In light of the United States’ tax jihad against any person born in the United States, even those possessing the dominant nationality of another nation, I would like to explore the possibility that Canada take the lead in making post-natal changes to one’s place of birth. I could perhaps legally change my middle name and have my place of birth re-assigned to Canada, and then I would be able to cross the US border as a native-born Canadian.
The Province of Ontario has now set the precedent for changing a birth certificate in order to better reflect a person’s true feelings about their gender. Whether you agree with this or not, Ontario is now recognizing transgendered people’s right to determine their own gender, even without surgical interventions. The National Post reports:
New rules that have recently come into effect allow transgender people born in the province to apply to have the document amended by submitting a letter from a practising physician or a psychologist.
Susan Gapka, chair of the Trans Lobby Group, hailed the change as a crucial step for the transgender community in having their gender identity recognized.
“We’re going to celebrate this victory — because it is a victory, it’s a giant leap forward,” she said.
“Trans people’s identification will more easily match their presentation to the public.”
Well, I’m also a trans person. I am a trans-national. So therefore, I should be able to get the government of Canada to change my place of birth to better reflect my presentation to the public. My place of birth could now be listed as “Toronto, Ontario” where I made my oath of fidelity to the Queen of Canada.
This little change in the birth certificate and by extension, the passport of Canada, could solve a conundrum for thousands of people in Canada whose connexion to the United States does not include loyalty and solidarity but only place of birth. It is a simple solution that the government of Canada could quite easily implement which would reflect the dominant and effective nationality of Canadians whose only blemish is their United States’ birthplace.
*@ConfederationH
France has not yet imposed a 75% rate; the government has said it will do so as from 1 January 2013. But that’s a marginal rate applied to income over €1 million. France also has a Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune. Switzerland has a similar “wealth tax”. Neither is deductible or any way considered in the calculation of U.S. tax.
You do need to differentiate between marginal and effective tax rate. Think of Mitt Romney, paying 14% some year(s) and apparently 0% in others (where he is said to have probably used losses to offset capital gains).
In real life nobody pays the rack rate. When Britain had a 90% marginal rate, Lloyd’s of London was one of the investment scams that grew up to avoid or evade it. (Later, when marginal rates came down, the Lloyd’s scammers targeted middle-class American and Canadian investors with their blind-pool investment, leading many into bankruptcy but that’s another story.)
malarcky.
An engineer or other professional in Sweden or Norway pays the top marginal tax rates. France was little different when I looked for work there.
Wikipedia average rates mean nothing if one wants to use the numbers for anything other than a political advertisement.
I don’t care what Romney apparently makes. But if I lose money in one year I would want to have the losses averaged out by carrying them forward—a calendar year is only for procedure. I would worry a lot if a president were talking about taxing my bad years as if they were my good years—-is there any president doing that?
*@confederate, I understand from a friend in Switzerland that the Swiss Wealth Tax can be claimed as a “Deduction for other foreign taxes” privision as described in IRS Publication 54, which reads “You can take a deduction for these miscellaneous foreign and also claim the foreign tax credit for incoime taxes imposed by a foreign country.”
There are certain foreign taxes which are specifically stated as not being deductible for US tax purposes, such as personal property taxes.
I had always presumed that wealth taxes could not be claimed until I was advised by this friend that the professional tax advisor this person uses advised that the wealth tax falls into this miscellaneous tax category which qualifies it as deductible. “Miscellaneous” certainly is a pretty broad term.
I am not a tax professional and therefore am merely passing this information on as it was given to me. Presumably we have a tax expert among our readers who can provide authoratative comment on this.
Petros’ suggestion will never happen. Not in Canada, not nowhere.
For trans-gendered persons, the case can be made that the change is a correction. The people doing the birth certificate looked at the baby’s equipment and made a determination of sex. Only later, did the individual discover and reveal their “true” sexual identity. Making these changes will prevent the problematic situation where an individual’s gender, as indicated by dress, appearance, etc. does not match what’s on the passport. There could be other possible situations as well.
On the other hand, changing the place of birth amounts to falsifying records, and not many governments will entertain doing so, certainly not Canada.
Let me add a side note:
Skimming through the 53 replies previous to my own, I recognize the sage opinions of individuals I have come to recognize and respect. I will continue to read their comments. But I have also seen hysteria and the ramblings of nuts. It is to be expected, I suppose on an open forum. But I have just come off a long weekend when I did not check in on this website. It did me good. And it was not about evading the topic. In fact, I had a good discussion with an American living in the US who is most concerned about a daughter living in Canada who has not been filing. And later, I met another American who had to close down an account in the country of his birth, in fear of horrible penalties. Even so, it was tonic to talk about this stuff face-to-face, in person. It calmed me down. And so, if I may, a suggestion to anyone reading this that an environment like IBS can lead to a circling of paranoia, fear, and anger, where we egg each other on. I am guilty as anyone. However, try to keep an even keel. Don’t let the nuts bother you. Try to smell the roses, if only for maintenance of sanity.
*NorthernShrike
I have not been commenting for a few days either. I will say that some times many ideas here seem too radical but in my opinion upon closer review often have some element of rationality. Canada HAS made “legally” false identities for people under certain circumstances see the coming movie ARGO (or the previously released book of the same name by Tony Mendez I suggest the book which more accurately and extensively discusses Canada’s role). In the book the author Tony Mendez(an American CIA Agent) upon arriving in Ottawa in 1979 is shocked by the non chalance of PM Joe Clark and FM Flora Macdonald in basically legally issuing false documents to the American hostages being hidden in the Canadian Ambassador’s residence in Tehran. In fact the Islamic Republic of Iran and Ayatollah Khoemeni once they had learned of what Canada and Joe Clark and Flora Macdonald had done angrily denounced it is a violation of international law and norms and an abuse of power by Clark and Macdonald. Now to be clear what happened then was a totally different circumstance. However, as they say never say never. Mendez in the book claims that he suspects very few other countries or leaders including the US would have broken international norms in the way Canada and Clark/Macdonald did. My personally opinion is we will probably never get to the point where Petros idea would make any sense or would having reason for doing so however, I said probably.
I have not been commenting for a few days either. I will say that some
times many ideas here seem too radical but in my opinion upon closer
review often have some element of rationality. Canada HAS made
“legally” false identities for people under certain circumstances see
the coming movie ARGO (or the previously released book of the same
name by Tony Mendez I suggest the book which more accurately and
extensively discusses Canada’s role). In the book the author Tony
Mendez(an American CIA Agent) upon arriving in Ottawa in 1979 is shocked
by the non chalance of PM Joe Clark and FM Flora Macdonald in basically
legally issuing false documents to the American hostages being hidden
in the Canadian Ambassador’s residence in Tehran.
Tim, I have always valued your comments here. But do you do see, based on what you said above, if one is not an American, there is no issue? A blue passport is 50% liability and 50% benefit nowadays. The net result is 0%. Add to that the FATCA and being American just isn’t worth it.
My wife has an Italian uncle who was making a VERY NICE living in Iran during the years after the Revolution. I haven’t seen him in years.. I’m wondering whatever happened to him…. Anyway, this guy has wealth like I have only seen in magazines. He has a couple of houses on Copacabana beach and other mansions that I have visited. Had he been a US person, he never would have been able to buy all of these nice properties.
US Person = Not worth it. Roger shows us going back 35 years ago. My wife’s uncle is another set of proof shortly thereafter. We are ALL living this FATCA cliff-hanger. Frankly, I don’t give a @$% who they elect there, I’m very happy being an EX-US Person. Sorry Steve, you sound like a nice guy, but I wouldn’t like to live there.
Good advice, NorthernShrike. Thank you.
*geeez
Perhaps I was not clear in the fact I was making a highly technical point in response to NorthernStrike. In fact I have not even yet gone back and read what was previously said. I agree completely with what you said Geeez. The people in the absolutely worse position are those US citizens who have lived outside the for many years without obtaining citizenship in their country of residence. Once you have citizenship in your country of residence your options right up to renunciation open up considerably. I also don’t think if you travel on a valid Canadian Passport with US place of birth you are going to be somehow accused of being a US citizen traveling to any country other than the US.
@Tim,
And also the Canadian government gave the infamous Evelyn Dick, the Torso Murderer, a new identity upon her parole in 1958, an identity which remains unknown to this day (she’d be 92).
As an aside, re ARGO, I had the pleasure of being seated with Minister MacDonald at a dinner in the early 80’s, and it was absolutely fascinating to hear her tell of her role in the “Canadian Caper.”
@Roger Conklin:
For 20 years we always deducted our Swiss wealth tax from our US income taxes.
For those of you who have insufficent nerve to address my comments because you think they are “ramblings of nuts”, I have already pointed out the story of the Canadian state sponsored sex change operation that cost the tax payer many hundreds of thousands and now the guy/girl wants it reversed. He/She was a government employee and union member and the LGBT’s even managed to get him his own “restroom” facilities for the period before the operation at his taxpayer funded workplace.
But the real issue is that as nutty as you may think my posts, they are strictly words and you read them voluntarily. Now what your beloved multiculti-LGBT-social-marxist-welfare-state government is doing is everything but voluntary.
The Drug Wars Hidden Economic Agenda
@Northernshrike: Your comment I think is the most germane to the question of exploring the issue, which was my intention for this post. I also appreciatePacifica’s and Tim’s responses. The United States changes the birth identity of a person in the witness protection programs. Such changes regularly occur as personal identity is a political and social construct and it has little to do with truth in the first place.
Your contention that it would be a “falsifying records” is appreciated, yet I think we need to get over such constructions of reality. Consider, the United States has “defined” certain Canadians as “United States Persons” for tax purposes. This is absolutely false in many cases. It is a egregious violation of these peoples rights under international law. So let’s get over the issue of who is “falsifying records”. The records are nothing more than convention in the first place. They have little to do with our actual identities.
The Iranian scenario brought up how angry the Iranians were at the Canadians for creating false documents so that certain Americans could get out of Iran. Well, that’s just too bad isn’t it. It was the right thing to do. When faced with a wickedness, it is right to do what one can to protect people. That’s why I became a Canadian in the first place. I am hoping that Canada will protect me from Barack Obama and his successors (if ever he has one).
Northernshrike wrote:
I am no expert on trans-gender issues. My preconceptions on the issue however is that the person is not typically a hermaphrodite–in which case it is easy enough to see how an attending physician could make a mistake. Trans-sexuals however seem to wish to present a gender to the public which in a pre-surgical condition is not a “correction” but a false representation as some understand and define gender. In this case, the argument of the trans-national that I made above is quite apropos, as the person no longer wishes to be the national of a certain country and changing the person’s place of birth in their documentation is the only certain way to accomplish the trans-national public presentation and ambition of the person in question, particularly in the face of rogue regimes like the United States and Eritrea who have no respect for the conventions of international law. It is to be remember that the right to change one’s nationality is a universal human right according to the UDHR of the United Nations. Last time I checked, there is no such right to change one’s birth gender.
@Petros, please don’t confuse Ethiopia with Eritrea. Ethiopia is not a very free country either, but it’s not nearly as bad as Eritrea, which is the one that taxes its citizens abroad. The two countries are enemies since Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993.
[editor’s note: that was a mistake, and I’ve fixed it, thanks, Petros]
*@Petros
1. “Birth identity” and registration are (at least to the extent that the benefit the individual) rights defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Sadly, many Mexican parents can’t afford the fee to register the birth of their child, meaning their child can’t go to school either. Changes in birth identity depend on local law and varying applicable statutes in different countries. That intelligence and police agencies are able to provide fake documents is well known but hardly helpful to your case.
2. I have never been able to find a case where the USG asserted its jurisdiction over a person who was or had a claim to be a US national but had not ever (nor his parent on his behalf) taken advantage of an attribute of that nationality. In any case there is too much doubt about the status of a foreign national born abroad who may also have US nationality. The USG engages in what seems to be extra-legal action sometimes in treason cases: think of Kawakita and Yaser Esam Hamdi.
3. I don’t see how the trans-gender issue, addressed as I mentioned earlier by the European Court of Human Rights and at the political level in many North and South American jurisdictions, is relevant to taxation. Except for spies and other holders of fake passports (some of the US Embassy personnel in Tehran in 1979 come to mind) why would a government put an incorrect place of birth on a passport or birth certificate? AFAIK birth certificates amended to reflect adoption do not change place of birth.
4. One alternative, not likely to be adopted, is to use the Swiss approach and denote “Heimatort” — or domicile or the Spanish “vecindad civil” — on an ID card or passport instead of place of birth. http://bit.ly/RBLsUg
*I encountered an unfortunate individual today who got a notice that his bank account was being closed. He was trying to open up a new account, but they requested a SS number which he didn’t have, and so he was trying to figure out how to get a SS number, but was informed that such would take months. He had never filed US taxes, never heard of FBAR, lived abroad most of his life and was asking if he could or should renounce and how or why.
@SwissPinoy
Brock should send care packages to these individuals, which would include a box of kleenex and voodoo dolls in the image of our favourite FATCA characters. Absolute anguish is how I can describe those first few moments when I first saw the shackles.
On our first meeting with our lawyer, I noted that there were several boxes of kleenex on his desk. He said his visitors had been going through a lot, comparing the information they were getting as having the emotional impact of being told they had a serious and sometimes incurable disease 🙁
We have rented a small apartment here in Switzerland to the Church of the Latter Day Saints for years, and up until the last pair of missionaries they were always young men or women from the US. The two current missionaries are from Holland and Germany. Today they told me that starting about 9 months ago the Mormon Church in Europe had a new policy: they are no longer bringing missionaries over from the US due to the difficulties in getting them set up.
Maybe there is hope that Mitt Romney will repeal FATCA at the behest of the Mormon Church.
@SwissPinoy,
How many out there fit that exact same profile? And, bubblebustin, they’ll need more than a good supply of Kleenex in their OMG moments. We here all know how unbelieveable it was to us when we started our learning curve. All this can very well be compared to being told of a very serious, life-changing and life-threatening disease.
@bubblebustin,I kind of felt like crying today and am still a bit dizzy. It was a rather unique day. On the way to Bern, there was traffic congestion due to a car accident, so I exited to an adjacent road but it was also jammed. Then, I tried my luck driving through the small country roads in the fog, where I learned that my navigator wasn’t good in detecting dead ends. Yet, I still made it to the embassy on time, where I tried my best to help this unfortunate fellow while waiting for my appointment. On the way back, there was another car accident in the other lane. One car had flipped and the passengers were still inside, while another car was on its side and the entire freeway on that side was blocked. When I finally got back home, I saw that there were two contact requests for job prospects, I got pictures of the cleaned pool of my rental, and I felt relaxed and relieved with the understanding that I can now (or soon) bank normally and that my mortgage is safe! Life is still good as a single national. It is sad that it had to come to this, but one must always attempt to think ahead and make the best out of the given situation. Employment stability was my leading motive for dual citizenship, yet, I’m still getting job contact requests even with only Swiss citizenship and I’m not even looking!
@ConfH,
A very interesting observation — that the Church of Latter Day Saints is not sending their young missionaries abroad, probably especially right now to Switzerland due to setting them up with bank accounts, etc.
Here is a related December 2010 news release: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-statement-regarding-swiss-missionaries
and http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/foreign_affairs/US_lawmakers_criticise_Swiss_missionary_ban.html?cid=29015098.
@ConfederateH, Maybe it has to do with traveling costs and visa requirements. Can you try to confirm if FATCA is really a reason? If so, it will be easier to convince congressmen to repeal it. Two important senators in the Finance Committee are Mormons.
@SwissPinoy,
A weight has been lifted from you, and you’re going to do just fine with your single citizenship. I’m so glad everything is coming into line for you with banking, mortgage and job opportunities. That you missed all those accidents, you were able to give some information to the unfortunate person new to all of this and made it to the embassy in time for your appointment in spite of dead ends must be some kind of good message! Congratulations.
If you can, we would sure like to add your information for both the Consulate Directory Report http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/03/24/consulate-visit-report-directory/ and the database on renunciations and relinquishments http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/03/14/draft-pdf-compilation-of-relinquishment-and-renunciation-data-as-reported-on-isaac-brock/ .
Apparently it has nothing to do with FATCA, it’s related to visa requirements as I imagined. Switzerland has decided to ban foreign missionaries from outside the EU or EFTA.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700091651/No-more-US-Mormon-missionaries-to-be-allowed-in-Switzerland.html
@Calgary, Shadow: These missionaries are around 20 years old. I was asking them about FATCA when they told me about the Church’s new policy. They knew nothing about FATCA or US extraterritorial taxes, I assumed it had something to do with FATCA. Instead it appears to be a Shengen issue which may or may not be related.
As a side note I will add that my great great grandfather was a mormon from Switzerland. He was basically chased out of Switzerland due to pressure from the protestant church. He and his wife migrated from St. Louis to Salt Lake City with all their worldly goods on a pushcart.
And no, I am not a Mormon. My great-great grandfather said that he never left the Mormon church, the Mormon church left him (The church abandoned him and his 8 month pregnant wife in the desert of Arizona in ca. 1870).
In a similar sentiment I say that I never renounced my US citizenship, the US government renounced the Constitution.
I wrote a letter to Gary Johnson, Libertarian presidential candidate, about a possibly captive audience of 6m plus voters, but not surprisingly never heard anything back other than the occasional bulletin. My research doesn’t turn up anything significant relating him to USP’s abroad. The NY Times speculates how he may be a spoiler for Romney:
Mr. Johnson said he had no problem being labeled a potential spoiler in an election that he views as “a debate between Coke and Pepsi.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/politics/gary-johnson-the-libertarian-partys-presidential-nominee-worries-republicans.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&hp
*Thanks, calgary411. I added the info.