Alex Newman writes:
It broke Ruth Freeborn’s heart to give up her U.S. citizenship that fateful day last year. Unfortunately for the Oklahoma native, though, it was either that, or her family. Ruth’s Canadian husband of 33 years, who earns all of the middle-class family’s income, “simply could not go along with this situation,” she explained. “To find myself suddenly not able to live, bank, save or to keep peace in my marriage while being American at the same time was shocking at first and deeply disturbing to me.”
Read the entire article here: http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/17986-the-dark-road-the-worst-tax-law-you-ve-never-heard-about://
Excellent! This is what I have always been talking about- THIS is what homelanders need to know. This is what makes all of it touch home for them, and not just harm expats. It harms AMERICA. If they can avoid knowing these facts – they just wouldn’t give a damn about any of us.
Alex has done yet another stellar article. He has hit a home run with this and I thank him for working so hard to tell the truth about what FATCA means and all its collateral damages.
This is the best article on the subject of FATCA I’ve ever seen in the media. It should be read by everyone, everywhere.
I agree. I am just printing it.
Alex has certainly been right on the money on the subject. I thought he had finished writing on the subject, but obviously not. Unfortunately, since it is considered a right wing publications, the Progressives will be dismissive about what they have wrought…
For those that have not read his others, I would encourage you to read them all
Just do this search…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/search?q=FATCA
Quite a collection to send to homelanders… 🙂
Let the U.S. progs figure it out for themselves. I’m done with their delusional way of looking at this. The NDP in Canada, the Liberals, the Green Party and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association speak for me along with this article.
Progs in the U.S. ignore topics selectively that will detract from their agenda even if they know it’s going on. I suppose all political positions do that. I don’t do left and right in the U.S. sense anymore. I do right and wrong! FATCA is wrong. Whoever speaks out against it has my support. Alex and I probably aren’t on the same page on a lot of issues but, he has been done a stellar job on these articles and he has my utmost respect as a human being. On a personal note after emailing with him a few times I can tell you he is a very, very kind, thoughtful person as well. He has my utmost respect.
@JustMe: Regarding Alex Newman and his writings at The New American.
Absolutely right. EVERY article he has written about FATCA OECD and the upcoming global Tax Regime is well written , hits all the pertinent points and lays it out in a way to be understandable, believable and more important than that , PROVABLE beyond doubt. I am sure his other articles on other issues are just as well done, but his work on these issues, so very important to us all makes him a hero to me, along with others mentioned in this latest article: James Jatras. Andrew Quinlan.Rand Paul. Posey, et al.
Clear from the article is the obtuseness of congress and most of the politicians. They wrecked exports in 1976, from which the USA has never recovered and expect this FATCA to work. This illustrates more than anything else that we are dealing with arrogance and ignorance on a monumental scale.
I fear only a hauling out by the scruff of the neck will help with that bunch in Congress and for that matter in Parliament.
“I fear only a hauling out by the scruff of the neck will help with that bunch in Congress and for that matter in Parliament.”
You’re so kind and thoughtful to talk about those “scruffy” dogs the way you do. I must be behind times but I thought this The Fascist Problem was dealt with last year
AtticusinCanada
If the Liberal government approved the 1995 US Canada treaty, which recognized US tax law in Canada. The CRA will only collect from people who were not Canadian at the time, the taxes were owed. I do not know if any other countries signed a similar agreement. Do you really expect that the Liberals would have rejected the USA now? Especially since the EU, Mexico and Japan have signed worse deal than ours.
I also wonder why there was not a legal challenge to the 1995 Treaty based on the fact that Canadian permenant residents were treated different than other legal resident of this country. In fact unlike FATCA there is actual moneyt being taken away from these permanent residents.
The Democatic party is buddy buddy with the Liberals
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/21/john-ivison-why-justin-trudeaus-new-guiding-light-could-have-a-dramatic-impact-on-canadian-public-policy/
“MONTREAL – Justin Trudeau was billed as the main event on opening night at the Liberal Party convention but the most important speaker was the bombastic American economist who preceded him.
Larry Summers is a former chief economist to the World Bank; ex-Secretary of the Treasury; and an economic advisor to two Democratic presidents.
He is now the intellectual guiding light for Mr. Trudeau and his key advisors – a development that may have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy, given the views on debt and deficits he espoused Thursday.”
“Obama Operatives Infiltrate Canadian Liberals”
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/61354
“Former Obama staffers abound at Liberal convention”
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/21/former-obama-staffers-abound-at-liberal-convention
Remember as well that Chretian big campaign 1993 promise was to get rid of the GST .
Do you really think Justin is going to get rid of FATCA.
It makes me sick to think people here believe that any of these mainstream parties are going to do the right thing. just as in the United States the two party system is really a one-party system the three party system in Canada is really a one-party system as well. Some here are overly educated and therefore overly indoctrinated in the ways of our decadent immoral society and are so brainwashed to the point of being apologists for politicians that they perceive are misinformed and given a proper detailing would suddenly want to do what’s right for our country. Please stop humiliating yourselves by imagining that they aren’t corrupt to the bone. I respect those putting so much of their time into informing our brothers and sisters but the end will be the same, we are going to be their enemies and they are our enemies. We are the modern day 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians victims of the. … You guessed it. .. NAZIS
@GeorgeIII Larry Summers is a swine and I have known that for a long, long time.
As for the Liberals inviting campaign ops here to speak. Yes, I knew about it and wrote numerous letters at the time saying I thought that was a horrible move and we should not be inviting the fox into the hen house. That campaign as successful as it was, was also one of the nastiest I was ever a part of and I want nothing to do with the frat boyz who constructed it.
I have other issues with Harper than this one.
@Chears, I don’t think anyone here has said they think they will be saved by a main stream party. They are going through political channels as is their right to do. I also don’t think anyone here is humiliating themselves. I’m not at war with the U.S. and reject that language. I’ll go through proper channels as much as possible but, war is another kettle of fish and I have family and friends there who are also against this. As is Alex. I have no desire to make enemies of friends. Again I thank Alex for his hard work on this article.
Yes, this is a fabulous article to add to the arsenal! Thank you, Ruth, for sharing your powerful story and thanks to Alex for publicizing it. You are giving all of us a wider voice. Now let’s hope the ears of the deaf will be opened.
Original comment didn’t seem to make it through. To reiterate:
Good article which presents the human side of all of this and counters the homelander argument that
people should “just move back home”. I am also a parent of a child with disability. Looked today and I have a whole file drawer and a half of my child’s assessments, medical, PT, DLA, SEN provision. To up sticks and go to the USA is just not feasible. It would be both cruel and selfish to rip my kids up from their home and friends and take them to a foreign country and force them into a foreign educational system (which isn’t that good- sorry) and foreign medical system (with direct, first-hand experience of both- I prefer the NHS). And they’re not registered as USA citizens anyway.
What is a concern is that when these personal stories are presented, which contrast with the champagne swilling yacht racing expat narrative, homelanders like Mr Tom Hunter (who some people had an exchange with some weeks ago) don’t want to know. It doesn’t fit with the narrative and it seems to be ignore the arguments, surrender considered reasoning and fall back to a “computer says no” stance by many US homelanders.
@CreatureOutside, I think this is why the U.S. needs a serious wake up call as to WHO their expat families really are. They make laws based on this myth of the over seas, wealthy, islander on a yacht. This is not reality yet they continue to perpetuate this myth. Most expats are just average people. Why on earth they can look within the borders and see that the vast majority do not have huge wealth but, believe at the same time that those outside the borders are all rich or even the majority are rich is such a conundrum.
I think the stories are important for several reasons. They are the truth, they expose what the U.S. is doing to real people and hold up a mirror to them so that if they do nothing to fix this then THEY for once look bad and must take some responsibility if enough people tell on them, and it helps to dispel the myths that get this horrible laws passed in the first place. The U.S. has long been able to live a fairy tale about their expats and it’s time for them to wake up and face facts.
In 2008 there were quite a few stories of “medical exiles” who couldn’t return back home to the U.S. due to not being able to get insurance there they may need. These stories were used to get this government leader elected and then these SAME people were thrown under the FATCA bus. All this needs exposure. My plan when my son was born was to move back so that my son would be raised near my family and I would have some support and help. My husbands father was gone by then, and his mother was elderly. That’s all we had whereas I had numerous family members who could create a large family environment. Too bad I didn’t know my son would be born with so many serious medical problems. I was never able to return there and now I of course I can never do so.
People need to talk more about their experiences as an expat to everyone they know both in the country they reside in and to those back in the U.S. They need to GET IT. I’m tired of being demonized and demeaned and criminalized.
Yes, great article that dispels the overseas American myth. Speaking of, Liam Pleven of the Wall Street Journal has now told told me that his editor is ok with him covering people who do not wish to be identified (and therefore punished) in his upcoming piece on US renunciations. I’m glad that they now recognize that the fear of being identified is as much a part of the story as anything else we have to deal with.
@Atticus, “In 2008 there were quite a few stories of “medical exiles” who couldn’t return back home to the U.S. due to not being able to get insurance there they may need.”
George raises hand…..
Too much income and assets to get any help with the cost.
Too little assets and income to afford the insurance.
So I left…….and then amazingly everything I heard on US talk radio about the NHS turned out to be completely wrong, like the “NHS Death Panels.”
Now that there is Obamacare, I am far happier with the NHS. I would never emigrate back, the America I left has gone insane in only a handful of years.
@AtticusinCanada
The people with the yachts are all those Wall Street fellas who STOLE the money and are not going to jail for it. The big bad tax evaders are nothing compared to those guys when it comes to criminality. They are just a topic to distract the people from going after the real people who brought the world economy to its knees.
Enough with the story of renunciations. That’s been covered over and over again, and we now have the best of all in Atticus’ part in the most recent here. Thank you so much, Atticus!
I told Patrick Cain from Global News that my son’s story was old news now and I have begged him to continue his excellent coverage of FATCA — by taking it up a notch or two.
Let’s get the story in front of the Canadian public about FATCA hidden in the C-31 budget implementation bill — what has just happened before the eyes of those who are looking but it needs to be seen by EVERY CANADIAN; how every last Conservative voted for it; how the only persons to stand up for a SOVEREIGN Canada are from the NDP, the Greens, the Liberals and the Bloc. Not one morally responsible Conservative to care about the average Canadian. It is the ‘US Person’ discriminated against by nationality this time; what nationality will be the next? It is shameful.
@Calgary411
I agree. He may find interviewing Charlie Angus a very interesting story. Angus came from the people, is not a banker or lawyer. He was a muscian before he became an MP, has written numerous books on Canada. He is a story, especially that mine story. That story was known in Toronto. My own dentist told me about before I moved up here. His latest album is pretty good. I just bought the book on the mine fight.
@calgary411
I believe his story will entail more than renunciations now. We can’t have enough light shone on us as long as it’s sympathetic to our plight, IMO, and the Wall Street Journal is widely read. This issue is still important for those who haven’t yet severed ties.
OK, bubblebustin, maybe continue on the renunciation story for those who still don’t know, but I so very much want the press to relay what is happening with the LEADERS / government representatives?? of our countries in allowing things like this to happen — the loss of citizen rights (FATCA being a prime example). And, I’d like that in real time.
I do believe my son’s story is old news — and I’m beyond tired of telling it, especially that few seem to get that it is beyond my son — but about every family with a son or a daughter in such a situation. Although I emphasize it in the interviews I’ve had, that this same absurd entrapment can and will happen as well to others, including those with age-related dementia, that never comes across (or at least in my reading) so people just think “that poor woman”. I don’t want to be that “poor woman” with a disabled son (and they sure would like a picture and a name of that son (for human interest sake) / never – I will not exploit my son any more than I already have. Fits into the same sales job of the story as a good headline with something to do with “Tax Evasion” (which, thank goodness, we don’t see as much of as we did at the beginning of all of this).
I just want some common sense — a way out of this without having to have a work-around or look over my shoulder for some whistle-blower or some US official who has enough money in some fund to teach a lesson to those like me who speak out and ’embarrass them’. (Unbelievable that anyone should think that the answer for this FATCA problem is to sit in the corner and be quiet, don’t make waves.) Journalists want to make it a story with a name (and usually want a face to go along with it as well). One journalist wanted to send someone to take pictures of my home to see what mementos of the US I have around me everyday to remind me of where I come from. I said that I looked around and other than pictures of myself and my siblings when we were kids (which would be the same whether we were in the US or some other country), all I could see in my surroundings were mementos of the country of which I am a citizen, Canada. He likely could not believe that Canada is really my first choice, my home. End of rant. Thanks for listening — again.
I disagree with you, Calgary411
You will NEVER be a thought of as a poor old woman! You are a champion, an inspiration and a testimony to survival. Like so many here, you rock!
If it’s American media then they are interested in renunciations. Canadian media is another take on things. I’ll speak to media from anywhere every time I’m asked to in order to raise this issue on either side of the border and encourage others to do the same.
Although, I’ll say sticking your head up that much is certainly a thing to worry about sometimes.
I’ve been on twitter all day with Canadian MP’s and media on C31 and FATCA.