Precious angel, you believe me when I say,
What God has given to us no man can take away.
We are covered in blood girl, you know both our forefathers were slaves.
Let us hope they’ve found mercy in their bone-filled graves.
Bob Dylan
Petros, a visible Asian minority whose grandparents fled Japanese oppression of Korea, asked Recalcitrant Expat, a visible African minority whose ancestors suffered as slaves in the United States, to discuss the legitimacy of making comparisons between the plight of U.S. expats today with past atrocities. This is in the aftermath of the posting of a Hitler spoof video which compared FATCA’s rounding up of U.S. citizens for taxation and FBAR fines to how Hitler rounded up the Jews for extermination in camps. This post is a result of their common reflexions.
But by conflating one of the most heinous crimes against humanity with any agenda found disagreeable, those who use the analogy are exploiting a tragedy. They are taking vile advantage of the victimization of others for political profit.
So says Ilana Yurkiewicz, who in a blog article for the Scientific America tackles what has become a touchy area in writing and logic, the proper use of “analogy, metaphor, simile, comparison”, particularly as it applies to the Holocaust. In recent weeks the Isaac Brock Society has hotly debated questions like these:
- When and how is it legitimate to compare a contemporary situation with heinous events in history?
- When it comes to making comparisons of issues today with past movements that we abhor, who has the right to decide whether or not such a comparison is legitimate?
- Does the right of comparison belong only to the victims of the atrocity or does human history belong to us all?
- Is it possible for two heirs of a tragedy to have different views as to how that tragedy may be compared to a contemporary problem, and if so, to which of these heirs do we listen?
These are just some of the questions. But can we solve this problem to the satisfaction of all participants? Probably not, but it might help to consider the fundamental issue of whether or not comparisons are legitimate and helpful. Petros has lamented that without making such comparisons people remain indifferent, but that when you do make them, people become outraged, not at the U.S. government, but at the one making the comparison. So one commenter has written:
To impress people with the seriousness of our problem, I don’t use comparisons to anything. I send on the actual stories of what this US policy is doing to the lives of real people, right now, plain and simple. People seem pretty shocked to learn of it, so I’ve found it to be a pretty effective means of consciousness raising.
In our opinion, this approach is unfortunately inadequate. Explaining our situation without making comparisons leads to people looking at you like you’ve gone insane. At best they feign surprise and shock, but then they go on calmly with their lives as if nothing ever happened. Who cares about expats when unemployment is high and one out of every seven people is on food stamps? In our opinion, it is actually better to face outrage than indifference on the part of the public. Furthermore, how does anyone know how outrageous this crisis is if they have nothing to compare it to? Since the authors believe that comparisons are necessary, we will first go through some of the stated or implied reasons as to why a comparison with the Holocaust or other such atrocities is unwarranted.
Arguments against the legitimacy of comparisons
(1) Those who would forbid any comparison of citizenship based taxation with past atrocities, such as the Holocaust or slavery, seem to have a strong belief in the sacredness of the victims suffering. For they would argue that the legitimacy of drawing an analogy their argument rests on finding more than enough dissimilarities between these two issues as to say that any comparison between them trivializes the Holocaust. But this is a matter of perspective. The counterargument is that one honors the Holocaust victims by remembering their suffering to the point of avoiding a repetition of similar events in the future. But to do that, it is necessary to be vigilant, to notice the earliest signs of trouble, and not to wait until it is too late to do anything.
(2) A second obvious reason that certain folks have denied the legitimacy of comparison is that they insist on a one to one correspondence between the earlier atrocity and our present crisis. They would insist, wrongly in our view, that the legitimacy of comparison rests on an absolute one to one correspondence between the things that are being compared. No one, to our knowledge, has been hauled off to internment camps, or gassed and had their bodies thrown in to mass ovens. But human learning itself would be impossible if we had to rely upon exact replication of attributes when applying knowledge gained in one area to developing an understanding of another. Such a requirement would make human intuition useless; for intuition makes use of similarities and inductive reasoning as opposed to relying on exact duplication. Thus, we must insist on the legitimacy of comparing historical events with our contemporary dilemma, and it is not valid to argue that it must match in all the details.
Dominique, a Central African friend, told Petros that lizard tastes like snake. Lizard was on the menu for Petros’ forthcoming visit to Dominque’s home. “That could well be,” said Petros in return. “But since I’ve tasted neither lizard nor snake, it’s not helpful. It is more helpful if you say it tastes like chicken.” Later, back in Canada, Petros replayed this conversation for Moussa, a Cameroonian. Moussa then proceeded in the conference he was teaching to use an analogy of how termites after the rain seek the light which people use to lure and catch them for a nice tasty treat. “It tastes like chicken!” he exclaimed with a twinkle. Whether true or not, at least his audience knew what chicken tastes like. At least he didn’t say, “It tastes like chenilles” (butterfly larvae). Analogy is an indispensable tool because one of the most important pedagogical methods is to move from the known to the unknown. The question is not whether saying termites tasting like chicken inspires in the hearer a notion of the taste and texture of termites. The question is really whether or not termites really taste like chicken–whether the analogy is apt–if it is, it helps a person who has never eaten termites to know what they are really like. None of the people who actually have gone into Swiss bank after Swiss bank, asking to open an account, objected to the FATCA Star post, since for them, that is what this experience really feels like; they feel it is similar to the Jews being singled out for special treatment under Hitler’s pogrom.
(3) A third argument against the comparison is the charge of insensitivity towards those minority groups that suffered, i.e., the political correctness argument. However, this argument is totally belied by the simple and obvious fact that a it was a Jew whose relatives died in the Holocaust who first made the Hitler analogy, Joe Smith commented in his defense:
As a Jew who had relatives who died in Europe, and is under threat of having himself thrown in jail and my family made destitute by the US government, I think the Hitler comparison is rather appropriate.
When I first became aware of all this around 2004-2005 from the website escapeartist.com, I did some reading of the Congressional Record of the debates around the Foreign Tax Exclusion, and expatriates in general. What was different then was that the most rabid statements were coming from Southern Republicans. What has changed is that they have been joined by so-called ‘liberal democrats.’ Listen to what they say. Listen to what they imply. It is indeed frightening. And it is getting worse.
Who dares tell a Jew that he cannot compare his current dilemma to the suffering of his own relatives in the Holocaust? To whom is he being insensitive if not to himself? Recalcitrant Expat, one of the authors of the present post, says that U.S. expatriation tax is comparable to slavery under which his own ancestors suffered in the United States. Shouldn’t people become irate with him because he’s being insensitive to African Americans? Didn’t 9-15 million African slaves die during the slave trade, on their way to be sold in a America? Petros too has compared the US to Japan insisting that his grandparents, who were economic refugees to Hawaii in 1905, that these little Korean slaves must continue to pay tribute to Japan–except that Japan never did do that, for it would have been patently ridiculous if they had tried. Bringing up this analogy, however, made Al Lewis reconsider his position and decide to do an article featuring Petros’ renunciation of citizenship.
So folks, we would like to encourage you all to get over this political correctness. As Dr. Walter E. Williams says, we forgive you of your white guilt for committing heinous crimes against minorities: Now stop acting like damn fools.
(4) A charge of antisemitism is leveled against those who would compare the suffering of expats today with the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust. So the commenter “Annoyed” argued. But when Petros countered that he himself opposed antisemitic acts by of the U.S. government which is going after the money of Jews like Denise Rich and Eduardo Saverin, after the Swiss accounts of heirs of the Holocaust (funds that escaped Hitler), and the bank accounts of Jews who had moved out the U.S., like Joe Smith, who resides in Canada, Annoyed retorted (sic):
You make it sound like the US government is ONLY going after people in Canada that are Jewish. They are going after everyone in Canada and other foreign countires who have foreign bank accounts, not just Jewish people. Antisemitism is defined as the suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. So no I dont believe that counts, if the US Government was only going after Jewish people, sure I’d give you that one.
So Annoyed is saying its ok for the U.S. to persecute Jews, provided that other people like African Americans, whites and Koreans are also persecuted. This is twisted logic at its worse. Shouldn’t the response have been: “We should avoid going after anyone in order to protect the rights of Jews and to avoid being antisemitic.” But instead, Annoyed makes the U.S. into an equal opportunity hater and persecutor and that somehow exonerates them of the charges of antisemitism because it is persecuting Jew and non-Jew alike.
Arguments for the legitimacy of Comparisons
In this light, Ms. Yurkiewicz, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, continues (boldface ours):
Is it ever appropriate to invoke the Holocaust? Absolutely. The most egregious horrors bring with them a moral force. To learn nothing from them, to have the brutalities ignored, dismissed, or forgotten, would be just as insulting to the victims. …
The critical components of pointing to the Holocaust in contemporary ethical discussions are understanding how to make a proper analogy and harboring appropriate motivations. The Holocaust comprised so many diverse crimes on such an enormous scale that invoking it broadly does not say much. Rather, if it is to be used to productively and respectfully advance a discussion, it would be better to point out a specific aspect, compare to something specific today, and then explain why the analogy holds.
It is in this area of “similarities” where the comparisons become legitimate. For those who believe that it is legitimate to draw a comparison between the Holocaust or slavery and citizenship based taxation the legitimacy of the comparison rest in the similarities that they believe the two issues share. So what are some of those similarities?
- Deprivation of property: Citizenship-based taxation with all of its reporting rules and associated penalties deprives U.S. citizens of their non-U.S. property; not least of these is the threat of 383% FBAR penalties which could easily exceed even the total net worth of the individual. One may argue that the IRS has only threatened expats with destitution and poverty–but those who have entered the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Programs may have a different view.
- Deprivation of financial accounts: U.S. citizens are having their non-U.S. accounts closed because non-U.S. financial institutions do not want to run the risks of incurring IRS fines that are levied on accounts of U.S. persons because they have not been properly reported nor do these same financial institutions want to have their U.S. source payments penalized by withholding.
- Denial of the right to work: U.S. persons who live abroad are now being discriminated against because their U.S. status puts a reporting and remuneration burden on their non-U.S. employers that makes them uncompetitive with residents of the same country who are NOT U.S. persons.
- Discrimination: Because of FATCA non-resident U.S. persons are now specifically being segregated from the rest of the population of the country in which they reside. Those who were not born in the U.S. now have lineage problems that are as much of an obstacle to them as is skin color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation etc.
Restrictions on movement: Citizenship-based taxation greatly diminishes the right of U.S. persons to determine where they will live and pay taxes. The U.S. treats U.S. persons as slaves who have no right to move away from U.S. jurisdiction and therefore its taxation. The U.S. government denial of any comparison of slavery and citizenship-based taxation, conveniently forgets that taxation without representation is a form of tax slavery against which the founders of the country led a rebellion. If the US government understood taxation the way the founding Fathers did, they would forbid extra-territorial taxation on the grounds of the 13th-15th amendment which emancipated slaves and gave them equal rights to non-slaves in America. To continue to tax Americans who live outside the country and who have chosen to do this as a lifestyle choice and on a permanent basis, is to indenture them into perpetual slavery to a government which being afar off cares not one whit for them, provides them no services and no protection. Citizenship-based taxation is a medieval relic in which the people born on the lord’s fief owe perpetual allegiance to a sovereign who neglects them except at tax time. Furthermore, this restriction on emigration is becoming more draconian with new measures to prevent the renewal of passports if the person has an alleged debt to the IRS. It should frighten us when a government places such restrictions on movement, like the soldiers of a certain German national socialist movement who, in the movie Casablanca, refused permission to depart if the person failed to produce the correct papers. The film depicts the fear in the people’s faces, and these kinds of restrictions in movement should make us afraid, as it is a warning to us all: Any government that restricts movement draws dangerously close to being a totalitarian state.
After having looked at the two different perspectives on whether or not a given historical atrocity can be compared to a seemingly currently equally heinous case of government misconduct we are still left with the question of which side to choose. The authors of this post do not believe that this question can be answered by looking only at the contradictory claims of the opponents. For there is actually a much more crucial issue at hand here; that is this: To whom does the right to interpret and apply history belong?
In pre-literate human cultures the question of the ownership of history was a much easier one to answer. This is because pre-literate cultures are composed of small groups of those who were genetically related, i.e. the tribe. In these small pre-literate cultures the responsibility for keeping an “accurate” historical record of it genetically related members was most often entrusted to one individual or a small group of individuals. Since these individuals were responsible for holding the collective memory of the group they and the memories which they held became surrounded with an aura of “sacredness” and were therefore not open to criticism from other members of the group. Literate societies though do not have the same dynamic around their collective history because memories record on paper are open to the examination of all readers.
In literate societies history is something that is accessible to not just all members of the group but also to those who are outside of the immediate group with whom the historical incident is concerned. In other words literacy democratized human history. Which means therefore that we all have a right to examine and apply it as we see fit. The fact that historical incidents can be misapplied is a reality that we as a society have to deal with but we should not attempt to deal with this danger by reverting back to a pre-literate handling of history. What instead we have to do is to have open debate about our differing applications. But never should we attempt to appoint gatekeepers of history or to allow others to appoint themselves as the protectors of the sacred.
by Recalcitrant Expat, Petros
@Bankei, Let me just say that the authors of the article have not talked about “genocide” with regard to the tax issues affecting expats–a few commenters have talked about suicide.
The purpose of this article has been to defend the making of analogies with historical injustices in order to understand more accurately the shenanigans that United States government is perpetrating in order to coerce taxes from those who have left its taxing jurisdiction. The USA reserves the right to use excessive force against any of its enemies both foreign and domestic. A tax protestor or tax cheat thus risks prison, and if they resist arrest, they will risk excessive violent force used against them.
Now we are not tax cheats or protestors, we are expats. We live in other countries. So we pay our taxes in our countries of residence. However, I’ve been warned now more than once that I’m putting a target on my back by maintaining this site and by standing up cheekily and resisting the USA incursion by standing on the protections that Canada has made available to us (not to collect FBAR fines, not to collect taxes for the IRS from a Canadian citizen). This target on my back has meant that it is no longer safe for me to visit the USA, and I am among a growing number of expats who now feel that the USA is no longer safe for them or that the USA is no longer worthy of their presence.
This is not genocide. This is another form of cruel and unusual punishment called banishment or exile. Senator Schumer has actively promoted the banning of certain ex-citizens; so this is only self-imposed exile of people who fear entering the USA–the Ex Patriot Act, like the Reed Amendment, would impose exile on some former Americans. Schumer is essentially saying that citizens are not free people to leave when they want but property of the USA to be punished if they leave the plantation (for those who don’t think this is like slavery, I completely disagree). If citizens were free, then Schumer would honor the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the 1868 Expatriation Act and welcome former citizens with the same rights of entry as other citizens of their new countries of citizenship. That means as a Canadian, I have the right to enter and stay six months without a special visa. But as a man with a target on back, that’s not going to happen. Problem is, I don’t think that Schumer knows that a Declaration of Independence ever existed. He sure doesn’t act like it exists.
Finally, never forget that the power to tax is the power to destroy. We must vigorously fight the power to tax wrongly expats, lest this power destroys the lives of the expats. Already many of us feel greatly distressed. I have chosen not to permit the USA government to destroy me, and as a result of this battle, must live now in exile until a president who is not hell bent on making expats pay while giving many homelanders, including the banksters, a free ride.
When I first discovered the slavery issue, I read some comments on a
Swiss forum where a few people were discussing the “coolness” of having a
US passport. IMO, all coolness is gone. In this video :28 seconds into
it, notice the American memorbilia. I see a lot of this sort of thing
back in the early 80s. Now I think the only people who think US
Ciizenship is cool still have hairstyles like these two guy, or gigantic
mullets.
*Do you think that the IRS would have expats extradited for “noncompliance”?I wonder if Canada would protect us or would Canada have to turn us over to them. I believe that the I.R..S. is rabid enough to try this.
Well, rest assured that Canada will not extradite tax slaves back to the United States. They have the same protections as the slaves in the underground railroad.
I actually asked my lawyer this one, and he assured me that Canada will not do this. You can check the US-Canada Extradition treaty to see the list of crimes for which a person may be extradited. Taxes and FBAR are not on the list. However, if you are not a Canadian citizen, being in Canada may not protect you from claims by the IRS (except FBAR fines which Canada has said clearly that they will not collect under the treaty). Thus, the best protection from US shenanigans is Canadian citizenship.
Petros, two things that I have noticed recently in “extradition” cases have been:
1- Is it a crime in the country of residence?
2- If it is a crime, then what are the statute of limitations; has that already passed?
@DomPomodoro – I guess add Portugal to the list of “WON’T DEPORT”, even for real criminals.
Reading stories like this make FBAR filings look really small:
http://theblacklistpub.ning.com/forum/topics/george-wright-will-not-be-extradited-portugal-supreme-court?xg_source=activity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wright_%28fugitive%29
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/nyregion/george-wright-fugitive-us-killer-avoids-extradition-from-portugal.html
@swisspinoy
I agree, short of a miracle we must each make the noble decision in choosing the best course of action in protecting our lives and those of our loved ones. To many, a decision to renounce US citizenship is somewhat of a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ on an emotional level, as we are forced by the policies of the US government to abandon US citizenship to ensure the survival as another.
What’s absurd is to say that genocidal conditions cannot be perceived before they take direct personal effect, that genocide just strikes like lightning out of the blue, that taking any action prior to death is impossible, that there are only victims. Otherwise it can’t be genocide. Tell that to my acquaintance who exited Rwanda as a refugee to Canada when conditions warranted – that self and children were just part of the 6.8 billion, nothing special. I’m finished with Bankei illogic.
There is not a lot of difference between a hold up and what the US government is doing, as Watcher suggested in an earlier comment. Genocide suggests by the nature of the term, the extermination of a “genus” or race. Expats are of various “races”, so the appropriate term is not “genocide”; will US illegal extraterritorial taxation lead to “expatricide”? Only if resisting arrest or trying to break out from prison once arrested, will any of us risk “expatricide” at this point. But the “expatricide” could also be seen as the unintended or intentional side effect of US tax policy: policies that lead to renunciation is a form of expatricide–or perhaps we should use the clever term “Expat Cleansing”–one must return to the US (as Just Me and Roger Conklin have done) or renounce.
But illegally holding a gun to expat’s head and saying pay your US taxes is a heinous crime. In my refusal to pay, I relinquished my citizenship. I have been cleansed of US citizenship (though not quite yet of my tax obligations, a never-ending saga); I am not a victim of expatricide but of Expat Cleansing. But why does the United States government feel it must lie about the number of Expats it has cleansed from the system, by greatly under-reporting the number of expatriations? Because it is an embarrassing crime.
*Genocide would be the case if the US government was seeking to murder all Americans abroad. In the following thread, it has been recommended twice already for all Americans abroad to be murdered with nuclear weapons in a specific country:
In the second link, the person later corrected his/her statement after learning that not all Americans live in America and thus he/she changed his/her statement to only advocate genocide under the condition that Americans have been ethnically cleansed from abroad.
So, as it stands right now, America could practice genocide against Americans abroad, simply because it doesn’t know or doesn’t want to believe that they live abroad. If, on the otherhand, America knew that Americans live abroad, then it could ethnically cleanse them so that they would not be murdered when it practiced genocide. Of course, it is very possible that Americans abroad would be murdered while the US government tried to ethnically cleanse them or due to their dual citizenship or place of birth.
Contrary to the opinions of a few, I believe that Mr Mopsick does have empathy for USP’s abroad. Why? Because he is an American patriot who recognizes our persecution and cannot accept that the country to which he holds his allegiance would treat its citizens as it has. For that reason he has been, and will continue to be a very strong advocate for us. His pride and patriotism in America and his perception of its ideals will not allow him to accept that the US’s actions could ever resemble that of Nazi Germany’s, and I believe he will work tirelessly to prove you wrong, Petros!
My problem with Mr. Mopsick is that he assumes in overbearing manner, that the only thing we have to fear is the IRS and the long reach of the laws of the United States of America. His job for 30 years was to enforce those laws through litigation.
My second problem is that the experience of most of the people is very similar to battered wife syndrome: see this website, which explains the four stages: Denial, Guilt, Enlightenment, Responsibility.
1. Denial: the expat can’t believe that the US is beating the crap out of them through extra-territorial taxation and FBAR filing requirements. People call the experience like being shell shocked. They lose sleep, get depressed, and sometimes contemplate suicide.
2. Guilt: Many blame themselves. I never did this, but many that I’ve come in contact with do. They say, I should have known better; I should have kept up with my citizenship responsibilities and my tax obligations. It’s my fault.
3. Enlightenment: No one deserves this. All their rights are being violated. It is criminal for the US government to do this. This is where the Isaac Brock Society has played an important role, in (1) relieving people of their sense of guilt, the blame victim syndrome. (2) helping them to realize that no one deserves what the USA is doing to them.
4. Responsibility: The United States will not or cannot ever stop this abusive behaviour, the expat realizes that renunciation or returning to the USA is their own choice. They make the decision to rid the abuser from their lives.
Mopsick has now blamed the victim. He is in part an enabler for the USA’s abusive behaviour. He believes that FFI’s are getting in line to follow the very sensible rules that none of us understand because we’ve never even read the regulations. He is an enabler of the abuser and co-abuser of the battered expat. I’m sorry I have such a dim view of his modus operandi, but that’s the way I see it.
He has mocked my stand which is simply this: Stand up for your rights, realize that you are being abused, and put yourself as quickly as possible under the protection of the Canadian government (if you live in Canada) meaning take Canadian citizenship if you can. Don’t feed the predator.
@petros
This event has compelled Mopsick to pledge his allegiance to the US, to draw a line in the sand. Discrediting you doesn’t make him any more right. Mr Mopsick, you doth protest too much
@Bankei: You may be thinking that defending even wrong acts of our country is patriotism. We are also US citizens (many of us hold dual-citizenships). We have been living in the country where we born, grownup and have been living in our country of birth for decades. Many of have no intention to live in the USA in future. Many of us don’t owe any taxes.
If you are patriot, how can you defend our government treating tax-cheats who deliberately hide say 20% of their whole wealth in tax heavens to evade taxes equally with people living abroad and have 100% of their assets in foreign banks? They only need to pay 5% of their assets as FBAR penalty, while we were asked to pay 27% of our wealth. Is it fair?
I have to spend thousands to show that I owe zero taxes. A true patriot would fight against government for the citizens who are treated unfairly by employing draconian laws such as FBAR. Most of the people are fighting against draconian law that our government using to persecuting innocent US citizens. Fighting to protect innocent citizens and for fairness is patriotic act. Of course, in the course of explaining the suffering, some of us may use analogies. Yes my suffering is no way near the suffering of Nazi-death camps, but we lost trust in the fairness of our government. Our government knowingly and deliberately trying to extract fines and criminal penalties just because we didn’t know an obscure FBAR law, even though we don’t owe any taxes. If you want to defend unfair laws then of course that is what Germens did believing it is patriotic duty to support government, even if government persecute some of the citizens unfairly.
@Bankei: I forgot to mention, the FBAR fines could include not even my money. I have to pay fines on retirement savings of my aging parents (who are not US persons), if I have signature authority. I have signature authority over my family owned business which is losing money every year since 2002 (no tax due and taxes in India used to be 42%), which I must disclose and pay fines in OVDI. Can you imagine any civilized nation would use such extraction from its citizens, even if they don’t owe no taxes and not aware of an obscure law such as FBAR?
If you are patriot please fight for all the US citizens and make the government treat all the citizens fairly. Please fight to protect our great constitution and democratic principles.
Nowhere have I defended unfair laws. I have simply pointed out the real world mechanics of this situation. The various powers and interests on each side. The arena in which battle will be won or lost
I have no idea where you are getting the patriotism part from. I have never defended the US government. I have just pointed out that it is a sovereign entity pursuing it’s perceived interest. As do all modern states.
@Bankei- pursuing its illigetimate interest at the clear expense of the legtimate interest of others is something that is called robbery. When it is exercised by a government it is called oppression.
The U.S. government has absolutely no legitimate interest in the financial affairs of its expat citizens when those citizens do not use the monetary system of the U.S. government.
I understand your fear, anger and dispair, but you guys are out of your minds if you think that the US is going to kill you for not writing some numbers on a piece of paper. There has been NO case of anyone charged with an FBAR penalty outside of OVDI, except blatant cases of tax evasion by US residents denounced by Swiss banks, mostly UBS. These were actual cases of millions of dollars hidden in bank accounts in Switzerland by residents of the US, where the IRS could prove willfulness because they involved the creation of fictitious companies in multiple countries to conceal ownership.
I still think that the penalties for those cases were too high, many times the amount of unpaid tax and even prison time in a few cases, but there is just no way that the IRS is going to fine regular Americans living abroad. I sympathize with Just Me, but his case was within OVDI, and even though his struggle lasted two years and caused a lot of stress (loss of LCUs as he says), in the end his penalty was greatly reduced to $5000 (still high, though).
Yes, the US threatens with penalties that don’t exist, and some politicians propose stupid laws. I see this is part of the general American culture of punishment. But there are balancing forces, the National Taxpayer Advocate and the Supreme Court (which ruled in United States v. Bajakajian, see http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1487.ZO.html) are part of the US government too. The Reed amendment has never been enforced, you can check the numbers of visa refusals here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/statistics/statistics_1476.html (for every year, in table XX, the number for “Former U.S. citizen who renounced citizenship to avoid taxation” is always zero). Even the IRS now agrees not to charge FBAR penalties of Americans abroad in some cases.
I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m not in your situation, but you guys are exaggerating. Just like Americans who have a wrong idea about other countries, you guys are having a wrong idea about the US because of this. The US does some pretty awful and stupid things, but so does any country. Canada also detained its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, deported some, and confiscated and sold their assets, which even the US didn’t do. After the terrorist attack in London in 2005, an innocent man was incorrectly identified as a terrorist and killed by the police in the UK during a chase. In 2003, a Chinese man was arrested in Brazil for not reporting that he was carrying a large amount of (legal) money while leaving the country, and he was killed by the Brazilian police during brutal interrogations. Israel often takes actions for security reasons that are considered disproportional. The US is still a free country just like others.
@bharat, These are your opinions. Realpolitik is that every state pursues it’s own interests. What you call robbery others may (and are) calling reasonable taxation based on the benefits of citizenship, no matter that you live abroad.
@Bankei- I’ve not received one benefit if U.S. citizenship and neither have my children. Actually now that citizenship based taxation is being enforced and with the coming implementation of F.A.T.C.A. the mere existence of our U.S.citizenship is one of the biggest economic a legal drags on our lives.
@Shadow Raider- the U.S. did confiscate the businesses of it Japanese citizens and sold them off to White buyers. These assets were never returned to their original Japanese owners.
I guess that American and Canada both had their internment camps. Much like you know who did.
@recalcitrantexpat, Many Japanese in the US lost property due to theft during the forced evacuation, decided to sell their assets themselves because of the circumstances, and had bank accounts frozen, but the US didn’t sell any assets. Right after the war, the US compensated them for loss of property. The US also did not deport any citizen, although many chose to renounce US citizenship and were deported. In the 1980s and 1990s, the US paid them reparations for personal distress.
Canada officially confiscated and sold the assets of those of Japanese descent. Canada also suspended their citizenship rights and deported some to Japan, even after the war. Some had never been to Japan before. Years later, Canada reinstated their Canadian citizenship and also paid reparations for loss of property and personal distress.
Shadow Raider – I can’t believe you said this: Canada also detained its citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, deported some, and confiscated and sold their assets, which even the US didn’t do. The first time you’ve made me wonder about the good sense of Shadow Raider, and you’ve had a lot to say. See Japanese American internment.
*Bankei, it’s also called: “everyone paying their ‘fair’ share”. With 16+ trillion debt that is increasing 3.5 billion per day, poor/middle class stateside Americans will view expats as being greedy if they state that they don’t want to pay US taxes. The challenge with this is getting them to understand the differences between living in the US and living abroad.
@usxcanada, To clarify, my phrase “which even the US didn’t do” applies only to the preceding phrase “confiscated and sold their assets” and to the deportation of citizens. Of course I know that the US detained Japanese descendants.
OK, I admit that the treatment of Japanese descendants by the US was awful, and even if the US didn’t officially confiscate assets or deport citizens, in practice the renunciations of US citizenship were made under duress (and still considered valid, unlike today), and the circumstances practically forced Japanese descendants to sell their property, at low prices. So in practice the result was the same as in Canada.
I was just trying to say that other countries, even those considered free, do bad things too. I am not justifying the bad actions of the US, they are still wrong anyway. Please don’t question my good sense, I’m not perfect.
@ShadowRaider; re your comment about more exploration of historic tax related materials to base critiques on – I agree, and there is plenty of historical fodder to explore in order to condemn US citizenship-based/extra-territorial taxation and coercive claims to an individual’s labour and assets by a powerful government, without recourse. Take the ‘Hut tax’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hut_tax http://www.transformation.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/jnzh/article/viewArticle/130 where oppressive and punitive ‘tax’ burdens were invented by British and European colonialists and imposed on citizens of other sovereign peoples and countries.
Or poll taxes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax
There are plenty of tax related examples where certain groups of people were singled out for discrimination based on citizenship/immigration status http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_tax_%28Canada%29
There is plenty of fodder to use to point out comparisons with a continuum of unfree/coercive labour and the fruits of labour: indentured servitude, press gangs and other unjust and unethical structures imposed by the powerful http://www.google.ca/search?q=unfree+labo%3Fr&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmdo=1&tbm=bks&source=lnt&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:2000,cd_max:2099&sa=X&ei=svIrUP-gMoj50gG2_4HYBA&ved=0CCwQpwUoAQ&biw=1676&bih=911.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=jv_0ZuuJk90C&dq=unfree+labor+labour+tax%3F&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Interesting too, that in serfdom, one of the arguments made to justify it was that supposedly the serf would receive protection from the overlord in times of war (sound familiar?) http://books.google.ca/books?id=kfv6HKXErqAC&pg=PA316&lpg=PA316&dq=serfdom+taxation&source=bl&ots=_x_GEdAY0K&sig=8VqIt0xFtALWNP_RaYXEzTZhiA4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZPUrUK_LJ-mz0QHThIHYDQ&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=serfdom%20taxation&f=false
@all,
We have not explored the terms of the so-called social contract that the US imposes on us unilaterally. It is not a social contract if it is coercive. A contract implies a relationship that is freely entered into, and with benefit to both sides. Inheriting the taxable burden and reporting obligation, and passing it on to our children does evoke one of the hallmarks of ‘slavery’ in general terms, and the size and structure of the IRS confiscatory penalties for non-reporting, or inadvertant errors by those of us abroad, smells of serfdom and indentured servitude. The size of the penalties and the legal and accounting fees to come into compliance can very well lead to debt and to labouring just to pay off that debt. There are many more potential losses thatn just FBAR fines. There is the loss to our households in general, and the claim that the US has the right to a reporting on our non-US employers’ accounts and other non-US persons – eve where we have no direct financial interest. The US restricts our freedom in ways that no-one in the US would be subject tot or accept. And it extends that into our non-US households and d other sovereign countries.
@bubblebustin Honestly, I don’t know, I don’t think I could even formulate a solution. There’s no easy answer if one chooses to make their live abroad it’s not like they can just pick up and move back, that’s not fair to them or their family, not to mention the culture shock, and so many other issues. Financial pressure seems like the only way to get something done through the Congress.
For the persecution, I’m not sure if in our current reality it’s possible to end it, I mean American exceptionalism is what it is, it’s part of our collective psyche, it’s not something that will go away, and it’s not something that is dying out over time. I think short of an alien invasion or act of God, maybe some huge orchestrated campaign that starting with the approval and cooperation of schools and parents we could learn some collective international “humility.”
You guys know living here is basically like living on Planet USA, the economy is big enough that company’s can become quite large and prosperous without serving anyone but the contiguous United States, it’s possible to live here as long as one would desire without encountering media from or about foreign people or nations.
Thinking about and saying all this, I don’t know whether I should be really sad that we are a huge isolated insular island, or if I should be thankful that I was born and live here, I guess it depends on your preference. All of you guys’ whole situation sucks though, it doesn’t make me proud of our government.