7 thoughts on “2011 Message for #americansabroad in Canada – how does it look two years later?”

1. I just wrote a letter to the Globe and Mail for the paper to do a follow up…I suggest others do the same.

2. A young US person (who is a Canadian citizen) leaving Canada for US was recently advised by a US border official at Toronto airport that she needs to begin filing to IRS. Might be isolated incident or not. Sequence was something like this.

   -She presents Canadian passport to US Border official at airport who asks “where were you born?”

   -“I was born in US (but left at very young age and I live in Canada as Canadian Citizen.)”

   -She is then informed that she needs US passport, which she does not have, to enter. Argument begins and supervisor brought in.

   -In the course of the discussion she is asked whether she has been paying US taxes and responds “Why? I have lived in Canada since age…” and is then told that she needs to begin filing to IRS because she is a US person.

   -Eventually she is allowed to enter US, but there is now a US border “file” associated with her (forwarded to IRS?) which could contain a statement that she was advised of IRS filing requirement.

3. Thank you for reporting that IRSCompliantForever. We need to keep track of this type of incident.

   Hope the young person in question does not have any registered accounts like TFSA or RESP, and simple current assets – and so could choose to quietly file going forward, or renounce and backfile requisite years – and thus either buy time, or get out asap.

4. @IRS Compliant forever and Badger

   I just came back from a senior club meeting where there is an AP, permanent resident, been here for about 20 years. and she has never filed an american income tax.. She is adamant she has to do nothing as the IRS has never sent her anything. She just started her Social Security cheques and I guess she will get a surprise. Funny, she is very upset with me for trying to tell her this. She has an American born daughter too here. Oh well. I tried.

5. @northernstar,
   Oh well, you tried. They say forewarned is forearmed. Problem is that this is so anxiety producing and such an illogical and shocking surprise with such hurtful consequences that no-one wants to hear about it – (and not even our spouses and family or friends). And non-US Canadians can’t comprehend it either.

   On a prior IBS thread we talked about whether we were helping people or harming them by trying to warn them. We didn’t want to shock people into taking some kind of hasty step by jumping blindly into noisy disclosures such as the OVDI or Streamlined IRS programs, or on spending money on US tax lawyers without having learned more about the complexities first.

   I too would have been shocked, but would have preferred to have been forewarned so that I could have had a resource like IBS, or even seen the letter from Flaherty first.

   Perhaps the person and her daughter will ask you more when they are ready, and then you can give them references like IBS so that they can educate themselves and get help to sort out their best options.

   You acted with good intention.

6. The interesting thing is that the thousands who are doing absolutely nothing may well prove to have chosen the right course of action. The revenoors don’t have the resources to chase everyone down. They will pick the low hanging fruit.

7. I just posted the following on a Jamaican web site http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Growing-number-of-Americans-giving-up-US-citizenship_14854177

   Many of you here might find the article interesting and may care to comment yourselves.
   _____________________________________________________________
   Do NOT believe that the figures being published as people who have renounced their US Citizenship or their Green Cards are complete … they have been shown by persons tracking them to be woefully (or is that deliberately) deficient. Then again as more US Citizens, Green Card Holders and persons (still not clearly defined) who are being designated “US Persons” living around the world begin to realize the extent to which they are being targeted for persecution by FATCA, FBAR and similar acts of terrorism the renunciation of US citizenship, surrendering of Green Cards and avoidance of visiting or doing business with Americans will snowball .. the US Economy is going to suffer mightily and the economies of other locations around the world will benefit as people avoid Orlando and New York and similar locations in favor of more relaxed places around the world, and as Higglers and others who do business with Americans start to do their business in Panama, China and elsewhere. US Citizens will find that they are no longer welcomed as investors in businesses around the world since any such investment reaching 10% of the equity of the business now subjects that businesses’ bank accounts to the scrutiny of the IRS and the Treasury Department as if they belonged to the US investor personally. NO longer will US Persons (of all categories) be employed by Companies outside the US since if that employment requires that US person to be a co-signatory on the Company’s bank account then that Bank Account will become subject to the FATCA reporting to the IRS and the US Treasury … even though the money in that account has nothing to do with America and is not the personal property of the US Person.

   This is not even the beginning … it is merely the first whiff of the beginning. FATCA and Citizenship based Taxation are outrages worthy of the Mafia and the old days of Slavery. FATCA is like the old laws in America to force otherwise well thinking people to hunt down escaped slaves rather than giving such people succor. FATCA has little to do with Tax and everything to do with enslaving the world and creating a massive database in the hands of the NSA such as one Hitler and Stalin would have loved to have. Information is Power … and such power can be used for good but often ends up being used for evil and the suppression of free people; for which reason NO Government, no matter how well thinking they currently pose and represent themselves to be should wield that degree of power. Transparency in personal finances is NOT a good thing. Transparency in Government behavior is an excellent thing. Thus when these Lemmings cite Transparency as a laudable goal … it is more likely a lie than it is true. It is more likely to be seeking information about people to enable a presently hidden agenda.

   The United States has been the world’s biggest money laundry, the recipient of hot money and escaping capital running from all corners of the world (including Jamaica in the 1970s and money escaping Germany whether fleeing from Hitler or from the threat of the USSR) the world’s biggest “offshore” tax haven (vide Delaware and Nevada, Florida and Texas), the source of the dirtiest money the world has ever seen (vide the insane degree to which Americans consume illegal drugs), The Untited States has no moral authority to lecture the world about these things and should not even try. The United States should cease trying to hunt down their “escaped” citizens and Green Card holders (and yet other still undefined “US Persons” like our Jamaican Higglers who shop regularly in Miami and New York) as if they are escaped slaves.

   Consider the Capital that is likely to exit the USA as US Banks and other Financial Institutions become required to disclose to Venezuela and elsewhere around the world the (estimated $25 Trillion) moneys invested there that has links back to Venezuela … and Columbia and Mexico and Germany and Jamaica and everywhere else around the world. Will America honour the reciprocity clauses in the IGAs? I sincerely doubt it as the US economy gets decimated. Indeed there is very little money in the US that cannot be traced back to capital that arrived in the US with immigrants, following immigrants or going there as a safety precaution by possible future immigrants fearing their own tyrants wherever they presently live. If the rest of the world created a similar tax on their diaspora the US would scream foul as they indeed have done against the little country, Eritrea who do try to tax their emigrant population on their earnings in their new countries. Poor Eritrea however has been treated by the US, Canada, and others as an abomination for doing this.

   Do go and explore the web site http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/pa…
   and that of James Jatras http://repealfatca.com/

   STOP FATCA NOW. The countries of the world need to stand up together and say NO ! to the bully. The US does so much good in this world and then has this schizophrenic side that does so much bad …. what is it about the official US Government personality that is so mentally unstable? Can it merely be a manifestation of arrogance, of a sense that they of all people have a “right” to behave as a Tyrant?