Yes, the United States of America wants YOU to donate!
As of May 24, 2012 the US total debt stood at $15,719,144,405,320.76 and we’ve belatedly realized that this actually is a serious load that must be addressed.
Over the past few years it’s come to our attention that we’ve been seriously neglecting many people who could be donating and reducing the overall debt, which would reduce the load on the US citizens who live in our great country. We’ve thought long and hard on this and have come up with a solution to make it very easy for you to donate.
Just like our revered friend and supporter, Senator Charles Shumer, we know that anyone who has lived in the United States, who has a US parent, or was born in the US (and cruelly taken away to another country as a child) recognizes that the United States of America is the greatest country on earth and therefore wants to donate as much of their money as possible to the US government.
To reinforce our much reiterated point that there is no class warfare, we’re ensuring that it’s not just the extremely wealthy who can give generously to our cause, but also the middle-class and, yes, the working class, too!
As of May 24, 2012 the US total debt stood at $15,719,144,405,320.76. The estimated population of the United States is 313,616,370, so each citizen’s share of this debt is $50,122.20 (actually $50,122.20633, but we decided to be generous and forgive that extra cent).
With about 6 million people in prison who don’t make enough to actually pay taxes, the load increases for the law abiding citizens to $51,099.83 each. But, don’t despair, we’ve figured out a way to make that up and lower everyone’s debt load by almost $1000 each!
Coincidentally, there are about 6 million US persons, who, for nefarious (and probably tax evading) reasons of your own, choose not to live in the United States. We realized that if we made it easy for you, you would eagerly donate to our cause to reduce the debt load on those citizens who actually live on United States soil (as any US citizen rightfully should).
Since 99.9% of the world’s population want to be US citizens, we realized that by ignoring that anyone has ever given up US citizenship, we could bring you back as Americans! And with all of the obligations of US citizens, but none of the rights, saving us from having to run up the debt even more! (Since it’s publicly published, we have to admit that there are a few who have renounced, and we can’t legally claim them back, but those traitorous ingrates are a mere drop in the bucket, and they don’t really count.)
We found that by ignoring people’s citizenship in other countries, and by making new laws and applying them retroactively we have a surefire way to reduce the debt load on the patriotic Americans living on American soil!
Now, all people who have had any association with the US, other than visiting for a couple of weeks, can now file income taxes to the IRS on your worldwide income. Further, you can report on all of your assets and bank accounts, so we can track you, and make it easy to continue your donations for the rest of your life!
Of course, just filing your taxes won’t bring much to the coffers, since most of you pay higher taxes in the countries you reside in, however, we have created a voluntary disclosure program that simplifies matters for you and greatly increases the potential for donation. There are many choices, such as automatically donating 5% of all of your assets, or simply allowing the IRS to determine the level of donation for you, up to 27.5% of your assets. You can donate even more simply by telling us that you haven’t filed your taxes or bank account reports for years, so that you can donate up to 300% of your assets!
So a warm welcome back to all of you fellow US citizens with your retirement savings and your capital gains, and your disability savings funds and resulting penalties!
Contact the IRS today to start your donation process!
(Crossposted from www.outragedcanadian.ca)
Outstanding! I just love it. Great piece that had me howling with laughter. This one is going to all of my friends and family….
Absolutely — it is something that others may be able to get their mind around. Good work, outraged!!
Love it! I would love to join Victoria in gales of laughter, but the fact it is so absolutely true makes me want to scream instead. .
I’m certain Schumer, Casey, Geithner, Shulman, etc. etc. will welcome your efforts on their behalf.
http://www.rall.com/rallblog/
Eduardo Saverin renounced his American citizenship rather than pay $67 million in taxes on his Facebook IPO. Why not get rid of illegal immigrants by paying them off?
@Blaze, yeah, I doubt they have much of a sense of humour, they’d probably think it was real!
At any rate, it felt good to vent.
@Joe Amith, thanks for the intro to Ted Rall’s work. He’s got some pretty funny and twisted cartoons.
Ted Rall is absolutely wonderful! He has collections and books. He absolutely hated Bush and really identified Obama for what he was before many of us did!
Now to designate the US treasury as a charity, my “donation” would be tax-deductible! Hilarious, kind of reminds me of my post:
http://isaacbrocksociety.com/2012/03/28/land-of-the-fee-the-cost-of-offshore-tax-compliance-to-the-irs/
@Bubblbustin, yeah it does! Sorry I didn’t catch your previous post, I was pretty new to all this at the time and was in that initial state of information overload and outright panic. Very funny!
I took a sneak peek at this yesterday but it was just as much fun (that’s not exactly the right word when it hits home too) reading it again today. BTW many inmates (inescapably cheap labour) in the US prison industrial complex actually make a lot of money for corporations but then corporations are not a good source of tax money (special congressional dispensations) so regular folks will just have to keep those donations speeding towards Sir IRSS or is that IRRS Sir! (snappy salute)
Here’s one reason they need money from any sources possible:
Almost half of new vets seek disability
The only problem with this is that more donations would result in more government spending. The government would simply argue that $1000 trillion debt was only a fraction of its income.
I did not live in the US when they ran up all the debt, and i’m sure in hell not helping to pay it off. It’s a homelander problem, and homelander solution.
Great idea! Just extend US citizenship to everyone who wants it and they immediatly become subject to US income tax, no matter where in the world they live. That would immediately open the door to trillions of dollars in additional tax revenue and could well be the way for the Federal government to pay the fiscal borrowings from China and everybody else.
Dear Unca Sam: I refuse to contribute. Go look for other benefactors. I live in a foreign country where I hold citizenship. I am not under the jurisdiction of the United States. Solve your own problems. I did not benefit from your housing bubble. I do not live in a McMansion. I live in a modest apartment. My neighbors and I have been adversely affected by the financial liquidity shockwave that your poor management resulted in. I pay local and national taxes where I live. I earned what I have in that foreign country, legally, under its laws. Leave me alone.
I’m not coming back anyway, because I had a heart attack a few years ago, and I don’t think I could even get insurance in the US (if I even wanted to live there, which I do not).
@Jefferson, I find it amazing that we don’t hear more resentment voiced from around the world concerning how the US tried to take the world down in their financial misdealings. Now they want to follow up with FATCA for a second blow.
I think, as John had mentioned in another post, the howling will start when FATCA is actually implemented.
@bubblebustin, I think that the world is mostly glad that things did not get worse and there is a certain level of tolerance for economic woes. If, however, the US government taxes the taxed income of the American working middle class abroad the same as any other American without taking taxes, currency rates, cost of living, unemployment, social security and the current legal differences into consideration, then there will be a lot of noise.
@bubblebustin, There *was* grumbling back in 2009-2010. We heard a lot here (France). Some of the stories that came of the sub-prime meltdown were incomprehensible to people here. How is possible that the U.S. government allowed the banks and investment companies to get away with this? Why did Americans run up so much credit card and mortgage debt? (not possible here). What sane person would buy a house entirely on credit without putting at least 20% down? And so on. Then came the Eurozone problems that may take the house of cards down yet again and tank the recovery. But today there’s no money left in the coffers for stimulus spending so everyone is desperate for revenue to cover existing debt and for a cushion just in case things go to hell again. In that context, FATCA can be quite attractive to governments provided the Americans agree to some form of reciprocity and bully U.S. banks into cooperating..
@Victoria, I myself never heard a lot of public admonishing of the US over the subprime meltdown in Canada, but I’ve detected greater concern over our nation’s sovereignty, which may be partially due to the antics of our neighbour to the south. Canadian taxpayers may be somewhat shielded from a similar catastrophe when obtaining mortgages insured by Canada Mortgage and Housing, but as this article points out, we are not immune to the perils of the subprime mortgage:
“Mortgage Marked Tiptoes Toward Subprime…Many worthwhile borrowers are taking advantage, but those rejected by conventional lenders might actually be bad apples in disguise. If those borrowers fall behind, the taxpayer might not be on the hook for any defaults, but the market as a whole may have to absorb forced selling at an inopportune time, which could lead to wider price declines.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/04/16/subprime-mortgage-market.html
As a US citizen living in Canada, I’m relieved that I don’t need to renew a mortgage right now with FATCA on the horizon, as I would likely be one of those forced to look for alternate financing (there’s that 2nd class distinction again).
check out this article – I posted the link elsewhere as well – it was soo good:
‘The accidental Kenyan: What would happen if the African nation copied U.S. tax policy?’
By Don Whiteley, Special to the Sun May 28, 2012 9:02 AM
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/2035/accidental+Kenyan+What+would+happen+African+nation+copied+policy/6689987/story.html#ixzz1wBRRbS9G
“About seven million American expatriates — nearly a million in Canada — are going through tax hell because of a sudden Congressional interest in catching tax cheats, and America’s unique citizenship-based income tax policy.
American Citizens Abroad (ACA) has called on the United States to end this citizenship-based income tax policy and tax based on residence like the rest of the world. It points out that Americans living and working in other countries pay taxes in those countries, usually at significantly higher levels than U.S. “homelanders.” The ACA is getting the Congressional brushoff – polite conversation, “I feel your pain, but nothing doing.”
But what if other countries fight fire with fire and emulate America’s citizenship-based tax policy, demanding tax compliance from America’s approximately 50 million immigrants?
For the sake of argument, let’s see what might happen if Kenya did that..”
@Badger: That article deserves a thread of its own. Can you post it?
Badger, most excellent! Thanks for finding this. It even mentions the green card holders. Is this the same reporter for the Vancouver Sun that’s done other stories on the situation?
@outraged, I believe you’re thinking of Don Cayo
Badger, Blaze
That’s me. I’m out of the closet with my real name, and I’m going to be doing more writing on this — I’ve got a magazine assignment for a piece that will run in September.
Interestingly — I didn’t know it was going to hit print today. I tried a much longer version earlier but got nowhere with it — no surprise there, it’s hard to get anything over 1000 wds in a newspaper.