Treasury Department spokesman Robert Stack claims it’s a myth that US persons living their everyday lives outside the US are being harmed by FATCA. We know it’s true because the damage FATCA has caused and is causing to our lives is real.
In relation to the Stack statement, Tim noticed that Treasury was “re-iterating on twitter that NO ONE will give up their US citizenship because of FACTA and that it is only a myth that that is happening,” which caused Not Amused to write, “That makes us all mythical creatures then. If anyone related to any US government agency ever tries to contact me, I’ll tell them to have their head examined because people like me don’t exist.”
“We Are Not a Myth” is a protest on Tumblr where we post our photos to show that we are real. You can show your face or hide it in your photo, as you wish, and you can add a message along with it. You can add your photo yourself OR e-mail atticusincanada@gmail.com and she’ll add it to the display.
Thanks much, Atticus, for setting this up on Tumblr. Thanks to Blaze for the original suggestion, “It occurred to me that would be great to do around the world as a Treasury Myth Buster. Each person could do their own sign I Am Not A Myth and perhaps the country.”
And thanks all for your photos – the visuals are so eloquent!
Because you have had a US passport and voted in a US election since becoming a Canadian citizen, you would not be able to relinquish. You would need to renounce. Then, you get into some of the issues around filing.
You and I agree about not going anywhere near a US Consulate. I also intend to never again visit the US after my elderly mother’s death.
I am working on a family photo for the we are not a myth site as a Native Canadian family. This impacts myself, my wife(US person) and my 4 year old daughter(CANADIAN)
Fabulous Mike. We look forward to it. Please tell any other Native Canadians or anyone else you know who is affected about We Are Not A Myth.
That would be great to get some First Nations representation at “We Are Not a Myth” (including your family, Mike)!
Thanks for your fast and thorough work going into this, Mike! We’ve all got to work together and First Nations people who will be affected are a vital component. I’m so sorry that you had to be the bearer of this news to those you spoke with, but they and so many others need to know to best protect themselves and their families and help in the fight. Every last one of us will always remember when this came into our lives — we were unbelieving. Some still are and in the ‘denial’ phase.
Strength in numbers. It will be great to work together!
Thanks Mike and thank you to your family!
We’ve had two more submissions just today so thank you to those who submitted today as well. I try to get your photos up within 12 hours of you sending to me or submitting to Tumbler.
This is a cross post for visibility…
Lea alerted me to this…
The ICIJ, International Consortium of Investigative Journalist is trying to understand
THE MYSTERY OF THE FLEEING AMERICANS
Maybe those of you who do Facebook can help enlightened them..
Here was what I posted until the facebook block stopped me..
It is not a mystery. Summed up simply. FATCA HAS created awareness Amongst ordinary average Americans Have you are living abroad of the penalty and cost implications of Citizenship Taxation. Many-have done the cost vs benefit analyst and find the scales tipped Towards giving up membership in the U.S. single “Tax, Form and Penalty club.” The benefits out weigh the skirt no costs of compliance and risk penalty for failure.
@Just Me.
I wrote her from my gmail…to contact the moderators of IBS, Maple Sandbox and We are not a Myth. I told her she would probably get people to talk to her. I didnt see a FB page on t his link
Brockers need to jump on this one from ICIJ. The journalist needs some help understanding the injustice of “citizenship based taxation” for Americans living outside the homeland.
Expats get to enjoy double taxation and complicated filing with draconian penalties for mistakes. All for what return? No access to US public goods or services and no representation in Congress.
No shit Sherlock. Expats are tossing their US passports right where they belong– in the trash container. Exit taxes, so be it. Anything to get rid of the cancer of US servitude that eats away at the soul.
For all you homelander journalists, quit playing with your i tunes, wake up and smell the coffee. Ordinary middle class expats are fleeing from US tyranny! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or another congressional study) to figure it out.
Maybe the ICIJ article deserves its own post?
just sent her a private e mail
i really don’t feel comfortable posting on a facebook forum that i need to use my real name!!
Samuel.
Right:
I won’t post anything at ICIJ to help Ms. Williams solve her mystery of the fleeing Americans. I really like to concentrate on getting the word out in my own country, for the sake of Canadian residents who are under the yoke of U.S. CBT and now inflicted with the cruel joke of FATCA. However if she does take the hint from the comments and comes over to Brock to seek her answers then here’s my comment, although if might not be what she wants to hear …
It’s simple, no mystery at all. Anyone who became aware of FATCA said WTF! and “got out of Dodge”. Citizenship-based taxation (CBT) is the deep dark secret the U.S. of A. for Arrogance has kept for decades and now FATCA is beginning to shine a light on this obscenity. Get this straight, American emigrants get essentially nothing from their homeland except a big FAT headache, not just at tax extraction time but all year round. If every dollar you own was earned, taxed and saved in the country you have lived in for years (i.e. outside the U.S.A.) then why the heck would you want to spend countless hours and hundreds to thousands of your hard earned dollars to file complex U.S. tax forms each year (all designed to trip you up and then penalize you for your “errors”)? You go through all that filing and then you find out you only “owe” a few dollars to the IRS — more likely zero, nada, zilch. It does not compute. It is not logical. It is definitely something many people just want to be done with. I am not American but I can empathize — something the U.S. legislators and the IRS (Mr. Stack included) do not seem capable of doing. Instead they lead their chorus of ill-informed homeland Americans in screaming “tax cheats” at their fellow Americans who have chosen to live outside the U.S.A. The real FATCATS in this whole debacle are those who work and thrive in the tax compliance industrial complex which has had a huge growth spurt since the arrival of FATCA in 2010 and is positively salivating at what is to come. FATCA was slipped, practically unnoticed, into the HIRE Act but little did they realize that the HIRE in FATCA meant hiring more IRS employees and compliance industry employees to feed off this bad law, all at the expense of Americans, inside and outside the U.S.A.
I think Margot Williams has a hell of a cheek building a spreadsheet of names of renunciants since 2004 and then posting it online and encouraging anyone to “identify” persons and their occupations. Isn’t it bad enough having your name put on “lists” and provided to the FBI, CIA and the IRS?
She will be getting a “to the point” email from me.
@Osgood
I wrote to here and advised her to check in at IBS and Maple Sandbox and We are not a Myth. I also told her getting people to report to her on the persons on the list is like papparazzi and that was disgusting.
Like it’s now a “name, shame and fame” list.
@Em, good rant. I hope she reads it.
By email, I just sent Margot Williams my identity and told of two others in my family who through renunciation of US citizenship are on “her list,” none of us by any stretch of anyone’s imagination “covered expatriates,” but on the US “Name and Shame” list that would have been copied for hers. I told her that I wish there were one more name from our family on the list and told her of the entrapment into supposed US citizenship of my adult son, unable to renounce his ‘supposed’ US citizenship at any price because of his ‘mental incapacity’ and the inability of a parent, guardian or trustee to do so on behalf of such a family member. I asked her to consider a follow-up to her “Mystery of Fleeing Americans” to give a picture of the US collateral damage caused by FATCA, combined with US CBT. Or, if she still maintains her one-sided “fleeing America” story, perhaps tell her readers what she thinks my son’s fair share owed to the US.
@em…
Good rant, but would be nice if you would send it to the ICIJ author. Here it is just singing to the choir, and she needs to hear your impassioned notes! 🙂 Why not help here solve the mystery. It is to everyone’s benefit. Maybe a song?
@ Calgary411
It will be interesting what she responds to your personal story. Mine is not as sad and distressed as yours but I will write back and tell her mine. We all have a million different kind of American person story.
She would have a whole wack of articles.
northernstar,
I doubt there will be a response to my email, giving her the stories of three persons on “her list.” But, I do hope she gives another side to her “Mystery of the Fleeing Americans” article. Anything less is, as we know, poor and lazy journalism. Her present work is just another that carries the water for the IRS.
It is not that my story is sad that I wanted to get across, only that it is an example of the many unintended consequences to individuals and families of so-called ‘US Persons’ living abroad of FATCA, combined with US Citizenship-Based Taxation. These situations and the punitive policy of the US makes little sense given the “cost / benefit” for the US or for the immorality of it all in destroying people’s lives.
Ultimately, Ms. Williams has the names of three of my family’s members on “her list” (actually the Name and Shame list) and I felt compelled to give her the story that went with those names, and it had nothing to do with “fleeing America with our wealth.”
@ Calgary411
I hope she does a story on the other view than the IRS view. We may have given her reason to. She can not say she has no stories now.
Nelson Mandela’s death, a very courageous man who fought injustice, even when in jail, gives me inspiration from all the stories about his fight, to carry on our fight. In a way FATCA is a form of apartide.
@ Just Me
I really don’t care to to provide Ms. Williams with my e-mail address. As a journalist and hopefully someone with a bit of curiosity she should be coming to Brock to do a little reading. I’m not what she is looking for (i.e. people on the name ’em and shame ’em list) and besides I think that methodology of solving her mystery are a bit dicey. She should forget the list and do some internet searching instead. There is a story here, if she cares and dares to look for it.
@em…
Ok…
I do understand a journalist starting their investigation with the list, imperfect as we all know it is. It is a public record, and to understand individual motivations, it is a natural starting point. If I were new to the subject, it is probably where I would start and hopefully via discovery figure out something about the FBI list.
I do think she has received enough other emails and tweets that direct here to the renunciations threads so your email itself might not add anything as much as I like your passion. I respect your desire not to have an email address with a journalist, but if we are to get them to write things, and draw attention to a wider audience, some have to take risks. I am glad others have emailed her. Even though I am not one that is renouncing, I might email her myself. BTW, I did see this tweet from another Journalist I think you will remember…
https://twitter.com/atossaaraxia/status/409093844420927488
First, another correction from me: “that methodology of solving her mystery is a bit dicey”. (I’m trying to get a month-end done today, 7 days after the fact, so I’m rushing and I keep making typos.)
@ Just Me
I do contribute to some American sites but honestly I really have to concentrate on Canadian media and politicians. I don’t have your extraordinary perseverance and the energy of our “young sprouts” so I have to be a bit selective. I still think the list was not the best way for Ms. Williams to get started but I do agree with you that an e-mail from me, a non-American, would not have added much. She will either search or not. We’ll see.
I wrote to her but, I do have major concerns about her approach. She states that no ones reasons are listed when they renounce. Well, you know it’s a document that is private and should be so. It’s not the business of your neighbour, the press or anyone else to have your “reasons” for renunciation anymore than it’s their business to have your reasons for any other sort of divorce.
What kind of spreadsheet? If you look at the front page of that website there a lots of stories there about catching high dollar “tax cheats” It’s not a very balanced site. She’s on a mission to prove something but, I do wonder about her ability to be impartial. Some of this information she seeks is not really any of her business.
She’s clearly starting from the usual default “myth” that we’re all lounging around on yachts along the French Riviera and sipping champagne. Therefore we need to be “named and shamed” for not wanting to pay our “fair share” for all the US public goodies and benefits that we’ll never see.