Roger sent me an early morning email, saying that my name made into the Miami Herald, and I immediately began to comment at the McClatchy site: IRS crackdown on foreign assets leading many to renounce U.S. citizenship.
There I’ve had a numerous interactions with commenters. Here is what has appeared thus far:
Petros wrote
Hi! My name is Peter W. Dunn, and I am a blogger at the Isaac Brock Society. I am the one mentioned in this article. I don’t know why the moderator took down my original comment, perhaps because I included a link to our blog, where people can get information about why Americans abroad are renouncing their citizenship. I am sorry that I have to go to such lengths to have free speech. But I think that it is the least you can do, since you have mentioned my name in the article, that you give me an opportunity to respond to the article.
The reason why we are renouncing is because the IRS is breathing down our necks. Most of us are not rich people. We are just normal people who have learned about unreasonable filing requirements, such as telling the IRS about the contents of all our financial accounts, or face draconian fines up to 300% of our total wealth (=50% willful fines times six years statute of limitations). We renounce out of self protection, but not only so, to protect our spouses, many of whom are not even US citizens. Please, do not erase this comment this time.
Timr wrote:
so you are excusing the fact that you are a tax cheat, because? Using your wife to hide your income is a pretty filch thing to do. And, if you think you are just a “normal” person then you are not only lying to the IRS but you are also lying to yourself. So you hope to get a Canadian passport? Doesn’t it also mean that you will now have to pay Canadian taxes? Which BTW, are higher than US taxes.
Petros wrote:
Timr I invite you to the Isaac Brock Society, where you can find out more about me. I left the United States in 1986. I’ve lived in Canada since 1995, and am a now a Canadian citizen. You don’t have to tell me about Canadian taxes, I am intimately familiar with it. I also am up to date with my US tax filings. I owe nothing. In addition, you can be sure that my reason for relinquishing my citizenship has to do with escaping the long reach of the IRS, and their attempts to make expats pay because they actually have no representation in Congress and cannot vote the idiots running your country out of office.
Golfer78015 wrote:
People who refuse to pay taxes should have everything they own confiscated and be put in jail.
golfer–you’re pretty smart. Have you read the fifth amendment? Do you know what due process is?
What is the protocol for treason?
Petros wrote to dw1206:
Why, do you want to charge Barack Obama and numerous members of his administration for their violations of the Constitution of the United States? Or is your question pointed at me because I used my God-given right, refered to in the Declaration of Independence, to separate myself from unjust government?
What is the appropriate thing to say to these evaders? Good riddance?
Petros wrote
Yeah, debbie, we feel the same way about your IRS. I mean when you have a chance, think about how the IRS threatens us with fines of 300% of our bank accounts
gmartini wrote:
For the life of me, I cannot feel sorry for your situation. You have broken our laws and well, you must suffer the consequences. All actions have consequences, correct? I get that no one really likes the IRS nor their tactics, but paying taxes is the law.
Petros replied to gmartini”
I have broken laws? What are you talking about? FBAR? Don’t make me laugh. That is a farce of a law, and a violation of most of my constitutional rights. Please see an article I wrote with Monty Pelerin, When government turns predator on the FBAR law.
gmartini wrote to Petros:
You have tried to conceal income, thus avoiding the income tax. THAT is breaking the law. And please re-read you reply to me….you have contradicted yourself and in a round about way, incriminated yourself in the process. I will allow you to figure out how…..
Petros wrote:
gmartini, I am tax compliant in the United States. I don’t owe anything. I pay my taxes in Canada, and you are now libelous because you say that I am concealing income, which is an absolutely unprovable assumption on your part. I have not contradicted myself. It is a long and clear principle of law that an unjust law is no law. [originally I mistaken wrote, I pay my taxes in the United States–I am tax compliant, but don’t owe anything in the US]
gmartini wrote to Petros:
Thank you for explaining the very basics of the Natural Law Theory to me. Martin Luther King Jr. used it to denounce segregation; I get it. But what I do NOT get is how and why wealthy people try everything possible to avoid paying taxes. I don’t care what country you profess your allegiance to, the fact of the matter is NOT paying income tax in this country is illegal and a punishable offense. Get over it and pay your fare share! You are NOT special nor above a law that YOU do not agree with. Regardless if you agree with a law or not, it is still the law. Until that particular law is changed or abolished YOU, like the rest of us, must comply. And might I suggest you research what join accounts/community property means!
Petros wrote to gmartini:
I pay all my taxes here in Canada. I don’t need your lectures about paying taxes. It is really ignorant on your part to think that I should have to pay taxes in two countries. That’s why I renounced my citizenship. Its because people like you can vote to tax expats. It is a form of thuggery.
DW1206 wrote:
I hope it’s worth it to them. There are many foreigners who would do anything to be American citizens. It is amazing what greed can do to people!
Petros wrote:
Yes, greed can cause people to vote for politicians who will try to steal money from Expats because they have no representation in Congress. Yes, greed can cause people to put Obama in power so that he can go after the expats and threaten them with 300% fines if they don’t hand over 27.5% of their savings to the IRS. Yes, it is amazing what greed can do.
54 thoughts on “Feeding the Trolls at McClatchy”
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@Foxladyhawk and A Gentlemen’s Rapier. Wow – to both of you. Your stories moved me, when I thought I had so much anger built up that it wasn’t possible to move past it. So, thank you, for bringing me, once again, some much needed perspective, and remind me why I can’t be so cavalier as to think to myself when reading posts & comments, ‘just renounce, darn it!’. I wish I had something comforting to offer, but, of course, I don’t, except to say you have many friends here who share your pain, and even those, like me, that can’t or don’t, share the pain, do have empathy for you.
@all…Thanks for your support. It really helps to know that there are others out there making the same agonising decisions. I mostly lurk on the site and the forum, but it really has gotten me through the process. I actually worked on a FATCA implementation programme at a large British bank, and had been thinking about this for a while before that. When I discovered IBS, though, it made it a lot easier to actually begin the process.
@A Gentleman’s Rapier “my Slovenian great-grandfather left the Austro-Hungarian Empire for America, as the family story goes, because the Kaiser’s troops were rounding up young men and impressing them into service. And now I leave America, because, in its way, it is laying a similar claim to my body and its products.” This is a very clear statement. Even for those of us that did not leave the US with the intention to leave permenantly, we are now, in effect, making the same choice as your great-grandfather.
Reblogged this on Stop Unconstitutional Double Taxation and commented:
Lots of debate on the Miami Herald and McClatchy site, including comments from many that are intolerant of our situation. I would hope that everyone who reads this will take the time to enter this debate and make our unfair and unjust condition known objectively to all.