UPDATE: Well, crap. I think Pacifica just blew this post out of the water with her comment below.
In the series The Vikings, Rollo becomes a Christian (see below). Afterwards, his Viking companion Floki reproves his abandonment of the gods of the Vikings. Rollo protests that it was just a joke and he wasn’t serious. So is Rollo a Christian or not? Floki says that the Viking gods didn’t think it was much of joke. The attitude of Floki harkens to an ancient view that oaths made before men and gods are serious business, and one cannot enter into them casually or lightheartedly. For him, this baptism is no joke but a formal and solemn oath, a clear change of allegience.
US immigration law states the following:
A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality—2) taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years;
Now it is unlikely that a person claiming the singing of “O Canada” as an expatriating act will easily persuade a US State Department official. However, I would argue that it is, that a person could indeed claim the singing of “O Canada” as an expatriating. Many border babies have been trapped in a situation in which they have not had to swear an oath to the Queen of Canada because they either were born Canadian citizens or they became naturalized citizens before the age of 18. Yet it is unlikely that any Canadian citizen has never had an occasion to sing “O Canada”.
The singing of “O Canada” is a formal affirmation of allegiance for the following reasons:
(1) It is the officially recognized National Anthem of Canada. Upon swearing my oath to the Queen, we immediately sang “O Canada” in both French and English. When it is sung, it often serves to make an event more solemn and formal, e.g., a hockey match.
(2) People sing it in front of witnesses. Likely, other people saw me actually singing “O Canada” at the Georgetown Rotary Club on Saturday evening.
(3) Body posture is important. While we don’t put our hands on our hearts here in Canada when we sing, we do take off our hats (gents) and turn towards a Canadian flag if one is present.
(4) The words of the song presuppose sole allegiance to Canada. True Patriot love indicates something which is undivided with the love of another country, including the United States. We sing that we will defend Canada, and this means against any invader, even if it is the United States. This is our duty as Canadians, and we should take it as seriously as did General Isaac Brock who sacrificed his own life defending Canada. This is a potentially expatriating act in and of itself.
(5) It is common to sing “O Canada” as a regular part of school curriculum in Canada, to inculcate a love of country in Canadian youth. This means that it is a formal aspect of Canadian nationalism and thus teaches the exclusivity of Canada’s role as protector.
(6) “O Canada” is in lyric and verse, and the intention of this poetical form is to aid memorization and to stress its solemnity in formal situations.
(7) “O Canada” invokes God. Thus, it follows a very ancient form of an oath, which calls on a god or gods to help or to act as a witness. Webster’s dictionary, for example, states that an oath is “a solemn usually formal calling upon God or a god to witness to the truth of what one says or to witness that one sincerely intends to do what one says … “
Perhaps we overlooked the singing of “O Canada” as a formal declaration of allegience because it is so common. It is the 400 lb gorilla in the room. But just because it is such a common occurrence in Canada does not mean it is not a formal declaration of allegiance. It is indeed a formal oath before God of exclusive allegiance to Canada, and I mean it every time I sing it, even if Stephen Harper doesn’t.
Now, the only other really important aspect of this formal affirmation of allegience is whether the person sings it with the intention of relinquishing US citizenship. Look in your heart and ask yourself if you ever sang “O Canada” and really meant it. Or did you sing it like Rollo, with no intention of being an exclusive defender of Canada? If you did mean it, rejoice! For you are not a US citizen–at least under the correct spirit of the meaning of US law.
@You’reReaching.
Silly me. And all this time I thought USA was the only country that had ‘citizenship-based’ taxation.
OK gang. Time to pack it in, and close down Isaacbrocksociety. Apparently the many, many well-educated, scholarly people who have spent hours and hours of research, were wrong!
According to You’reReaching, lots of countries have citizenship-based taxation! Come on people, I am disappointed you’all didn’t get this right! Heck, maybe even Canada taxes people who have not live in Canada since they were babies? Is that why Tom Cruz still has not gotten rid of his Canadian citizenship yet? Perhaps he has to back file with the CRA for having been born in Canada, and owes a gazillion dollars worth of penalties.
aaa123,
I attended a Canadian citizenship ceremony in Calgary a couple of years ago. It was a very moving experience and I’m so glad that I did it. As discussed on Isaac Brock previously, my and my husband’s re-affirmation of allegiance had no official significance. We do have commemorative certificates from the day to mark the occasion.
@ You’reReaching
so if eritrea and the us of a are not the only 2 countries in the world that practice citizen based taxation can you explain to us why all the tax experts got it wrong and claimed such?
can you further explain why when i was in school in the states i heard nothing about having to file taxes with the states for the rest of my life. or just exactly what the difference between resident and citizenbased taxation was.
or
why when i sent in my last tax return to the us with a canadian address there was not communication from the irs that i was required to continue filing with them
or
why when i crossed the border countless times since 1989 there was no mention of having to file taxes with the irs
@You’reReaching america….the country where i was born in is a broken county. one that needs all the help it can get and unfortunatly fatca is doing the exact opposite in that it is further driving a wedge between expats who might otherwise speak up for the country and the homelanders who all view we expats as ‘tax evaders’.
many of us want nothing to do the states ever again and are either going the legal route and renouncing and filing the back forms or are saying screw this i will just never travel to the states again and uncle sam can come find me if he really really wants to.
at one point in the future my wife and i had considered possibly buying a place in the southern sunshine states and start to spend more time there…..not any more…..how much has that cost america….now times that by how many more people who like us have made the decision to never set foot in your country again.
will the potential revenue generated by fatca compliance be equal to or greater than the lost revenue from people like me and my wife’s potential investments in the states. i sincerly doubt it.
america is in trouble and by it lashing out at the very people who could have at one time been its greatest assets now america has gone on to alienate those same people who they could have drawn on to potentialy help her.
@You’reReaching, I think that you are just making most of this up. But it doesn’t matter to me. Every country that does what the US does should be dissed because Citizenship based taxation is a human rights abuse and the United States is a serial human rights abuser. Every country that does the same is also a human rights abuser.
Last I checked, there is no JATCA that is being unilaterally forced upon the world’s financial institutions. But there is FATCA.
Whitekat said: ” Is that why Tom Cruz still has not gotten rid of his Canadian citizenship yet? Perhaps he has to back file with the CRA for having been born in Canada, and owes a gazillion dollars worth of penalties.”
Ha! If Tom Cruz had to pay the difference between what he would owe in Canada and what he actually pays in the US we could build 10 hospitals with just his taxes alone. Canada’s taxes are much higher than the US and yet Tom is not running from Canada. He knows the Canadians are sane!
@You’reReaching,
There was a typo in Mettleman’s post. I believe he meant to say Eritrea, not Ertina, is the only other country besides USA to have citizenship-based taxation. Susan Rice condemned Eritrea in 2012 for attempting to tax its citizens who live in the USA, yet have no Eritrean sourced income. Apparently even she did not know that USA also has citizenship-based taxation; it is quite the anomaly.
BTW, Eritrea is a dictatorship state known for its human rights violations, of which citizenship based taxation is just one. It’s nice to know that USA is the only other country in the world that shares this particular human rights violation with Eritrea.
@You’reReaching, Does your employer, the US State Department, know that you are making comments on blogs just before beddy bye time? Are you doing this from your Obama government issued laptop? Can you get fired for that or is it in your job description?
The US has placed itself in a very precarious position. They really can’t easily switch from citizenship based taxation to residence based taxation.
Most ordinary folks like us who might fall into their citizenship tax trap wouldn’t owe them any taxes anyway because we live in higher tax countries. If they hit us with draconian penalties, simply for breathing and having a checking account in our country of residence, we’ll just go bankrupt. What will they gain? Nothing but hatred from it’s expats and foreign governments.
Citizenship based taxation is the United States’ biggest cash cow because the top 1% pay such a high share of the actual taxes. The top 1% can also choose to live anywhere in the world. This is what frightens the US the most, that the rich will leave and many have already left. How will the US pay it’s enormous bills when their biggest tax payers have left the country?
Instead of chasing rich people all over the planet, they need a new tax scheme that will allow them to profit from them being the center of the universe without resorting to threats and sanctions against friendly countries. It would require creativity on the part of the US government but they could come up with a way to generate lots of revenues without resorting to chasing their expats all over the globe. And I’m not talking about the 30% withholding scheme, that was just nuts.
Cut it out with the lie about Eritrea and the US being the only countries that tax citizens regardless of where they live. There are indeed some ignorant people here, the world has moved on.
As you were informed in my previous post, other countries do it but they do it by acting as if earning money in another country with low or non existent services and paying less tax because of that is somehow equivalent to earning it in a first world country where you get some bang or potential bang for your tax bucks.
Here are two western first world countries that tax their citizens on their income if they are earning it abroad and no we aint talking about rich people with investments, offshore accounts, property etc. We are talking about salary earners here, not corporate high flying employees who are shifted in and out of countries to avoid paying taxes.
Australia is a country that taxes its expats because apparently its government decided some time ago its expats should not be paying lower tax rates on the salary they earn in a foreign country regardless of the living conditions there or different tax system and benefits or lack thereof that the expats receive. They have to pay more tax if they paid less tax on their salary in a southeast Asian country (to give one example only) with few or no govt services for taxpayers than they would have paid if they live in Australia.
It doesn’t make sense to my Australian expat friends and it doesn’t make sense to me.
Japan has a multitude of ways to punish its expats who dare to have bank accounts or whatever when they are earning salaries elsewhere. Too many to go into here.
When a foreigner who has lived for 5 yrs out ofo the 10 previous yrs in Japan and not even 5 yrs in a row and is therefore apparently a ‘permanent resident’ when it comes to taxes only, comes into money from an inheritance then Japan is entitled to grab a share. We are not talking about rich people here, we are talking about modest sums of money. Any interest this faux class of permanent resident earns back home from a bank account must be reported to the Japanese tax authorities as well as everything else.
Even though the foreigner is not a permanent residence in terms of legal status or rights. Real permanent residency is hedged about with all kinds of discriminatory restrictions but when it comes to grabbing foreigners’ money the Japanese govt does not discriminate. Foreigners who have money sent from their savings at home to their accounts in Japan are usually considered to be importing ‘income’ and are duly taxed.
Keep in mind most of these foreigners who are being called permanent residents for tax purposes are earning under 80,000 US dollars per year with the average income around 50,000 dollars US for those with a Japanese spouse and around 30,000 dollars US for those not married to a Japanese spouse. In other words, not corporate high fliers.
I could go on and give more examples but have no time. There are other countries such as ones in Europe that tax you based on citizenship as well. Stop repeating ‘facts’ that are not true. You do yourselves no favors.
@omgheesstillanamerican,
Your main point is well taken, but I would like to point out that even though, most ‘US persons’ living outside USA would owe no actual taxes, some would, and oftentimes these are actually the poorest ‘US persons’, not the 1% making over the 97K FEIE. Pension income, disability benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, capital gains from the sale of one’s principal residence, etc are taxable and are not covered by the FEIE (foreign earned income exemption). Thus retirees, disabled people, jobless people, etc may in fact owe taxes to the USA, and these are the people who can least afford to pay USA taxes in addition to their Canadian taxes. Factor in the compliance costs, and the penalties for prior non-filing, and low-income people are particularly disadvantaged.
@You’reReaching, the only one lying here is you. Why does the Obama Administration feel it is necessary to pay hacks like you to spread propoganda on little websites like ours? Are they that afraid of us?
@You’reReaching. Why don’t you do your own research on citizenship-based taxation?
I think that where you are confused is that you do not understand citizenship-based taxation and are confusing it with world-wide taxation. There are many countries who tax the world-wide income of their citizens, but only when those citizens actually RESIDE within their country. For example, Canada taxes the worldwide income of its resident citizens. However, once a Canadian moves overseas, he/she is no longer taxed on income earned outside Canada. He/she is taxed on Canadian sourced income though, which makes sense.
To clarify, USA (and Eritrea) are the only countries that tax their citizens who live OUTside the country and earn all their income OUTside the country. This is why it is called CITIZEN ship based taxation versus RESIDENCE based which is practiced by 99.99% of the rest of the world.
So, someone like me, who has 100% Canadian roots (parents, grandparents), yet happened to have been born in the USA (thus a dual citizen from birth), is considered a US taxpayer even though I left USA as a baby and have never returned and never earned any US sourced income.
This is quite unethical, immoral, barbaric, unfair, akin to slavery,etc., and no countries except USA and Eritrea have this law on their books.
The DIFFERENCE between USA and Eritrea, is that USA has the military might to enforce its immoral laws on every other country in the world. Doesn’t that make you proud as punch?
@You’reReaching,
Why don’t you listen to McGill professor (and lawyer) Allison Christian’s podcast that was recently posted on this site? Maybe you will believe her,
@Petros,
Imagine that, Goliath being afraid of David.
@WhiteKat, You’reReaching is an apologist for the United States, pure and simple. This is usually done because the person is a recipient of food stamps, an Obamabot, a US government worker, a partisan member of the democrat party, and/or an astroturfer; my working theory is that the person works for the US diplomatic services. I’ve confronted her with this, and she has not denied it. My question is whether it is legitimate for the US government to pay someone to make apologetic comments defending the USA on websites like this, with the full blessing of the Obama administration. In any case, either she does not understand the issues, or she is intentionally trying to muddy the waters, in a way that makes no coherent sense (in her case, it is done by confusing the meaning of terms–such as residency and citizenship).
@WhiteKat, well, yes, David put a hole in Goliath’s head, didn’t he? He also chopped off his head and took his sword.
Or he/she is an unpaid intern, in which case residency and citizenship doesn’t matter. $0 paid equals $0 in taxes. She could be a Martian and it wouldn’t matter.
We have been presented with a claim of Australian Citizenship Taxation. I readily admit fault, lets test this?
http://www.exfin.com/australian-tax-residency
http://www.expat.hsbc.com/1/2/hsbc-expat/expat-experience/expat-finances/global-tax-navigator#!/AU
Key phrase; “Australian residents are subject to Australian tax on worldwide income. Non-residents are subject to Australian tax on Australian-source income only.”
So while you can never check out of Hotel California, you CAN check out of Hotel Sydney.
And finally, many and yes many government employees have been caught out on blogs by digital signatures left after visiting blog sites. It is amazing what information the bog administrator can see even on the most basic sites.
@George. Ditto for Canada as I attempted to explain to You’reReaching. Canada taxes residents on world-wide income, and non-resident citizens on Canadian-sourced income only. Australia, like Canada and EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD (with two notable exceptions) do not tax non-resident citizens living outside the country on income earned outside the country. Why is this such a difficult concept for some people?
WhiteKat said: “Why is this such a difficult concept for some people?”
Because they are Americans and think the rules don’t apply to them or somehow everybody will play according to their rules even though they are in the wrong.
I once almost died in a head on collision with a truck. My American friend was in the driver’s seat of a Cadillac going the wrong way on a Canadian highway, he entered the highway using the off ramp.
When I said “Oh my God there’s a truck coming at us and he has the right of way!” He replied “I’m an American I always have the right of way.” He would not swerve to avoid the truck. If I hadn’t grabbed the wheel from him we’d both be dead. Americans are slow at comprehending basic facts sometimes.
omg, your post reminds me of something that is similar. A few years ago a man who drove a huge truck took it upon himself to park on my sister’s front lawn whenever he saw fit to do so. This made ruts in their lawn and the person just couldn’t see what was wrong with doing this without even asking.
My sister said “You cannot park on my front lawn! You’re tearing up the lawn really badly!”
Truck owner” “I work for the department of highways! I can park wherever I want!”
My sister:” No, you cannot park on my front lawn without my permission why is this concept so hard for you, that this is WRONG of you to do?!”
Truck owner:”I work for the department of highways! I can park here!”
My sister: “Just because you paint the little lines on the road doesn’t mean you can park wherever you like.” lol.
Same sort of attitude, “I”m American, it doesn’t matter if what I’m doing is wrong or immoral! I work for the department of the U.S.A.!!”
Why are US-born Canadians upset about FATCA? Let’s consider the most blatant example: a Canadian citizen born in U.S. hospital because their Canadian mother was referred there due to high-risk pregnancy (this is a common practice in some places in Canada).
A “border-baby” born in a U.S. hospital to Canadian parents is a Canadian citizen at birth. Now this person is victimized by FATCA, even though they returned to Canada within days of being born, and have no further U.S. economic or residential connection. FATCA would consider this Canadian a so-called “US-person” or “US tax resident” and subject them to harmful discrimination solely because they were born in a foreign hospital due to medical need and never had any dealings with the US again.
It gets more absurd. A Canadian-born child of the border baby mentioned above might also be considered a “US-person” even if thy never enter the US or have any economic dealings whatever.. An adopted child of the same border baby is not considered a “US person”. So the discrimination against this person under FATCA is based on genetics, not residency, source of income or any other rational definition of economic nexus.
It appears Australia and Japan tax their residents on worldwide income, but do not tax their citizens living elsewhere.
http://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Income-and-deductions/How-much-income-tax-you-pay/Are-you-an-Australian-resident-for-tax-purposes-/
http://www.expat.hsbc.com/1/PA_ES_Content_Mgmt/content/hsbc_expat/pdf/en/global_tax_navigator/going_to_japan.pdf
I wish we could tax trolls!
@Blaze. Canada also taxes its residents on their world-wide income. Many Americans living in USA think that this equates with their citizenship based taxation laws, which of course it does not.