Make sure your US social security number isn’t in the wind.
The IRS suggest care with this key number. Show your Social Security card to your employer when you start a job, the IRS says. Also show it to your financial institution for tax reporting purposes.
But in general, the IRS says you shouldn’t carry your Social Security card with you. For that matter, don’t carry other documents that display your number either. If your Social Security number is stolen, the IRS warns that someone else may use it to get a job. The unwitting employer may report the income to the IRS under your purloined Social Security number.
The IRS will assume when it sees that income reported to your number that you failed to report all your income on your tax return. Trouble will ensue. If you end up in this pickle, you can explain the fraud to the IRS and get our record updated. But you don’t want to go through this if you can help it. Be careful out there.
It has been my observation when in the US, people generally write a check more readily than using a debit card for such mundane purchases as groceries, etc., and it is common practice that their US social security number is inlcuded on their check. Boggles the mind.
I have wondered abt this and the safety of these numbers given that they have so many issues with these numbers! I have one that is still in my maiden name somewhere. I’m not keen on updating it as I never intend to use it for anything. They are SO lax with this data and they link it to everything.
The wild and sometimes whacky history of the Social Security Number:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n2/v69n2p55.html
They are terribly lax with it and the rampant ID theft that goes on in the States is largely due to the misuse of the SSN by all sorts of credit based entities – that legally have no right to ask for it, yet will deny service or charge you an extra fee, if you don’t provide it.
The schools and health care systems are the worst. Health ins, until recently, used your SSN as your identifer and public/private schools used them as ID numbers until well into the last decade. When I taught public school, we’d have to send home emergency forms and such at the start of the year and it asked for SSN, I always told my students to tell their parents that no one had the right to their SSN except an employer and a bank for tax purposes.
When I registered my daughter for daycare/preschool, I was asked for it every year and I always declined and told them why. Same with DR’s office forms. No way, I told them.
Given that both the SSA and the IRS know that ID theft of SSN’s is widespread and that misidentification happens often (the credit reporting agencies in the States are the hands down worst when it comes to mixing people up), it alarms me to think that more of our personal info could soon be floating around in their systems.
I guess I’d rather have an SS number and do my best to keep it secure than a tattooed barcode or RFID chip implant. I really try to guard against ID theft but it’s an uphill battle. I was asked for my driver’s license at the bank one time and I refused to let them take it out of my sight to photocopy it. All I wanted was to have my longtime chequing account changed to non-interest bearing because I felt their 9 cents a month was an insult and it was annoying for my bookkeeping. There were forms to sign and perplexed expressions involved with what I thought was a sensible, simple request.
Speaking of turning over information to a foreign government, I hadn’t realized until I just followed up that the Condominium Homeowner Association had published information on US persons filing requirements after I had contacted their executive director last May. Here is an excerpt from their piece in the Times Columnist called “Condo Smarts”:
“U.S. citizens who live in Canada also have personal obligations of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S., even though they are residents of Canada. It is important to understand that the sale of a principal residence in Canada is not tax exempt for U.S. citizens.
There’s more. If you have a U.S. citizen on your strata council who is also an authorized signing officer on your trust funds, that person is also required to report on their U.S. tax return whether they have any foreign bank or investment accounts.
The U.S. Bank Secrecy Act requires them to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts if they have a financial interest in, signature authority or other authority over one or more accounts in a foreign country, and the aggregate value of all foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year.
While these are the personal issues of the U.S. citizen, the strata corporation may discover the release of the financial information of the strata corporation to a foreign government is in conflict with our privacy legislation.
Canadian strata corporations do not report to the IRS, so before any information of the strata corporation is released or published as part of the U.S. return, the strata corporation should seek advice on the risk of the release of personal information to a foreign government.
For more information, U.S. citizens may wish to go to americansabroad.org.”
http://www.timescolonist.com/condo-smarts-tale-of-two-tax-men-and-strata-corporations-1.178211
The signatory thing is ridiculous. A USC parent, according to this, can also not be a Girl Guide troop leader, serve as the treasurer on a school based parent council, a board member for any type of community group/association or sports league. It’s nit-picky and while I am sure that no one really gave much of a thought to these types of things, the fallout and collateral damage this inflicts on the daily lives of average people is just absurd in its restrictiveness.
I’m more concerned about the IRS, and US government, getting my SIN. LOL
@TheMom,
I hear you! Especially since I do not have a SSN.
This is my response to the US trying to go after my wife and my response to the Canadian government’s rolling over and taking it up the behind (attempting to ratify an IGA)
Sorry it took so long. It took me until today to photograph a bald eagle in the right “angered” pose.
The above is for all of those who were born in Canada and are entrapped by the US transmission of citizenship.
I’m planning on doing up one for those who became naturalized Canadian citizens. The anger and frustration knows no bounds.
Nothing like showing the Eagle back to “True Americans’ who use it to represent all their patriotic fervour. 🙂
Here, and understated tweet! 🙂
A concerned Canadian who is designated an Accidental American expresses his views on #FATCA and Citizenship taxation. http://bit.ly/18H8Tpg
Just Me, well…this is a Canadian bald eagle (the bird that is…) born and raised. It was raised in the nest that is on the other side of the Serpentine River in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. And of course, the Americans like to think of the bald eagle as their bird. Isn’t it ironic that the largest gathering of eagles in North America is in Harrison Mills…in Canada? Even though Alaska boasts the greatest number of eagles per capita in North America, the greatest gathering of bald eagles is in Canada. Sort of says something, doesn’t it?
I’m actually waiting for a bald eagle to make a landing on a Real Canadian Superstore flag pole right over the Canadian flag and then try to photograph that. That will definitely make an emphatic statement.
@bubblebustin, interesting that the Condo association has understood how filing of the FBAR jeopardizes their privacy. Downside though is that it will put pressure on us not to take on any co/signatory roles – thus shutting us out of business partnerships, condo and other associations, jobs where we’d have even a small co-signatory role – even for a petty cash account, fundraising, voluntary and charitable associations – as treasurers or board members, family future and contingency planning, etc.
Now, here is an announcement by the CFIB Canadian Federation of Independent Business in Canada:
“US law could erase privacy protections – are you affected?
Many small business owners in Canada have business partners or family members with U.S. citizenship or dual citizenship. On January 1st, 2014, a U.S. law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is set to erase certain privacy protections now taken for granted in Canada. You could be affected if you are:
A U.S. citizen living in Canada,
A Canadian/U.S. dual-citizen living in Canada
A Canadian citizen connected through family or business to a U.S. citizen living in Canada
Plus:
You have money or assets held in a Canadian bank
Two practical effects FATCA could have:
Loss of privacy pertaining to information held in Canadian accounts
New potentially onerous filing obligations with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Canadian banks are obligated to protect personal information in Canada under The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). However, on January 1st, 2014, FATCA will demand that Canadian banks hand over to the IRS personal information found in Canadian bank accounts linked to U.S. citizenship. Should a Canadian citizen’s information be found there as well, it too will be turned over. Canadian banks have said they will cooperate with the IRS.
While FATCA aims to bring U.S. citizens living abroad into tax compliance, it is likely to have unintended consequences. Along with a loss of privacy for citizens outside of the United States, there will also be new filing obligations to manage, red tape to overcome and extra accounting costs incurred.
To inquire about the interaction of Canadian laws, FATCA and the IRS, please contact the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
To understand IRS-mandated filing implications please speak with your accountant.
To understand how your financial institution will hand over your information when requested by the IRS please contact your bank.
Should you have other questions, please contact a business counsellor at 1-888-234-2232 or cfib@cfib.ca. ”
The CFIB describes itself as:
“About Us
With the strength of over 109,000 small business owners from coast-to-coast – entrepreneurs just like you – the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is the big voice for small businesses. For over 40 years, we have represented the interests of the small business community to all three levels of government in their fight for tax fairness, reasonable labour laws and reduction of regulatory paper burden.
We have our finger on the pulse of any issues affecting the full range of enterprises in Canada, from one-person, home-based businesses to firms employing hundreds of people. Through regular polling of our membership, we are privy to an up-to-date, firsthand perspective regarding the state of the economy, as well as their feedback concerning what changes need to be made to government policies. “
@Badger
I always appreciate your perspective. Being a USP means being shut out of the very things that make one a contributing member of society, however the best thing citizenship based taxation has had going for it is that no one’s known about it, and are consequently oblivious to the destructive effects of it. The situation can only end when it is escalated to the point where Americans are being discriminated against by the very societies where we live. There are likely thousands of USP’s in Canada sitting on boards completely unaware that they are required to report their corporation’s financials to the IRS. The question is, how will a strata corporation or any other entity vet USP’s without being discriminatory? It would seem that most would have even less information than a bank would have to go on when searching for indicia. The day may very well come when USPariah’s will be obligated to disclose their disease to all parties, unless there is of course change brought about first by awareness, then by activism. The sh*t really needs to hit the fan full force, with favourable winds blowing it southward before there will be any change, imo.