The Slate generally can be counted on to prop any liberal agenda, but the latest piece by Emily Bazelon on the awesomeness of the IRS has an entire paragraph dedicated to the tired old line about offshore accounts equals tax evasion.
Here’s a sample:
The IRS launched a big effort to go after secret offshore accounts in 2009, and since then 71 of these evaders been charged, Laura Saunders of the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.
Have a read, if you think your blood pressure is up to it.
I wonder sometimes if home-landers ever knew that average Americans live outside the borders too?
There are knowledgable folks on this site to ensure that articles such as these are commented and re-balanced. We all need to continue to write comments whereever these types of narrow minded articles are published.
“I wonder sometimes if home-landers ever knew that average Americans live outside the borders too?”
No. They can’t imagine why any average person would want to live outside the Greatest Country on Earth.
The IRS has become a clever way to criminalize emigration out of the US and the media has been uber helpful spreading the misinformation. One wonders how the US can even claim to have a free press anymore since so many of the “reporters” are partisan and bought off.
Emily Bazelon is easily one of the worst at The Slate for substituting her opinion and interpretations for actual fact and for not bothering to research. I seldom click through to read her anymore b/c it’s just op-ed self-aggrandized blathering, but as it’s propping misinformation, felt it deserved a post for anyone who cared to wade in and provide factual information. Slate commenters aren’t big on facts that divert from the liberal fantasy that all is well in the realm though.
Feeling a bit discouraged b/c I am trapped until my child is old enough to renounce. I wish I could dump it for her but apparently though I can make any other life altering decision for her, this one is off limits – according to them.
Thanks for your post and comment, Yoga Girl.
I too am discouraged as you are, as you should be, for your child. I am actually much more than discouraged with knowing the entrapment of my developmentally delayed son and all other “mentally incapacitated” into US citizenship and senseless responsibility and cost of compliance (for $0.00 ever owed to the US). Can the US tell me just what is their “fair share”?
Fair share is just an idea that is being promoted as part of their narrative. If you asked anyone to explain it, they would probably tie it to in-country benefits and when you point out that we don’t get those, there is the fairy tale of how the US protects its citizens aboard.
The average USC living there doesn’t ever give a thought to what it would be like to not live there or why anyone would or that their notion of what citizenship is actually resembles being owned like a pet rather than some voluntary and mutually beneficial relationship. And that makes sense b/c unless you had to ponder the notion, would you? Probably not.
Someday, though not soon, my child will be able to say “I am not an American.” and we can shed the collar and leash, but that’s not true for everyone. There is no escape for your child and that’s not right.
The answer lies in the Canadian govt’s power but I don’t see our govt growing balls on this issue anytime soon. Maybe our efforts should be put to trying to enact legislation here in Canada that can check the USG in its mindless child-snatching ways?
@Yoga Girl
The day I hear the US news media talk about how it’s possible to have sustainable health care for all by funding it from out of their grossly overbloated military defence budget will be the day where I start to believe that they may have any real freedom of the press over there.
Sadly, because it’s all partisan based and about chasing ratings and ad dollars, instead of actually investigating and exposing the truth, all we can expect to get is an illusion of a free press. Even more sad is that it works like this, and the homelanders believe that this is the ‘only true way’ to have a free press. Consequentially, this is why I no longer watch or listen to American news anymore.
In a way, I am now relieved that I’ve never had kids of my own, because it would greatly complicate my expatriation from the USA, not to mention having to work with the other parent on deciding where the kids will go, working out visitations, who gets custody, etc…. Sorry to hear that you can’t renounce for your kids, but you can certain influence them in their decision when they’re ready to choose for themselves.
mhj, I waver between feeling sorry for home-landers and wanting to shake them for being so foolish and trusting. Even my friends who are in the journalism/blogging business can’t be budged from the notion that partisan reporting and half-truth telling mixed with snark and opinions isn’t the best way to inform the public.
Trouble is that the media doesn’t want to inform them, as you noted. It’s a game and the bottom line is money.
But I have already begun my campaign to make sure that my child will not be another victim of American blind faith nationalism and I am helped in this by the fact that she can’t even remember living there and by the Canadian school system, which is a propaganda juggernaut in its own right. I am lucky not to have other parent worries. My husband adopted her and her bio-father and his family are long out of the picture. Technically, she’s already half-Canadian. Duality in terms of citizenship is not a good thing when one of the citizenships thinks its better than the other. My child will grow up and free herself. It’s just a waiting game now. Other parents are not as lucky as I am in that respect.
Great CBC story today about Eritrea’s ongoing shakedown of its overseas citizens … sounds familiar …
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/05/21/eritrea-consul-canada-rick-macinnes-rae.html
“I wonder sometimes if home-landers ever knew that average Americans live outside the borders too?”
If you’re an american living overseas you’re not average (you may have average income), and the “real homeland average americans” don’t care one bit about you, you may think you can win this war by defining yourself as “average” or “regular” but the homelanders just see you as cannon fodder.
statelessman, it’s semantics as much as perception. Home-landers really buy into the myth of the type of American who is able to live “overseas” (the overseas thing irks me b/c as a Canadian, I haven’t crossed any seas.)
I don’t think we can win this particular war of reality. At least not without media help and they aren’t going to help us. Tell a liberal media pundit you live in Canada and they imagine all manner of nonsense about health services and govt. I have told friends over and over that unicorns don’t roam the prairies where I live, but they have their stereotypes and can’t seem to let go of them.
As bad as that is, I can’t imagine the kind of grief people who live in Europe get – especially countries that evoke all sorts of “rich expat” stereotypes like France or Switzerland for example. It’s like non-Americans thinking that America is just California or NYC. Social media, despite what is said about it, hasn’t dispelled as many stereotypes about different populations as it was supposed to.
Cannon fodder? I don’t think we are even that important. The tax cheat storyline doesn’t even include us. We don’t exist for them.
This just sets a major record for standing gall:
Type into Google, “Immigration bill backers say not all back taxes will be paid”
It’s from the Washington Times but it’s mucky Chucky Schumer providing the absolution…..
I may vomit………..Will
Hypocrisy for sure but could it work to the favor of expats if it were to find its way into law? Surely what is good for the incoming citizen gooses is sauce for the outgoing expat gander. Law is based on precedent. Just a thought.
“The universe of offshore tax cheating has become so large that no one, not even the United States government, could go after it all.” says Carl Levin. Too many years as a career barnacle has perverted him beyond hope.
Seriously, this guy unleashes FATCA on the world, and now shrugs his shoulders and says it’s too big a problem for even the super-heroes in Washington to fix? Weasel words from someone who should be run out of Washington on a rail for the grief his arrogant pet project is about to cause the world, which he now seemingly admits won’t accomplish its intended task.
@bubblebustin
Too big to fix? Sounds pretty similar to ‘too big to fail’ to me.