ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Ed. note: William Olenick has been active in Republicans Abroad in Switzerland, where he is a longtime resident. He sent the following email letter to friends 28 January; we reprint it in full as part of our coverage of the ongoing problems for US citizens in Switzerland.“Dear all,
Read the article below my comments and you will see why I also have my problems with the banks and I am tax compliant.
For the last 25 years I have been busting open nitch markets for American products, contributing to lowering the trade deficit, developing new markets for US producers, creating employment for my brethren back home, increasing the tax base where they live.
The only way to do this is to be on the ground in the countries you are selling.
In my case, my markets were Europe, North Africa and the Middle East so it made sense to set up a base of operations in Switzerland, as it was close to the markets, was a well run country, my wife happened to be Swiss, from a large, close-knit family, so it was a no brainer.
Two months ago my bank informed me that I could no longer make wire transfers to the states.
That being the case how will I pay my suppliers?
More
*Just to clarify in case anyone is not already aware, Severin did not become a Singapore citizen when he moved there and then renounced his US citizenship, He was born in Brazil When he became a naturalized US citizen he neither lost nor had to renounce his Brazilian citizenship, there being no reason to do so since Brazil does not subject its citizens livng outside of Brazil to income tax on non-Brazilian source income. Brazilians who relocate abroad are always welcomed home should they decide to go back later in life.
So he obtained a resident-foreigner visa and left the US, renouncing US citizenship and payhing the US Exit Tax to become a foreign citizen (Brazilian) resident, but not a citizen of Singapre. Singapore subjects foreign citizens resident there to Singapore income tax on both domestic and foreign-rource income. Capital gains are taxable income in Singapore, so it was a gross distortion of the facts for Senator Schumer and others to classify him as a tax evader. Check it out. The UN Declaration on Universal Rights, which has been ratified by the United States, insures that every person shall have the right to leave and return to any country. So the legislation proposed by Sen. Schumer, which would have forbid him from ever again visiting the United States, was in effect a repudiation of the US ratification of the UN Declaration on Human rights.
Fortunately Schumer’s bill was rejected by Congress. Every once in a while Congress does get it right.
@pacifica777
Agreed 100%.
If Olenick can manage to convince even one person over there of the plight of Americans abroad, it may get the ball moving on some sort of meaningful reform. I just think that he’ll be ignored, and that Olenick might conclude that the only place for Americans to be is in the homeland.
Given the attitude of people there, if the correct conclusion is truly that the only place for Americans is to be at is in the homeland, then I’m also correct in feeling that I no longer feel like an American because of their attitude towards Americans abroad.
I just hope that our concerns will finally be addressed though am not optimistic. Many of us speaking out will be deemed tax protesters and extreme at that. The best I think we can hope for in the near-term is very limited reform, with perhaps a slight broadening of the streamlined programmes.
If I renounce, I doubt if I’ll tell very many people apart from a few very close friends and loved ones. It’s just not something that many will accept or understand. It’s about trying to survive in a perilous world.
I just fear that, rather than real reform, the U.S. government will end up passing laws to make it even harder to renounce or make it impossible to shed U.S. Personhood as a means of deterring further expatriations. Perhaps the time to get out is now if you can. But who’s to say that future legislation might not even be retroactive??
+1, mjh49783
@Roger Conklin
If the US wasn’t concerned about the fallout at the UN over the Ex-Patriot Act conflicting with the UN Declaration on Universal Rights, I bet they would’ve passed it.
I believe the main reason why they didn’t pass it, is to put up a front on how much a free society that the US is, when in fact, it really isn’t. They just didn’t want to be called on it.
Senator Orrin Hatch went on record to say how, (taken from Wikipedia) “[i]t always bothers me when somebody renounces his citizenship in the greatest country on Earth just to save money, save taxes … I was really upset at Eduardo Saverin for doing that, and there are others who are doing it too.”
Thing is, if the USA really is the greatest country in the world, then why would anyone need to renounce in the first place? They don’t take the time to figure out why people do it, because America being the ‘greatest country on Earth’ is an absolute to them. It is perfect. Flawless. Therefore, it must be a problem with those ungrateful people, and so on.
I call bullshit!
America used to be a better place than what it is now, because once upon a time, people recognized that it was not a perfect place, that the work wasn’t finished, and that it was in their interest to work on making it better. Now, that notion no longer exists, everyone is out for themselves, and fucking each over is part of the game. Apparently, the work is done, and America is perfect. They did win the battle against Communism, after all. Why not rest on your laurels? That’s why I believe America is now in decline.
@geeez
Do you really think they would
@swisspinoy
Olenick shouldn’t leave it up to other expats to determine whether he moves back to the US or not. He himself should protest with his own actions. Due to his actions, homelanders will hardly view his return to the US as a sacrifice, au contraire, they will only view it as a normal consequence to having left the US. Just ask whoaitssteve, the quintessential homelander.
@mjh, Roger, as Eric brought out in a post, Schumer angrily denounced the American Thinker as publishing against his Ex Patriot Act. My article, “No civilized country would ever ban Eduardo Saverin,” was the most detailed argument, citing also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, claiming that it would be an unconstitutional Bill of Attander.
I wonder if my article had swayed certain members of Congress against Schumer’s bill and that is why he lashed out against American Thinker on the Senate floor. You never know what influence you have, do you?
@Petros Could have been a coincidence, but who knows? Bill of Attainder is a serious matter, and maybe your words did make a difference.
*@MJH, I actually completely agree with you! It’s a self-righteous senators like Orrin Hatch and Schumer who refuse to acknowledge the whole picture and are outraged by any questioning of blind patriotism. I also agree that the Ex-Patriot Act wasn’t passed due to fear of possible fallout with the UN Declaration of Universal Rights. But I still wouldn’t put it past Congress to try to subsequently pass similar perhaps even stealthier laws if renunciations really surge through the roof.
I also believe that America is now in longterm decline. This, along with my increasing fears of a collapsing dollar and hyperinflation is why I’ve finally concluded that I’m going to try and get out; it will be interesting to see if I hit obstruction along the way.
@Petros, you may be right that your past article in American Thinker may have indeed helped sway Congress away from passing Schumer’s Ex-Patriot law. (I must admit that I’d forgotten all about that!) You’re correct that we should never give up hope, no matter how impossible it may seem right now. 😉
*mjh49783, my initial reaction was quite similar to yours. Yet, I let it rest, put some thought into it and then gave the guy a call. From the call, I quickly learned that his position is not much different from yours and mine. He seems to have similar goals and interests but is approaching the matter from a different angle. In my view, people can achieve much more by working together. It’s not about rescuing anyone, but rather about joining forces to achieve a common goal.
*For all we know, his marriage might have been splitting up anyway for reasons completely unrelated to all this. Perhaps he simply wanted to move back to Vermont.
@Roger, Singapore does not tax either foreign income of individuals or capital gains.
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Global/Local%20Assets/Documents/Tax/Taxation%20and%20Investment%20Guides/2012/dttl_tax_highlight_2012_Singapore.pdf
@swisspinoy
I can see your point, as his moving back to the US wouldn’t make him any less a ‘US person abroad’ than you are having renounced your US citizenship. We can have different divisions: US Persons living abroad, ex-US Persons living abroad, US Persons ex-living abroad all fighting the same cause!
*bubblebustin, the actions of the individual have a much greater impact when done as a group. If Olenick moves to the states or not and how he is viewed after moving is also totally irrelevant. What matters is the economic impact such might have and how people are made aware of such. As one individual acting alone, the US won’t care and nothing will change regardless of where Americans or former Americans choose to reside. Yet, as a group, it becomes more difficult for the problem to be ignored since the group can highlight the problem from various angles.
@bubblebustin And yet another category (division as you said): people that immigrated to the US and are getting FBARed out of existence because they reasonably thought that monies earned and saved back in their countries of origin could stay there.
monalisa1776, my dad is very Swiss and he is perfectly happy in the US, living on his farm. He milks his goats, grows his flowers, makes his vegetable soup and sits for hours enjoying the sun. That’s his life and that’s all he wants. He doesn’t care about politics, economics, global affairs, FATCA, banking, etc. Living on a farm in the US is a wonderful way of dropping out from the daily hassles of life and enjoying life by doing little or nothing. Politics? Who cares.
People are relinquishing/renouncing b/c, as it stands, it is the only viable option for those who can’t really move back to the US and don’t have the resources to keep up with the increasing burden of a compliance system that is little more than a surveillance system. A few tweeks could probably make it easier like dropping the reporting on signatory accounts and recognizing retirement savings accounts as equal to those in the US and getting rid of capital gains tax on primary residences. But I really don’t think that will happen even if former expats start marching on Washington.
I understand where the Olenick guy is coming from on just going back. I have thought about it myself, but its not my home anymore. It’s just the place where I came from like Ireland is the place where my great, great-grandparents came from. There is nothing particularly about the hunk of dirt you were born on. But I have always felt that way and maybe I am just wired differently than most.
Patriotic or not-so much is a windy war of words that some people use to avoid having to talk about what is really going on. The USG is persecuting its offshore citizens b/c it can and b/c the rest of the world won’t stand up to them.
I wish Mr. Olenick luck, but even if he does get active for the cause when he returns that won’t come soon enough to help most of us here. We will have already had to make our choices for the sake of families.
@a, amen!
@swisspinoy, what more can we do? The only thing really available to us it seems, is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to renounce.
*bubblebustin, that’s what I’m asking. Just Me suggested twitter.
Jefferson D. Tomas mentioned
the stories which could be better organized and that more people can
contribute too. I’ve got to make my own story too. More people could
comment to the news. One could make more phone calls. One could do
something creative on youtube. One could explore how IBS could work
better with Olenick, republicans abroad, democrats abroad, ACA, etc.
One could protest nude, burn US flags with FATCA written on them, etc.
There’s millions of things that one could do, but I don’t know what
would have the smashing impact and it’s time for me to resume my work on
my hobby photography database. 🙂
There’s also a side to the argument that if many US persons unable to thrive outside the US, like Mr Olenick, didn’t have to renounce in order to survive, they would have the continued freedom to move back to the US and thus again contribute to the tax base there. Renunciation dries up any potential future revenue from USP’s (at least so far) and is causing ill-will toward the US. None of us, least of all him, like the idea that he’s doing it with his arm wrenched, but he’s doing it nonetheless. Perhaps Mr Olenick is headed for an identity crisis made only necessary by US policy: where do his allegiances lie?
*@Jefferson D Tomas, I have tried for a couple of hours to post my comments on the Time article website, but have been unsuccessful. You have my permission to post them for me.
RC
*@Jefferson Thomas,
I have teried for a coouple of hours to post my comments on the Time artcle webstsite, but for some unknown reason have been unsuccessfuol. You have my permssion to do so.
RC
@roger I was able to post using my Jefferson D. Tomas facebook profile (nom de plume, but they haven’t shut me down yet). You could try the same, or if you don’t want to would you please post here the narrative that you would like posted there?
Granted sometimes one has to wait for a long time when trying to log in using facebook. Sometimes I have to try mutiple times to login using facebook on Time and many other sites that offer facebook as an option for identifying commenters.
Deckard, I don’t really understand what you mean “do you think they would” – ?? Would understand living abroad? No, I gave up a looooooog time ago hoping that Americans would see the light. I’m just biding my time till my naturalisation process goes further.
Swisspinoy, I’m going the way of your father. I’m actively looking for land. I’m younger, so I’m looking at it from money-making standpoint. If anything, it’s a good way to move assets out of the US.