AtticusinCanada has written a nice little summary of her sufferings–I nominate it for the comment of the day award:
My whole life has changed because of this. I’ve felt immense grief that the only way to deal with and move on is to renounce. I always assumed if you were born some place you were entitled to that citizenship without any other need of proof. As long as you didn’t commit treason or some serious crime you were a citizen. I had never, once heard of an FBAR! I called the IRS many times over the years to make sure I still was within their rules and nobody every mentioned such a thing. Nobody mentioned when after 9/11 we were required to get a U.S. passport either. Some have said that it’s written on page 4 of the passport. Well, my vision is VERY bad even with glasses and I never even attempted to read those pages. I assumed if it was anything important I would have been told about it and barely glanced at the tiny,tiny print on those pages. Couldn’t someone have informed us when we landed here? In fact up until I had to get a U.S. passport I wasn’t too sure I was even a citizen there anymore sometimes since the person I spoke with when I landed at Buffalo insisted over and over that “You may lose your U.S. citizenship over this” So when I went for that passport in the back of my mind I was worried they might not give me one. When they did I mentioned the fact I’d been told I might lose my citizenship and the person there did say “No, you were misinformed.” I came here in 1980 so maybe the rules were different or something back then but, I only landed and had not taken citizenship.
The constant worry about money and fines, fees, penalties. The hours and hours lost trying to figure out the right paperwork, how to fill it out, who to trust or not and how in the bloody hell to pay for this “compliance” has made my rheumatoid arthritis flare up over and over when it was under control before. I have been in the hospital once with a terrible breathing problem they couldn’t get under control except for the use of steroids over a long period. I now think this was brought on by extreme stress. The situation was so bad at the hospital that I was questioned about extensive measures and did I want to be “revived” if things got worse. That situation also made my son’s illness worse since one of the things wrong with him is severe panic disorder and depression. He was there and had to witness the situation in the emergency room and hospital. I have no doubt in my mind at all that I was made sicker by worrying over this and fretting day in and day out. Loss of sleep, constantly trying to figure out “the right thing” only to find out that not even the IRS knows the “right thing” many times.
I found out about all this after the death of my mother and in the midst of dealing with a very difficult sibling. I wouldn’t have owed them a thing. In fact they owed me 600 dollars which I am afraid to claim. I still believe there are thousands of people who do not yet know about this at all!
I’ve had my tax forms prepared twice at quite an expense and I’m sure the paperwork is wrong and so have not sent it in. I have not done FBARS as I would need help with them and cannot afford it. My sons illness has flared really badly twice since I found out about this and some of his treatments are very expensive so any “extra” money I have goes to that. Not that we have any “extra” money!
How can anyone actually say how much they are affected by this since it just invades every area of your life. I haven’t been able to put this on the back burner and not worry about it even when something good is happening. As I said above I have one sibling who is a very, very difficult person and so telling my family I’m renouncing has been just peachy. That sibling will use this for the rest of my life to portray me as a “bad” person to other family members at every opportunity. So not only did it strain my marriage, it put me in the position of being a perpetual “black sheep” who will be “tolerated, pitied and disliked” an outsider, not “one of them” I’m so looking forward to having to deal with the dynamics that will go on once I have renounced. Some will know better but, others won’t.
Lately, this situation has lead to problems with my spouse because I haven’t renounced yet. It’s not that I don’t want to. I am terrified to go forward and file all that mess should a penalty be assigned to me. And tax payer advocate or not, I am just not in any physical shape right now to drag myself through such an ordeal. It’s GOT to be done but, this is such a catch 22!
This stupid witch hunt which people inside the U.S. think is going after the uber rich “off shoring” in “tax havens” has done more to harm low and middle income “targets” than anything I’ve seen them do down there in a long time. I have learned a hard lesson about what citizenship taxation is and what it means. I’m sickened by the comments I see on certain U.S. based articles. Is this who they really are?? Oddly, I think not. I think if it were happening to THEM they’d have a completely different opinion which makes them very selfish. The thing I am most angered about at the moment is that comment by President Obama last week that they are paying to fix their infrastructure by “repatriating taxes” First off that is a LIE, it’s NOT “taxes” It is fines and fees and penalties on paperwork nobody ever heard of outside the U.S. for the most part and they know it. If it were taxes it would even come close to being enough as according to American Citizens Abroad 82 percent of expats would owe zero taxes. Secondly, it told me that all this suffering was PLANNED. That they are NOT going to RBT and do not ever want to. That they know what they are doing and know no one inside the U.S. will care.
As some here have said it’s not the America we grew up in for those of us that did grow up there. Or maybe it is and we’re just now seeing how they operate with those that don’t live there. At any rate the feeling of betrayal and back stabbing runs deep. Like many of you I have spent decades here feeling I had to defend the U.S. at times and stand up for Americans because I felt many times they were all negatively portrayed and not all Americans are bad people. I had to deal with this daily since my mother in law was staunchly anti American. Coming to a new country and having to deal with her hurtful remarks was hard but, I DID win her over. Her and most people who got to know me well. I feel the U.S. is losing something they cannot get back. They can never make us back into good will ambassadors ever again. There was little justification for us to do that in many cases to begin with and now there will be none.
At any rate my main worry is keeping MY health up because my son needs me to be healthy. I can’t help him when he needs it if I go down too far. I’m just going to renounce, file what I can by sending it straight in and not going into any “program” as I do NOT trust ANY of their “programs” Why they would put families abroad who would not owe them a dime in taxes through this is beyond shocking to me. As Obama said they are going to rebuild their infrastructure by “repatriating taxes” NO it’s not “taxes” It is fines and fees and penalties on zero taxes owed in most cases. Who ever thought up such a plan and feels it is right is an immoral, vicious jerk.
I now believe there is no hope for them to resolve any of this with residency based taxation as the evidence and Obama’s comments show this was planned and is being done on purpose so why on earth would the let any minnows go and not penalize them?
@WhiteKat
It’s the first time that I’ve heard it, so I guess ‘thanks’ to the anonymous benefactor. ;^)
@AtticusinCanada,
Excellent, heartfelt comment. Only a person without empathy or reason would not understand.
@mj
It was even funnier in the email because at the bottom was a footer with a stamp of the Canadian flag and “Measurement Canada” written next to the flag….so as to mimic official government letterhead.
Of course, in metric the measurements would appear even bigger to Americans. 25.4 x 7.62 is size small in Canada.
@WhiteKat
lol
If I was not being constantly depressed I would find it funny.
@WhiteKat, hilarious! We do need some humour injected from time to time!
“As Obama said they are going to rebuild their infrastructure by “repatriating taxes” NO it’s not “taxes” It is fines and fees and penalties on zero taxes owed in most cases. Who ever thought up such a plan and feels it is right is an immoral, vicious jerk.”
These taxes are to be used for wealth redistribution. You steal from someone who does not vot and give it to someone who does nothing but votes for you.
First) group Taxation without representation
second ) group representation and being paid off from group 1 money
@money, but their idea is to distribute the wealth of foreign citizens to the U.S. That’s the ridiculous b.s. rub in all this. I frankly have zero issues with paying my taxes here in Canada where I live. Canada would never access my family a penalty or fine or fee because we pay in full, gladly and on time. But for the U.S. to steal from us all on zero tax owed in many cases to “rebuild infrastructure” from foreign citizens is the most unjustifiable law I’ve ever seen. Yet, justify is just what they try to do. With the hive mind chorus joining in to praise it all.
I think Canada needs new infrastructure, we need extra money for schools, healthcare and other expenditures so let’s start demanding the U.S. pay their “fair share” for living next to us. HUGE fines and fees on water and any other natural resource they want from us. It makes more sense than this does.
@money
All the more reason to renounce in the end. Besides, I know I don’t want to pledge allegiance to a bunch of jerks like that! Just the feeling of being treated like a tax chattel slave alone is enough to make me feel repugnant towards the USA just on principle alone. And I don’t even have shit, plus several other reasons as to why I want out. (disillusionment being a big one)
But beyond that, we can’t worry and fret over stuff all the time. It’s simply unhealthy for the soul. Why give the bastards the satisfaction, anyway? We have to keep on living.
Thanks to this comment by AtticusinCanada; “…When will those who actually live there be required to pony up their “fair share” for the services they actually use….” on another IBS thread http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2013/05/24/obama-commerce-nominee-penny-pritzkers-tax-problem , it reminds me that it would be great to highlight for the media the repeated staggering hypocrisy of the US government – embodied by past and current IRS, Treasury and Commerce officials:
For example, the fact that the last head of the US Treasury – Timothy Geithner, did not pay his US taxes owed until first he was audited, and then later, after being scrutinized for the Treasury nomination. His US tax failures covered a string of years, and were various, and not insignificant sums. Strangely, the IRS waived his entire penalties – something they won’t do for those abroad who owe the US zero, or far less than Geithner did, after the US double taxes our Canadian savings in mutual funds, TFSAs, RESPs, and the sale of our principal residence in Canada. See; …”…In 2006, the IRS audited Mr. Geithner’s 2003 and 2004 taxes and concluded he owed taxes and interest totaling $17,230, according to documents released by the Senate Finance Committee. The IRS waived the related penalties.
During the vetting of Mr. Geithner late last year, the Obama transition team discovered the nominee had failed to pay the same taxes for 2001 and 2002. “Upon learning of this error on Nov. 21, 2008, Mr. Geithner immediately submitted payment for tax that would have been due in those years, plus interest,” a transition aide said. The sum totaled $25,970….” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123187503629378119.html
The next Treasury Secretary, Lew kept a big chunk of his change in the Caymans, and said that he ‘didn’t know’ he had invested in a fund based in an offshore tax haven.
The newest Commerce secretary Pritzker, and her family, are known for their prolonged years of investment in offshore trusts to avoid US taxes – while we are punished for our trifling local Canadian accounts and assets held where we live. See http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2013/05/24/obama-commerce-nominee-penny-pritzkers-tax-problem .
And,
previous IRS Commissioner Shulman admitted that he found doing his US resident taxes ‘too complex’ and preferred to have someone else do them for him. But he didn’t see fit to assist those abroad, whose US tax and financial reporting obligations go far beyond the complexity of those required of US residents even though we’ve already filed and paid once, in full to the country where we actually live and earn.
So, the Global reporter and any other non-US media writing up this story might find it funny and sad, and ironic that during this latest US crusade to extort double taxes from the rest of the planet, and FBAR and FATCA penalties from Canadian residents, Canadian citizens, and the rest of the world – all with no economic interests in the US; both of the top US officials of the IRS and the US Treasury were incapable of preparing their own US taxes properly themselves. And in the case of the Treasury Secretary Geithner, whose public statements deliberately smeared and slandered those living abroad as tax cheats and criminals – he did not pay his ‘fair share’ of US taxes until audited by the IRS, and did not pay up in full for back years, until under scrutiny for his Treasury post. And the US President chose to nominate a Commerce Secretary who chooses to invest offshore to avoid US taxes.
Yet, it is the bank accounts and assets of those living and paying taxes in full to the CRA in Canada who the US forcibly intends to stripsearch with no warrant, due process or just cause using FATCA?
Is it not worthy to Canadian news that during the commencement of this US pursuit of those in Canada who’d already paid one set of taxes in full to the CRA, the top IRS official found his own US resident taxes too complicated, and the top Treasury official was a tax cheat who owed US taxes over a period of years, and only paid up when forced to? Is it not newsworthy that the US Commerce Secretary and her family choose to avoid paying US taxes and banking in the US when they can?
Is it not worthy of Canadian media attention that Canadian taxpayers would be paying extra taxes to the federal government in order to enable the CRA and Canadian banks to search out and report on all the transactions, deposits, withdrawals, balances and other activity in our legal local Canadian accounts under FATCA, while the US chooses not to make US banks obey the laws against money laundering because they are ‘too big to prosecute’, and might depress the US economy http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/03/06/holder-banks-may-be-too-large-to-prosecute/ ? And no one in the US banks went to jail, and it never comes to trial http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
But somehow, those of us in Canada should be reporting our legal local registered accounts and paying a second set of taxes to the US?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/01/17/wall-street-bonus-lew-to-replace-tax-avoider-geithner-at-treasury/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/01/obama-geithner.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/75119-irs-commissioner-doesnt-file-his-own-taxes
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/282895-lew-dodges-critiques-remains-on-track-for-treasury
@ badger
That’s yet another great angle you have taken. Ms. Paperny will not lack for material if she is reading here. If you aren’t an investigative reporter already, you should be.
What is better proof of the perverse results of citizenship-based taxation than the following, relating to automatic pension enrollment in the UK, posted on the US Tax & Financial Services blog. Does anyone think young US persons in the UK have any idea or should have any idea that they ought to opt out of benefits the UK government thinks employers should provide for them for their long-term financial security?
http://www.ustaxfs.com/uk-pension-scheme-auto-enrolment-issues-for-us-clients-2/
The draft version of FATCA reporting by foreign financial institutions of their US accounts is now out. It seems that many accounts may now have to be reported three times: first by the US person on an FBAR; second by the US person on form 8938 with their tax return (under penalties of perjury); and third by their bank on the new form, which includes disclosure of account balance, interest, dividends, gross proceeds, etc. This seems appropriate to note under a thread about having one’s life stolen by the IRS.
This thread can be summarized as follows:
Americans abroad who do NOT live EXACTLY as Homelanders living in the Homeland will have their assets CONFISCATED.
It’s the “life control” and “confiscation” stupid.
Note that the word “tax” is NOT included in this description.
@qm, three times? Wouldn’t want us to go unidentified abroad now would we?
That is ridiculous just like the rest of this. I have to say as someone who is a really, really private person all of this has bothered me on another level since the beginning. I am someone who has a few life long close friends. I don’t do crowds often. If I go away on any vacations *ha hardly ever* I look for remote places and won’t do big, hoopla hotels.I like my life here in Canada because it affords me space, long quiet evenings reading in the winter, peace. I just like my quiet life and my PRIVACY. It’s bad enough to have this NSA stuff going on but, to have that kind of private banking data, so detailed shared around in the U.S. with god knows who, really rankles my sense of safety, autonomy and well being over all. It feels like China when neighbours were encouraged to tattle on each other and there was nowhere one could be themselves or live without feeling watched. I despise that kind of thing and who would like it? It sets people up to think that if you don’t go along with it then you are doing something “wrong”
This is a very slippery slope with all this so called “data” sharing going on. Well, it’s not data. It’s our lives. When do we have the freedom of privacy unless a real crime is suspected or indicated?? Anywhere? Renouncing will relieve a lot of this strain. For decades the U.S. totally ignored its expats and when it did notice us it was to treat us in this abusive, despicable manner as if we are assumed criminals. Done and done with them.
@AtticusinCanada
Citizenship based taxation has created the means by which the US itself can gain from the benefits afforded to us in the countries where we live. This behaviour is nothing other than parasitic: A parasite is defined as an “Organism obtaining nourishment from or living one another organism (the ‘host’) for survival and usually harming it and causing disease. Some parasites are independent and some depend entirely on their hosts and separate only when either one of them dies…”…or in our case, renounces US citizenship.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/parasite.html#ixzz2c8vtbd3m
The US could not have built a better renunciation machine is they had tried.
KalC
There is a lot of days I do not want to live.
@Money, I have suffered anguish and profound grief over all this but even if I had lost everything, there will always be something or someone worth living for. I have had to lower my financial expectations and retirement plans but money is NOT everything.
Money is not everything but being broke at my age and trying to start over at a minimum wage job, no. I am long retired from my professions. I am not a people person. and could not sell water in the desert. Plus being locked way in USA for a number of years. I do not have a lot of joy in my life except my long bike ride, where I am able to forget most of my life.
@money,
Bike rides are a good way to put your troubles aside for awhile.
I have not been able to bike ride since this issue arose.
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@money, don’t let them get the upperhand. I’m not offering that as glib advice. I know it is not easy to forge on with this hanging over us, but we must. One day at a time. Let surviving this be the best revenge. Do not let them literally take lives as well as stealing our peace of mind, wellbeing and assets.
@bubblebustin, the US is a parasite – exactly as you describe. Aggressively asserting the rights to the fruits of our labour earned and invested and held entirely outside the borders of the US is the act of a parasite. Like a tapeworm insinuating itself inside the fisc of other countries. Contributing nothing, but ready to consume what other governments, countries and individuals generate.
Why the EU and other countries don’t care to acknowledge this I don’t know.
@qm, and all, the triple reporting, combined with data mining and computer generated matching is bound to result in errors – and the burden of proof will fall on the taxpayer abroad to resolve any problems. Witness the erroneous automatically generated 3520 threatening letters already identified as a problem http://www.aicpa.org/advocacy/tax/trustestategift/pages/aicpaeffortsonerroneousirsform3520letters.aspx http://www.aicpa.org/Publications/TaxAdviser/2013/August/Pages/NewsNotes_Aug-2013-story-02.aspx . Imagine the cost of getting professional assistance to prove the IRS wrong.