One of the more interesting signs in my mind of the degrading US military is the fact they now rely on Canada’s navy to supply the NATO base at Thule Greenland out of Halifax as the US lacks icebreakers of their own on the East Coast.
@Roger U.S. estate tax applies to all property worldwide of a U.S. person (including green card holders and other residents).
@Petros I think that leverage is called extradition.
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
@Rick The Canada USA Extradition treaty does not include FBAR or taxes and not the exit tax or fines. So my lawyer, said. So says the treaty itself: http://www.lexum.com/ca_us/en/cts.1976.03.en.html
Note the treaty only covers the actual list of offenses in the schedule.
I am more optimist. All we have to do is to try to organize ourselves better. ACA and AARO could work more together and register the Americans Abroad by the States where they vote. We can vote and eventually the candidates in each State will know that we are going to vote. Since 2007 there is an “American Abroad Caucus” that has 16 Congressmen. If you all want I could spell their names. I sent a fax to the one from my State with a paper I wrote about my plight. I could not e-mail him because he his site only accepted e-mails from zip codes of his area. I was surprised that his secretary called me in Brazil saying that they were going to send my paper to the IRS -without identifying me except for the Country weher I am. I agreed. They them sent back the IRS respose, very business like just talking about “the law”. I responded to this response with an e-mail that I got from them and they sent my response to trhe IRS. It seems the IRS did not rerspond yet.Maybe will not respond. But here is an example of me being in contact with a member of the Caucus for Americans Abroad and getting some attention from him. I think since there are so many issues we shoudl focus one or two. Perhaps FBARS. Perhaps we should focus on two things to start with: 1. There is a difference between Americans living in the USA and earning US dollars who invest in foreign countries and hide if from the IRS, and the Americans licing and working abroid who earn foreign money from their work and have investments in the countries where they live. 2. That Americans Living Abroad are not against filing FBARS every year where they will specify where they earned the money that have invested in their Country of redience. 3. That since a great majority of Americans Living Abroda never heard of FBARS that they could start reporting without being faced with any penalties. Three things. I am going to copy this to ACA and AARO. What do you think?
Carolyn Maloney Chair D-NY, Michael Capuano, D´-MA, Andre Carsonb D-IND, Donna Christensen D-VI, Jim Clyburn D-SC,Steve Cohen D-TN, Micahel Conaway R-TX, Connolly Gerald D-VA, Susan Davis D-CA, Mike Doyle D-PA, Mike Doyle D-PA, Charles Gonzalez D-TX, Kay Granger R-TX, Alcee Hastings D-FL, Michael Honda D-CA, Rush Holt D-NJ, James McGovern D-MA, Jim Moran D-VA, Gregory Meeks D-NY, Donald Payne D-NJ, Gregorio Sabaln, I-MP, Loretta Sanchez D-CA, Janice Schakosky D-IL, Chris Van Hollen D-MD, Henry Waxman D-CA, Joe Wilson R-SC, Frank Wolf E-VA. This is the American Abroad Caucus (2007). I think we could try to contact these Representatives from the States we came from. Let´s plan.
@Mark
I admire your optimism. However, I personally would not accept anything less than real representation in congress for the American Diaspora and an end to citizenship based taxation.
The current state of affairs being no representation in congress and citizenship based taxation with no benefits are human rights abuses, regardless of how anyone tries to sugar coat it.
But any letters written to the powers that be to raise the awareness of the plight of Americans abroad would be helpful and most welcome.
Unlike you, I lost my optimism a long time ago and chose to renounce.
My loyalty is to the principles upon which America was created, not the laws that were made afterwards that threw the original principles out the window.
Spartacus
@Petros I understand extradition agreements fairly well, but nothing prevents the U.S. Government from just making up some extra charges like money laundering to get you extradited like they are doing with Kim Dotcom “Megaupload” in New Zealand because their is no agreement to extradite for copyright related issues.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10781891
I just want to sleep at night not worrying about the US destroying my life in my new country so I’ll end up paying the stupid expatriation tax since I’m a covered person.
@RIck
If you are really a “covered person” talk to a good Canadian lawyer and your local MP before you send a check to the IRS. As much as others talk about the exit tax here I don’t think anyone of yet has actually been in the position of being covered by it. See if your local MP can get you an audience with Department of Finance Tax Policy Division and the Department of Justice as to what the view of the exit tax is from a Canadian legal perspective(I mention the Department of Justice as their in charge of extradition). Jason Kenney, the current immigration minister has said quite clearly that no Canadian citizen has anything to fear from a foreign tax administration. Make the government of Canada back these words up.
This what Jason Kenney had to say back in the fall:
Q: What if it’s more indirect in the sense the Eritrean government is raising money in Canada, then using a portion of its budget to support Al-Shabab?
A: We have clear laws on this. We expect Canadians to respect those laws, and our law enforcement agencies to ensure they are applied. What I’m saying is that, generally, if there is any foreign government using intimidation to extract payments from Canadian citizens, that would be very disturbing to us.
Q: Eritrean-Canadians complain they have come to Canada as refugees to get away from the Eritrean regime, yet find themselves pressured to give money to the very government they had fled.
A: A point well taken. I would just encourage any Canadians to realize they have no obligation to a foreign government, that if they see any illegal conduct going on they should report it to the relevant law enforcement agencies, and they have no reason to be afraid of the activities of a foreign government in Canada. People who come here, particularly those fleeing persecution, enjoy Canada’s protection, and if in any way they’re being pressured by a government that was the source of their persecution, they should report that to the relevant authorities.
Petros,
One clarification: If you are a US citizens and expatriate and meet the income/assets threshould, then the market-to-market expartriation tax is levied on your world wide assets, not just those in US.
As an ACA member I can assure you that it has worked very diligently in the area of voter registration and there is extensive information on its website http://www.aca.ch which is available to all, members and no-members on how to register and how to vote. Individuals, however, must do their own registration in accordance with the respective laws of the states where they are allowed to register and vote. I voted in every election during the 11 years that I lived in Peru and Brazil.
Generally citizens abroad may register and vote in the last state where they lived before going abroad. In some cases states may allow citizens who were children when their parents relocated abroad to register an vote in their parent’s last state.
State laws and regulations on overseas voters have some variations so it is best to access the website of your specific state to understand the regulations of that particular state.
@ Roger, I understand this. But I am saying that a person who is Canadian, whose assets are in Canada, and who expatriates, that it is immoral for the United States to think that the person should owe the IRS anything just because he used to be a United States person. Frankly, he can ignore the United States and its laws because he is not under the jurisdiction of the United States.
I may take this approach myself–of just ignoring the exit requirements. Not because I would be a covered expatriate, but because the Form 8854 is a violation of my constitutional rights, and especially the filling out of the form could be a violation of my Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate myself.
Frankly, the exit requirements are violation of human rights in an enlightened age and the barbarians running Congress should have read their country’s founding documents before they passed the HEART Act and the Reed Amendment, and any other act designed to impede or hinder our inalienable right, given to us not by the Constitution or by statute, but by God (cf. the Declaration of Independence). So if the assets are in the states, fine. There’s nothing you can do–and perhaps even the exit tax is just. But if you are expatriating and all your assets are in Canada or elsewhere, then I am not going to recommend that anyone write a cheque to the IRS unless they claim that their own government (not the USA) is going to put them in jail or extradite them if they don’t. Essentially, it fits into my view of civil disobedience, when you can disobey an unjust law and when you must do what is expedient. See http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/01/04/civil-disobedience-fbar-and-form-8854-form-8938/
@ Rick: Without knowing your circumstances or the placement of your assets it is hard to say what is good to do. I agree with Tim’s suggestions.
In your own scenario, you would be entitled to an extradition hearing as well, in which case the US would have to show reasonable evidence that you committed a crime covered under the treaty. I also don’t know how much business you do with the US. If it is none, or you can easily extricate yourself from such dealings, and if you are a Canadian and you are an innocent person (your money has been legally obtained), then I’d like someone to tell me what could go wrong.
I am very sick of the United States thinking that they are entitled to anything that belongs to our people up here in Canada. We didn’t become a prosperous nation by paying tribute to the United States. I don’t think we should start now. if the US wants tribute, then make them invade us now. Let’s not just hand it to them without their first earning it through conquering us in a war.
@Tim – thanks for your comment and discussion regarding the Exit Tax. That may help a lot of people sleep a little better if it is the case. The thought of the US being able to tax, especially the huge gains in Canada of our personal residences not to mention that everything else must be considered sold the day before renunciation, seemed and seems reprehensible.
@Petros
Dont give them too many ideas. They might just try to annex CA like Hitler’s anschluss with Austria.
Sparty
@Calgarly411: Reprehensible it is. It is my opinion that the probability of an individual dual US-Canadian citizen to get this US law changed is probably Zero. The only real hope that I can see is if the Canadian Government choses to formally protest the right of the US government to do this, but I suspect that the clause in the US-Canada tax treaty in which Canada has granted the US the authority to subject US citizens resident in Canada to US taxation would make such action rather difficult.
@Petros
I agree but I would say that if you actually are a “covered expatriate” such as Rick I would probably want a little more cover from the Canadian government than what they have given so far. I would say though that Flaherty and Kenney’s statements were pretty unequivical and I believe a Canadian court would view them as such. I guess the third person I would like hear from is Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. I would say though that if Canada were to be seen as “sheltering” tax expatriates it could cause a major blowup in US Canadian relations given the emotions of the issue in the US even though I think it is a perfectly legitimate fight for Canada to have. As I have alluded to earlier Canada has stuck up for its citizens in the past in cases such as Sherritt International who were “breaking” US law Canada found unjust. I’ll only say that Sherritt had fairly extensive consulations with the Canadian Government to ascertain what type of protection they would get from Canada after the US went after them. I suspect for example Kim Dotcom would be in a lot better place if he actually cleared what he was doing with the New Zealand Copyright Office, the US may not have liked it but they would have had less opportunity to go after him in NZ.
@Sparticus: What happens when a nation that has a powerful army goes bankrupt? They go to war. I listen to Marc Faber, and he’s predicted war when the world’s economies collapse. What will stop the United States from blaming Canada, when oil goes up to $1000 per barrel? What if it goes up to $10,000 per barrel? How long do you think it will be before the United States uses the most powerful military in the world to annex Canada’s resources?
Well, I can think of one thing that would stop the US. [Actually two things].
I’m saying today, that we shouldn’t just hand them our wealth without them first conquering us the old fashion way.
@ Tim To be sure.
From a moral point of view, I agree with you totally and completely. Not being a lawyer or barrister I don’t know the effect of the US-Canada tax treaty in allowing the US government to collect from you.
Certainly if the IRS is after you it would probably be the discreet thing to do to avoid traveling to the US., or via the US to another country. I know that is how at least one of the Swiss bankers who was accused, arrested tried and convicted of assisting US customers in evading US taxes by hiding assets in Switzerland. He had traveled from Switerzland to Mexico with either a stop or a change of planes in New York, so when he got of the flight in New York he was placed under arrest.
@ Roger Very true what you say. I am not yet a fugitive. However, I am already avoiding the United States, because I am, as Mona has called me, the ringleader.
From my understanding of what Finance Minister Flaherty said, the CRA will not collect for the IRS from a Canadian citizen. Thus, any penalties assessed to me via the failure to file the 8854, are essentially uncollectable, because they would be assessed only after my becoming a Canadian.
But any assets in the United States may be a problem. So I’ve told my Dad to disinherit me and give to my brother who needs it more than me. I also told him to enjoy his money while he is alive–which is the important thing.
Here are some of the articles I promised yesterday on Sherritt International
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.12-business-castros-favourite-capitalist/3/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/ian-delaney-on-stepping-down-coming-back-and-castro/article2315095/
Ian Delaney the CEO was also recently appointed by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty as chairman of ORNGE(Which is the Ontario Air Ambulance Service). I wonder if anyone in the US will issue a formal letter of complaint to this appointment.
Delaney’s wife Kiki who is also banned from entering the US run her own investment advisory firm.
http://www.delaneycapital.com/princ.html
I also put a video link below to the press conference the Canadian government held back in 1996 on the Helms Burton Act.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/73046-1
I also put a link to a picture of Ian Delaney and Raul Castro
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cuban-interim-president-raul-castro-and-ian-delaney-news-photo/74416867
Petros. Sounds wise. By the way any assets located in the US inherited by a foreign non-US resident are subject to Us estate tax. That includes stock, bonds, etc. in a US company, real estate, bank accounts, etc. etc. The US also taxes foreign estates on the value of US assets.
@Petros
I think many political scientists agree that whenever an industrialized democratic nation gets into serious economic trouble, the government tends to take the country to war. And some believe the US is just getting warmed up.
I fully agree that Canada has the moral obligation to protect its citizens and its own sovereignty. I just hope it steps up to the plate when the time comes.
Yours in liberty,
Spartacus
One thing I’ll mention is despite Canada reputation for strict gun control there are supposedly seven million guns in Canada in a country just under 35 million. Canada is terms of gun ownership on per capita basis ranks up pretty highly with the like of the US itself and Switzerland. One of the reasons Hitler never wanted to invade Switzerland was because of huge numbers of Swiss who had firearms. Canada at the end of the day is a pretty inhospitable place for those who are not welcome. One of the more interesting signs in my mind of the degrading US military is the fact they now rely on Canada’s navy to supply the NATO base at Thule Greenland out of Halifax as the US lacks icebreakers of their own on the East Coast.
@Roger U.S. estate tax applies to all property worldwide of a U.S. person (including green card holders and other residents).
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/gp_solo/2011/april_may/estate_planning_withforeignproperty.html
I’m not going to argue enforcement, but clearly the U.S.G. believes they have a right to a portion of everything of a U.S. person.