I came across the following exchange in the comments section to a recent Isaac Brock post. Like many of the comments posted, I found this exchange particularly interesting. What are your thoughts on the requirement of “Reporting”? What if there were no prospect of suffering penalties for failing to report? Is there a legitimate privacy issue? Are there things that are not the business of the Government? Although this is not a direct analogy in the case of Roe v. Wade the U.S. Supreme court (per Justice Blackmun) did find a right of privacy in the Constitution that justified a prohibition of abortion laws.
http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/02/08/latest-article-from-our-friend-barrie-mckenna/#comment-4858
I am probably missing something, but this is about reporting, right? If we could get the FBAR penalties and the excess penalties for minor tax liabilities absolutely off the table, the reporting won’t make any difference. If I don’t owe them any money, the question of whether I object to the IRS knowing about my retirement fund seems sort of academic: I might object on principle, and see it as an invasion of privacy, but I wouldn’t feel concretely threatened, as I do now.
recalcitrantexpat
@russ- it is about more than reporting. It is about our rights as free people to chose the government that we live under and to leave the one that we were born under. It is about our right to privacy and freedom from harrassment. It is about being presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is about not having to live under probation- because that is what the reporting essentially is. It is about our right to enjoy our property in an unfettered way. It is about not having to live a life where you are constantly looking over your shoulder. It is about not being forced to give self incriminating evidence.
If you see the issue as being one of simple reporting then you don’t understand what it is all about. We do not owe anything to the U.S. if we do not live there. Their interest in us is purely for revenue reasons but their argument is without moral or constitutional merit.
@everyone
Your thoughts?
@all I don’t want a government that has killed and maimed thousands of people on both sides due to weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there, imprisonned people without charge or trial for years, and constitutionally has no right to information about what I do in my country of current residence (and citizenship) to know anything more than what might be in my suitcase should I visit there.
“Are there things that are not the business of the Government?”
Of course they’re the business of the government…of the government in whose territory I reside!