Essay by Mike Kaiser of Toronto on his efforts to get a Social Security number, a prerequist for filing US income tax. (Spoiler alert: it required six separate trips to the US.)
He now looks forward to filing US income tax. (Good luck!)
Essay by Mike Kaiser of Toronto on his efforts to get a Social Security number, a prerequist for filing US income tax. (Spoiler alert: it required six separate trips to the US.)
He now looks forward to filing US income tax. (Good luck!)
Unbelievable. How much do you want to bet that the Globe and Mail is accepting money from the IRS? See this article in ZeroHedge that shows that CNN is doing paid pieces for dictatorial regimes:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-30/3-time-emmy-award-winning-cnn-journalist-mainstream-media-takes-money-foreign
At this point, I have to say that the accusation that the Globe and Mail is complicit with the United States government has a lot of traction.
An obvious propaganda piece. Reading this article is almost on par with watching some grainy US gov’t film such as, “Why We Fight.”
Globe and Mail is normally a respectable newspaper and it’s a shame they too have fallen to the level of CNN.
Hey, if the author really likes being an American, then more power to him. I would like to see a follow up when FATCA goes into place and then he’s audited and he has to gather hundreds of documents to prove that he really isn’t a criminal. Is he going to be smiling then?
Propoganda piece, definitely. I’m a little surprised though, that Canada doesn’t say, “Hey, wait a minute, this is Canada!” By letting this slide, they are basically saying “Hey, this is Canada, the northern doormat of the USA!” Sad…
C’mon guys — the Globe ran this because it’s a funny story about bureaucracy run amok, not because they are involved in a conspiracy with the IRS. I agree that their coverage hasn’t been the best, but these lives lived pieces are sent in by people who think they’ve got a good story. Tone down the paranoia.
Having said that — the guy is either an idiot or he has some very strong reasons for wanting to retain his US citizenship. I laughed out loud when I read this, then immediately thought of Tiger’s attempts to get her CLN underway. My prediction — when this guy finds out how complex and expensive it is to file US tax returns, he’ll change his mind and renounce.
*
LOL, yes the author can still redeem himself by carrying on writing about his newfound US person status adventures. Please, Mike, don’t disappear into that good night!
We want to hear about your accounting costs and time and effort spent filing the prevous six years of taxes, your anxieties about crossing the border again as a known US person who hasn’t rendered tribute to the IRS yet, your experiences getting thrown out of Canadian banks and brokerages, and so on. Hey man, your adventures are just beginning.
@Arrow, Why don’t you ask the editor, Stackhouse, if they receive money from the IRS or one of the cross border specialty firms? Tell me, have you seen any good stories in the Globe, that wouldn’t bring business to cross border tax accountants and lawyers? Who stands to gain from this pathetic coverage? Certainly not the Canadian people or government. If the Globe was covering the War of 1812, they’d say that it is the duty of American-born citizens to pay their taxes to Washington and even to fight the subversive Isaac Brock and stop him from being so paranoid about a potential American incursion into Canada. When is the Canadian press going to do their job in such a way that it doesn’t open them to the charges of treason and presstituion?
@Arrow,
Like you, when I read the Globe article, my immediate thought was ‘Yikes, the clerks he dealt with went to the same school that my Vancouver consulate Clerk attended.’
My second thought was ‘I sure hope this guy knows what hornet’s nest he is poking’.
@Arrow, Does KPMG advertize at the Globe? Here is a puff piece that seems to be designed to bring business to KPMG:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-is-balancing-spreadsheets—and-lives/article1241577/?page=all
KPMG and other cross border specialists have a lot to gain from making Canadian residents aware of their cross border obligations.
First, I don’t think Mike was aware of IBS or MapleSandbox, otherwise he may have thought more than twice about what he was doing.
Second, where an article is portrayed as a subject of reportage (which this one was not) we shouldn’t expect much of the MSM. Most reporters aren’t given the time or money to really research the subject they are writing about. It’s just easier and quicker to basically reprint press releases with a few minor changes. Just look at any virtually any business story, for example, and compare them to press releases. The differences are almost non existent.
The media is filled with puff pieces.It fills empty space at little or no cost.
There’s no reason to be paranoid about this. The Globe has run this feature for at least twenty years: little essays on life experience submitted by readers (“The day my dog died”, “What I learned from grampa”, that sort of thing). This is about dealing with bureaucracy. He might not have found it so amusing if he lived in Iqaluit (or Melborne, or Johannesburg).
Globe coverage of FATCA has been pretty much within the business pages, which deal with…(no surprise) business. You won’t find articles about human rights, justice, or such in that section. No criticism of the writers; it is really up to the editors to identify this as something more than a business and tax and money issue, and to treat it accordingly.
In my opinion…
*@Arrow, Why don’t you ask the editor, Stackhouse, if they receive money
from the IRS or one of the cross border specialty firms? Tell me, have
you seen any good stories in the Globe, that wouldn’t bring business to
cross border tax accountants and lawyers? Who stands to gain from this
pathetic coverage?
Well, I do know Stackhouse — did some freelancing for the Globe years ago and we got along reasonably well. But I’m not going to ask him those questions because I already know the answers.
There isn’t a conspiracy at the Globe or anywhere else on this issue. Big media outlets have difficulty conspiring to get the paper out every day. Yes — their coverage is unsatisfactory (which I have pointed out to them several times), and they don’t see the issue the same way we Brockers do. Blame that on a combination of incompetence, indifference, and a lack of champions in high places. Yes, KPMG gains business from stories like this. That thought doesn’t enter the heads of those editors. Has it occurred to you that this narrative is more likely to dissuade accidental Americans from going through the hoops than encourage them?
This particular piece, as I said earlier, is a public submission by an individual that was accepted for publication by the editor of that page. It’s not a news story, it’s not even an opinion piece. The editor who vetted it wasn’t looking for news value, balance, or attribution — it’s just one guy’s story. I hope no one is suggesting that they censor public submissions like this.
I appreciate the story. It shows another of the many problems that Americans abroad have to deal with, which I had never considered before. I’ve always had a SS number, so I never had to apply for one. Yet, it was easy to get one for my offspring without having to fly to the US, so I don’t quite understand why the individual couldn’t get this done in Toronto.
I am personally aware of an individual who had to travel from Toronto to NY state to get a Social Security number. She was born in the US but came to Canada with her parents as an infant.
@SwissPinoy
If you are over 12 years old you need to apply in person.
One gotcha is that in order to prevent identity theft they require some sort of proof of identity/residency from every 10 year period of your life. Nowhere do they say that on their website, it was just sprung on me when I arrived, application in hand. The rules are rather vague about what would be considered acceptable documentation, school records seemed to be the favourite. Tax records or pay stubs are not acceptable.
I ended couriering documents to them the next day which were fortunately accepted.
I fear for the author of the article. His tone is so cheerful, that I feel sure he does not know about FBARs and the other financial reporting pitfalls and all the penalty possibilities. I feel for someone perched on the brink of the fall into the special hell reserved for the US citizen/deemed taxable person abroad who has yet to know of the complex punitive and confiscatory quicksand just waiting for those trying to comply. If he has been in Canada for 50 years, and came here as a child, he is likely to have RRSPs, or other registered savings that the IRS will punish severely as ‘foreign trusts’. If he is ‘lucky’, the stars will align, and he will not have had much in the way of income or savings. He will not have sold his house, or any of the other everyday events that people outside the US are punished for, which are non-taxable in Canada.
Consider the plight of a disabled elderly person trying to unravel problems with the US from abroad. What a nightmare – involving Social Security. Attending in person the only effective way to start to resolve things. Entailing a full day – driving there, waiting for hours to be seen, driving back. The office wouldn’t return phone messages if the number was long distance – outside of the US, yet would never answer the phone. No tollfree number. No way to speak directly with anyone who dealt with claims ‘from abroad’. No continuity, as the helpful staffperson couldn’t be seen twice in a row – lengthy explanations repeated ad nauseaum. Letters, even registered ones to several different SS offices never answered or acknowledged, even by a form letter. Form letters from the SS hard to understand and to comply with. The main object seemed to be to discourage the applicant, despite qualifying.
@badger and All,
Too bad, he couldn’t say, “Sorry, I was only kidding. I don’t really want a social security number.”
It’s hard to believe this is a true story – how could anybody be so stupid? Obviously he doesn’t know what awaits him. The US citizens abroad who will and continue to be most victimized by all of this are the people who are already in the US tax system.
They should get a “past life reading” and see what they did to deserve all of this.
I thought this was hilarious. And if he’s trying to become tax compliant, he’s only just begun! I’m looking forward to hearing the next installment. This is the sort of thing that will get the attention of people who otherwise just tune out when they hear someone complain. Why do you suppose Dave Carroll got a much better response from the airline when he wrote a cute catchy song that went viral, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo than he got by writing letters of complaint?
Yes, it’s a miserable system. It is not fair. And it’s worthwhile pointing out to him what he is in for, as I see some have done in response to the piece. Maybe he knows. Maybe he wants to renounce, but he needs a SSN so he can do his 5 years of taxes and be compliant. If he doesn’t know already he will find out.
But sometimes, you just have to laugh at the ridiculousness of it.
Behold, the power of Asterix!
@Arrow, Thanks for the input. Of course, it seems far fetched to say that the Globe won’t cover our issue of harassed “citizens”–but it is hardly a “conspiracy theory”. The Globe regularly advertizes for the big banks in Canada and if these banks decide to continue with their plans to implement FATCA regulations, I think it will become nigh on impossible to get this story in the news. We don’t pay their salaries: that comes from RBC, TD, Scotia, BMO, CIBC. The newspapers will just continue to miss the real story.
Mr. Kaiser’s story is indeed interesting from the point of view of bureaucratic inertia; I’ll grant you that. However, you wrote:
Censor? Hardly. I am sure that the Globe only publishes a fraction of the stories they receive from the public. My complaint is about selection. Why this story, about some person who happily volunteers for tax martyrdom? This is very bizarre. Why not the story of one of our renunciations? I haven’t seen one of those yet (except Superman). Why not a story on the Isaac Brock Society? I guess we should start flooding the Globe with our renunciation stories and we will just see how many they will publish.
Very few comments on the globe article suggesting the interest in this topic is declining.
@Arrow
Have been looking for a comment that you made in the spring – believe it was when you came out with the Keyna post about:
In 50 years when people are picking over the remains of the US they will identify citizenship-based taxation as a reason for the decline. Is there any way you could locate that comment for me?
Mike Kaiser = dog
U.S. border = electric fence
@Deckard,
Exactly! Poor dog. Poor Mike Kaiser. Hope he looks around this site to get some information he can really use.
@renounce,
Try comments on this post: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/06/06/phil-hodgen-why-people-expatriate/.