I often find myself in discussion with some Homelanders and Obama supporters about whether US citizenship-based taxation is a human rights abuse. Below is my argument, first published August 21, 2012, to say that it is unfair. Now I argue that with the implementation of FATCA, the USA has become a serial human rights abuser. Clearly, most people of reasonable conscience accept these kinds of arguments. Even yesterday, I manage to get a chuckle out of an AP reporter who was asking for my story. I mentioned my birth in Chicago, Illinois, and moving as a baby to Alaska. Off the cuff, I said, “Yet Illinois isn’t chasing me around the globe expecting me to pay state income tax.” That’s because once you leave a state, you can no longer benefit from the proceeds of taxation. It is a no brainer. Yet it is not self-evident to Congress and the IRS, which are pursuing US expats across the globe with FATCA regulations in order to make them pay taxes for the benefit of Homelanders.
Many Homelanders are a special breed of bigot who believe that you live abroad so that you can shirk your responsibility to pay for their Social Security, their Food Stamps, their welfare, and their wars across the globe. Well, I for one am sick of this unfair treatment. We pay taxes in our countries of residence, and in Canada in particular, our tax burden is already much heavier than what Homelanders pay. So it is really time to emphasize that Citizenship-Based Taxation is a violation of the fundamental principles of Western democracy, and it is a human rights abuse.
Fair tax, unfair tax: or When is it paying my fair share?
by Peter W. Dunn
In studying historical tax rebellions, I have observed that governments have frequently been ready to commit mass murder in order to maintain their tax hegemony over a people. South Korea committed mass murder against the poor tax revolters on Jeju Island, who rose up in rebellion in 1948; Californians rode out to suppress the Indian tax revolters in 1851; Britain waged war against American colonists who unilaterally declared a permanent tax holiday from King George; the Romans razed the Temple at Jerusalem and crucified the anti-tax zealots in the Jewish War of succession in AD 66-70. Even George Washington, the beloved president who cut down the cherry tree but could not lie about it, personally led the troops against the Western Pennsylvanian tax protestors in the Whiskey Rebellion. No nation which wants to be taken seriously can ever allow a tax revolt. That’s why Irwin Schiff, father of investor Peter Schiff, rots in a Federal prison.
There are lessons to be learned from these examples. The revolts in question in every case took place because the protestors felt that the taxes were unfair. If the tax really is unfair, then protestors will revolt in large numbers, forcing the taxing authority to act. So I’ve decided to point out some aspects of fair taxes which people are willing to pay, compared to unfair taxes that leads to tax revolts.
Fair taxes seem to me to have the following characteristics:
- A fair tax is not onerous and well within the ability of the citizen to pay.
- A fair tax is part of democratic process in which the citizen has a right to vote for a local person who represents the taxpayer’s area in a legislative assembly. Representation in the legislative assembly is also proportional to population.
- A fair tax is proportional, i.e., charges all citizens proportionally to their means and not disproportionally.
- The proceeds of a fair tax must benefit the community of which the taxpayer is a part.
- Penalties for failing to pay a fair tax are proportional to the crime and the damage to the government which claims a right to collect taxes.
The following are characteristics of unfair taxes which will lead to revolt:
- An unfair tax is taken without local representation in a legislative assembly that makes tax law.
- An unfair tax is disproportional and onerous.
- An unfair tax does not benefit the community of the taxpayer but rather, it benefits the needs of others.
- An unfair tax is a weapon to destroy the taxpayer’s community or to make sure that that community never rises in prominence or wealth.
- An unfair tax comes with stiff penalties for disobedience–penalties which include destitution, detention, and death.
- An unfair tax results in the alleged protector becoming the chief enemy and persecutor of the taxpayer.
As any casual observer can see, the United States taxation of its expats fits the description of unfair taxes that I here provide. (1) It is done without local representation; (2) it is disproportional and onerous, not taking into account the taxpayer’s other tax burdens–e.g., Canadians already pay about 50% of their income in Federal, Provincial and Munipal taxes–including taxes for which there is no foreign tax credit (GST/HST); (3) it is done for the benefit of Homelanders not for the communities of the expats; (4) it unfairly taxes the expat’s home countries tax bases to the weakening of those countries for the benefit of the profligacy of the United States; (5) the penalties for failure to comply with US extra-territorial taxation may result in the detention and destitution of the taxpayer–it often leads the taxpayers to renunciation of citizenship, and can even result in exile [Reed Amendment] or death, if the taxpayer commits suicide or resists arrest; (6) The United States has made itself the chief enemy and persecutor of expats.
Historians seldom look back favorably upon regimes that institute unfair taxation. History is now in the making. Will the United States continue down this path of demagoguery and despotism? Will it commit total annihilation of its own expat community through a form of Expat Cleansing which forces all Americans abroad either to renounce their citizenship or return to the homeland? I think so. I see no real signs that this situation will change but only that it will get worse. I hope that I am wrong. Historians will remember this generation of leaders in the United States under a very dim light, and the Isaac Brock Society will be a primary source for their understanding of this period.
http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/da/d4/1336195059_Boston%20Tea%20Party.jpg?itok=eJz08bsp
@Petros, I was originally still patriotic enough to be willing to continue putting up with a degree of double taxation if it was going to ensure that I could enjoy the right to return and live/work in US as a full citizen… but what killed it for me was how expensive and onerous it was going to be to stay fully compliant. I was willing to live with perhaps a few hundred dollars a year in double taxation as tribute but was not willing to continue having to pay over $2000 per year in perpetuity in tax preparation fees.. The final nail in the coffin was when I was told by my financial advisor that the US-compliant brokerage account were no longer willing to retain me because I wasn’t worth enough; they now only want clients with at least $1 million. I felt so screwed.
I gradually became more scared of the predatory tax compliance industry than the IRS: accountants charging the earth and having to rely on advisors to put in US-compliant investments which inevitably suffer from proportionally higher fees. I have missed out on much of the recent stock market growth of the past couple years as a result. I have had to cancel any hopes of realistically being able to retire early.
I also fear that I may in future continue to be detained and questioned on future visits and that I might even be refused entry…
I think we seriously need to take our huge numbers 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 in Canada and organize the biggest spontaneous July 1st protest by individuals we can at any venues where celebrations are planned.
Excellent argument, Petros. The practice of citizenship-based taxation is clearly immoral, is indeed a human rights abuse and should be strongly condemned at the United Nations. Oh, wait, the US already denounced Eritrea’s CBT practices and Canada expelled Eritrean diplomats for shaking-down their expats within our own country. What is wrong with this picture?
Maybe it’s time for another United Nations resolution against CBT, this time aimed directly at the United States. Why does the US get a free pass on a practice that is just another form of apartheid and slavery?
@CheersBigEars,
I like your big protest idea. The 3 that I was involved in made some inroads, but were very small. As more and more people find out about this, we may have a chance at going big.
https://twitter.com/MiaChupacabra/status/433967284177346560 says: @IsaacBrockSoc Interesting but irrelevant. Human rights not a US legal term. Btw, lived >20 yrs o’seas so dont qualify as bigoted Homelander.
My response tweet: You accept human rights abuse because it is not a US legal term. That is even specialer breed of ethnocentric bigotry.
“Why does the US get a free pass on a practice that is just another form of apartheid and slavery?”
Because it has become the biggest most powerful military force in the world after Hitler??? Fortunately any power in history that got too big collapsed from the inside. In this case drugs are our friend because America is by far the most drugged nation on the planet and the most decadent. History is on our side and we are watching the USA self destruct daily and there is no saving it. Money won’t save it. Hey Obama, remember the Beatles song Money can;t buy me love? Well money can’t bring you class. You are a loser. Yes you can do anything you want like you said but you will be stopped somehow
@Deckard1138
I like your UN resolution idea. How can we initiate that?
monalisa,
The ‘predatory US tax compliance industry’ as I see it is borne of and enabled ONLY by the US Congress, US IRS and their unjust US citizenship-based taxation that they seemingly don’t want to change. They won’t unless there is more and more outcry from both sides of the border to its injustice. Why should they do so — it is obviously their cash cow.
The US tax compliance industry complex in countries outside the USA is another business like many out there to advertise their wares and products in more of the never-ending Big Advertisement that runs before our eyes and ears day in day out. I put it into the same category as Military Industrial Complex, Big Health Insurance Complex, Big Pharmaceuticals Complex, Big Oil Industry Complex, Big Monsanto Food That We Eat Complex, Big Junk Food Complex, on and on. To me this is another business, built of opportunity. That opportunity only comes from the US.
As any other business, the US tax compliance industry operates to increase that industry’s, that individual company’s bottom line. They are not a non-profit; they are not a church; they are not a social organization. They are a business. Some of these firms have more ethics than others. As I see it, what has made their industry possible, the ONLY thing, is the USA and their (TO ME) evil tax and US-entitled tax law. None of this would be happening to you, to me without the full direction of the good old patriotic USA. The US has provided a need for many (like me) because I could not handle the complexity all myself without incurring USA penalties. It all stems from that as I see it. A business opportunity is a business opportunity.
I CANNOT be PATRIOTIC to a country with such an unjust law (and other personal reasons for which I chose the country of Canada to live, work, pay taxes, raise my children). I can clearly see my role in being brainwashed to the entitlement of the USA in my formative years now that I can see more clearly in the bigger world. The ONLY reason for that evil US tax law that I CAN SEE (maybe others or you can enlighten me with other reasons?) is to rape and pillage its chattel gone abroad, in doing so defining children born in other countries to us and children born in the US to parents of another nationality/ies but never actually ‘lived there’ US chattel by birth. If there are any reasons a child should qualify to be able to CLAIM a US citizenship, to me that child should CLAIM that citizenship (of whatever country) when of age and of requisite mental capacity. Any citizenship / nationality law that entraps someone into ANY citizenship is JUST PLAIN WRONG. It should be a CHOICE, an “opt-in to citizenship” rather than, as we have here, “an opt-out to US citizenship” — the MEANS for the rape and pillage of ourselves, our children, our countries.
It has been my own evolution to now really see that as I and my family are personally affected. I chose Canada as my country (only being also born accidentally in the US — all of us born there, really, had no choice over that matter, just as my son had no choice over being born in Canada as that’s where I was when he was born). Because my son’s birth gave him citizenship in Canada (and I surely do not believe that his ‘automatically obtained US citizenship’ takes precedence of the Canadian citizenship he obtained by place of birth — this is the country that he was raised in, the country that gives him the superior benefits he would have from his other automatically obtained birth; this is his home and where his family lives. He ‘does not have the mental capacity and would have little reason to make such a choice if he did as I can see it, but I guess that’s all debatable. That Canada is now complicit in turning my son and other like him into second-class citizens to any other in Canada no matter where their parent(s) were born is sad commentary. I’m 70 years old, but I continue to learn and clearly can see what has happened. I’ve been conned. (And, so may have you.)
To me, its all about unjust citizenship-based taxation law of the USA. I do not want a Canadian or any other work-around that law. I want just US tax law, especially if anyone can be entrapped into it. That unjust law is the enabler of all of this bullying. It’s hard to stop a bully — but the concept of the bully in so many parts of our lives is being condemned. The US needs to be condemned too, not ever given my patriotism.
@IsaacBrockSoc I don’t accept abuse: I only point out that there exists no authority to determine any abuse has actually taken place.
@MiaChupacabra No authority existed to determine if ancient Romans had abused the rights of other nations. Yet 4 million died in Colosseum.
@IsaacBrockSoc Or maybe I lack the arrogance to self-appoint myself as judge of a law that does not even exist. That wd be called narcicism
@MiaChupacabra You are not wanting in arrogance. U r ethnocentric, for u, USA is centre of legal universe, its laws apply universally.
@IsaacBrockSoc Nope, not true. However US laws apply to anyone who wants to avail oneself of US constitutional framework
@MiaChupacabra Many victims, foreign citizens living outside US are having US tax law applied to them against their will.=Rights abuse
@Calgary, of course I see your point too: that CBT has been the catylist of the tax compliance industry; that if CBT were reformed into RBT, there would no longer be the need to rely on their expertise.
Like yourself, I was fortunate to have found a tax preparer with enough ethics to argue reasonable cause who considered a quiet disclosure sufficient rather than railroading me into OVDI. She saved me from probable bankruptcy
though still cost me many thousands. So she still essentially runs a business with a bottom line.
I agree that all these various types of industries are largely the result of lobbying Congress to benefit their special interests; it’s a ruthless aspect of capitalism. We’re collateral damage and still even now don’t matter to them…but agree that it will be Canada who will serve as the frontier in what will inevitably snowball into a huge protest with hopefully major reform as the end result!
One thing we could all use here is a way to contact the UN and put in a complaint of a human rights abuse from Canada. We need all the victims of the Canadian decision to allow the “torture” of the US overreach to destroy the lives of Canadians due to the human rights of these people being betrayed. These rights were paid for in the Canadian taxes and were not enforced. If someone could post the link or email to the UN for an international complaint, maybe we could get things started….
Another thing that deeply hurts me is the seeming indifference from my family. It’s not that they don’t care but the whole situation is just too convoluted for them to comprehend it. I’ve given up trying to get them to fully understand. I have learned a tough life lesson from all this that I’m ultimately on my own and need to rely on myself; that no one is going to review me! It would have been nice though if someone apart from my mother had at least asked after me, considering how traumatic it has all been…: /
@Native Canadian, I applaud your determination for Canada. I hope they’ll be sufficient push back to repeal FATCA, at least for Canadians even if it’s too late for some other ccountries such as the UK.
We then may have to condemn every business who works for the increase of their bottom line. Is that not capitalism? The USA and their continuation with evil citizenship-based taxation law when the rest of the world follows a fair residence-based taxation law is the root cause, the enabler for the US tax compliance industry. I was a consumer who hired their services, my own decision — no one else’s decision. That I did not arm myself with the education I needed to make perhaps another decision is my folly only. The US did not help me with any education or any assistance in back-filing — they told me I would have to hire the services of the US tax compliance industry to interpret that US citizenship-based taxation law (that not one person I’ve asked was taught in school as they can remember).
No help from the US tax authority, just more of USA enablement. If they were not enabling the US tax compliance industry, they would have provided the help that I needed. I was to do all by their US citizenship-based taxation law which they could not explain to me. The US tax law and the IRS who should have provided the hep I (and others) needed fed me to the US tax compliance industry. I was lucky that I had some retirement savings to pay for it. Others do not have that ‘luxury’.
Lobbying, etc., etc. is all a part of “doing business” I guess in a capitalistic society. We are but consumers of the business gift that the US Congress dropped onto the US tax compliance industry lap — the enabler, the USA — none other. The root of the evil, that US tax law, has to change for those business opportunities to change. Does the US who could change this law have any sense of morality to do so? The land of the free with opportunity for all — what a sham we all fall for. I may have blinders on but I just can’t see it any differently. What the US has wrought for innocent people, for people who cannot afford the services of the US tax compliance industry, is nothing but from US citizenship-based taxation law borne of USA immorality. They do not live up to their “branding” and the reason people give the US their patriotism. That is just the way I see it: to me, the only point.
Yadda, yadda — I’ll shut up now.
Well no, just one more thing. Read again: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/02/13/citizenship-based-taxation-is-a-human-rights-abuse-and-the-united-states-is-a-serial-human-rights-abuser/comment-page-1/#comment-1098386.
To me, Mia Chupacabra SAYS IT ALL —
Petros’ response tweet: You accept human rights abuse because it is not a US legal term. That is even specialer breed of ethnocentric bigotry.
Human rights not a US legal term. Really, why is that? US citizenship-based law enables the US to continue this human rights abuse to us who have had the audacity to leave the “Homeland”.
I’ve decided that such a country will not ever deserve my patriotism. That is why I have renounced, now officially.
monalisa,
Yes, it is hard when we have indifference from our families for what is happening to us. Only one in my US family understands (and she understands in spades! I love her dearly for her understanding and so much else. She is a wonderful human being.). I attribute the indifference of the rest of my family a result of their blinders because of their USA Patriotism. They cannot see past the noses on their faces to convey by their silence anything but ‘you should have known’. They are of the same thinking as the many who put hurtful comments on media articles on this subject. I have accepted that; my old hide is a lot thicker now. I can see that their indifference to what is now happening to me results from their ignorance and not wanting to see past some patriotic duty to a country I left long ago. I think they may still love me even if they condemn my unpatriotic ways.
‘Should have been able to have known’ depends on having the proper education and transparency. For an example lack of that just look at what this is doing to the immigrants to the USA, coming to the great land of the free, no education on FBAR requirements among other requirements before they make their *fatal* decision — they have been skewered by USA “branding” as the land of opportunity and freedom — the freedom of the opportunity to financially rape and pillage them and their families through citizenship based taxation.
Regarding the UN complaint idea – found this link: (not sure it would help, but interesting reading) http://www.globalresearch.ca/survivors-file-u-n-complaint-against-canada-for-failing-to-prosecute-george-w-bush-for-torture/5311797
And here is one for the Canadian Centre for International Justice:http://www.ccij.ca/index-e.php
It is indeed expat cleansing, great term.
Well, the US isn’t quite killing us, but we are being force to renounce, which is a form of death for many – and like the Indians, South Koreans and American colonists, it makes certain that we’ll never contribute to their tax base again. Apparently the US government would rather have no one left to tax than allow its citizens to thrive while living outside the confines of the US, where they draw no US services. The riches the US claims it will gain through FATCA will become a self-defeating prophecy of cataclysmic loss when America’s diaspora is dead.
@Calgary, yes, so much entrapment!! Caveat Emptor….
@monalisa1776
I know how you feel – a lot of people, including myself,
became convinced in the late 1980s that climate change would
become a massive crisis… another example of the OMG moment.
But you learned not to talk about that, most people, including
family and friends, wouldn’t get it, and representations to
politicians proved futile. But as it turns out, guess what…
Most people just can’t think past their fingertips, they can
only respond to the here and now, and there are so many things
competing for our attention, so many immediately crises and
pseudo-crises, big and small. In the decades of climate change denial,
most of those who had this experience learned to cope with a high degree
of cognitive dissonance and the sense of alienation that comes
with separating from the system of beliefs held by what you
would otherwise consider to be your community. Ultimately you simply
have to overcome your anger and disappointment, make your own peace
with the universe, do what you can and wait for a day when the
winds change, and hope that it won’t be too late.
As bubblebustin, Arrow and FromtheWilderness previously discussed:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/11/12/letter-to-canadian-bankers-association-issued-jointly-by-isaac-brock-society-and-maple-sandbox-in-opposition-to-fatca/comment-page-4/#comment-659821
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/11/12/letter-to-canadian-bankers-association-issued-jointly-by-isaac-brock-society-and-maple-sandbox-in-opposition-to-fatca/comment-page-4/#comment-660128
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/11/12/letter-to-canadian-bankers-association-issued-jointly-by-isaac-brock-society-and-maple-sandbox-in-opposition-to-fatca/comment-page-4/#comment-660136
CBT/FATCA/FBAR => the Ethnic Cleansing of Americans abroad — another sign message for July 1, 2014, Canada Day!
Re: UN complaint – http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ComplaintProcedure/Pages/HRCComplaintProcedureIndex.aspx
CBT is a violation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative which states: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” or more simply asks “What if everyone did it?” If every nation imposed CBT each according to its own rules of citizenship, the world would suffer a massive administrative burden to move tax back and forth between different countries. The US would do particularly badly since it has many more immigrants than emigrants. The world would quickly realise that this is unworkable and revert to RBT (as indeed US states have realised). Hence the USA is behaving in an immoral way by imposing CBT.
Perhaps this is a more compelling argument to use on left wingers?