53 thoughts on “Associated Press, Adam Geller, interviews persons who don’t fit the stereotype…”

1. @Canuckdock – “what benefit is there to being a citizen of the US”? Come on. Who wouldn’t want the Pinto of Passports! Pick one up and watch it blow up in your face. I think I’ll have to use that a few times before I get tired of it!

   More seriously, I do find it amusing that even in this type of article, the author feels it necessary to re-assure homelanders about how millions of people want their precious passport. I can come up with five or six million who definitely don’t. When will somebody tell Homelanders:
   1. You are the ONLY country (apart from Eritrea) that seeks to tax expats who live permanently abroad. Ask yourself – what do you guys know that the rest of the world hasn’t figured out? Hint – nothing.
   2. For every one expat who renounces citizenship (and they are doing so in record numbers) there are LITERALLY THOUSANDS who simply go underground and cut all ties to the United States. Ask yourself, why would expatriated Americans be acting like refugees from the Soviet Union abroad – isn’t the United States supposed to be the Land of the Free?
   3. Your country was founded on rebellion from taxation from abroad by a foreign government (whose passport the Founders held). No taxation without representation was their battle cry. Ask yourself – how many seats in Congress are set aside for Americans permanently residing in other countries that you purport to send them a tax bill every year?
   4. you believe in equal application of the law to all. How many Americans have to fill out forms telling the government about each and every bank account they have, the highest annual balance in those accounts, who has signing authority over them, etc? How many Americans are routinely threatened with financial ruin if they have not filled out those forms or filled them out correctly? How many Americans are forbidden from going into business with their friends or neighbours in a partnership or small business except on condition of providing their neighbours’ confidential financial information to a foreign government? How many Americans must pay tax even if they have made no money selling something just because the US dollar (of which they possess none) has gone down in value? How many Americans are forbidden to open education savings plans, IRA’s, 401k’s or to deduct their mortgage interest? If you answered: 7 million Americans living and working outside the US on a permanent basis you would be correct – of course not 1 homelander in 100 million would have been able to get that answer correctly.
   5. When Eduardo Savarin leaves the United States with his great wealth, why are you moved to paroxysms of rage instead of asking yourself why the US, once the magnet for the world’s best and brightest is now repelling them? Were the funds he removed not his and had he not paid all taxes on that money when he earned it? All you are really complaining about is that Mr. Savarin found greener pastures to invest his money than the United States. Last I looked, government is not a charity.
   5. Lastly, why does the country that was founded on the human right of expatriation – a principle that the United States enshrined in a statute almost 100 years before the United Nations did – find itself ruled by politicians who literally seek to punish those who leave as if they were guilty of treason. What’s next? A wall around the place?

   The question for my friends to the South is not why anyone would ever give up the blessed blue passport but why anyone would accept it with full knowledge of the risks and consequences. I would LOVE to see a US newspaper with the stones to express that sentiment which is quite actively felt by seven or so million of their former compatriots.

2. @AnneFrank re: ” When will somebody tell Homelanders….” Lots of Brockers, and other anti-FATCA/anti-CBT supporters, have been trying to, but most Homelanders don’t like to hear it. It disturbs their distorted view of reality, and they prefer to ignore or attack messengers of truth.

   Actually, Canadians don’t like to hear the truth either – regarding the sell out of 1 million Canadians in order to appease the US bully; it goes against what our children are taught at school, and couldn’t possibly be as bad as we are saying.

   Once in a while, someone admits they get it – Homelander or not. Personally I get a lot of satisfaction from those rare moments. Gotta keep fighting….

3. It appears that all newspapers belonging to “Lee Enterprises”, owner of approx. 50 regional newspapers in the US, are carrying Adam Geller’s AP story “More renounce US citizenship but deny stereotype”:

   http://www.lee.net/newspapers/

   For example, the St Louis Post-Dispatch:
   http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/more-renounce-us-citizenship-but-deny-stereotype/article_d316aa62-9ba7-53a7-8bc5-5cbdfcc012e4.html

   It’s also in Businessweek:
   http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-04-26/more-renounce-us-citizenship-but-deny-stereotype

4. The ap article is linked on the drudge report so lots of coverage

5. It hit Yahoo 4 hours ago and has almost 1,400 comments so far. Too many for me to read (even it is a snowed in day here). There’s probably a couple of “door hits” in there but the few comments I did read were pretty good actually.

6. Good grief … wish I hadn’t read this yahoo’s ignorant post at Yahoo:
   Neil: “Filing a Tax return isn’t all that difficult. You can get plenty free help too. An 8th grade education is all that’s necessary, even if you have a business with multiple employees. It only gets difficult when you try to cram the task within a day or two before it’s due or if your sole purpose is to cheat. In that case you will need lawyers and accountants to cover up your dirty deeds. Talk about lazy!”
   That’s enough for me … but really some comments are pretty good.

7. I wasn’t going to comment, but did to Raptor. The comment is already lost in the many.

   It is good to see some reasonable comments. Many say they too would leave the U.S. but they would never give up their citizenship. There are too many of the usual hateful homelanders comments that make me ever more grateful of the choice I made so many, many years ago (plus the one more recently — the reason they, too (although they don’t realize it), would consider giving up their U.S. citizenship).

   Carol 3 minutes ago

   Raptor says he/she is happy to read that liberals who fled the country during the Vietnam war are giving up their citizenships. I wasn’t going to comment to people who have knee-jerk reactions to this story. But, I had to react to this one. Some assume a lot; some assume way too much and are over the line!!

   Just for the record, my first husband who I came to Canada with in 1969 died many years ago of ALS. Before we came to Canada, he had served in the US Marines for four years. Assumptions are a dime a dozen. This story has nothing to do with your perception of those who were came to Canada as ‘draft dodgers’. That is a whole another story of lives wasted on endless wars, a Military Industrial Complex.

   We became Canadian citizens in 1975 because we believed we had a duty to become citizens of the country that we CHOSE to live in, work in, pay our taxes, raise our family and get our benefits from. When we lived in the U.S. and got benefits from the U.S., we paid our taxes there. Actually, when we became Canadian citizens in 1975, we were warned by the US Consulate that we would be losing our US citizenship by doing so. Law changed. No one asked us if we wanted our US citizenship reinstated or anything else that we had to do to certify that expatriation by becoming Canadian citizens.

   The US school system failed both of us — because neither of us had learned anything about US CITIZENSHIP-based taxation law. In fact, I’ve asked that question to many, many US Persons, the answer has always been the same — they did not learn about that in the schooling either. The US did not do an effective job of educating anyone leaving the US of that fact.

   My son was BORN in Canada, raised in Canada, never registered with the US, never lived in the US, never had any benefit from the US — only from Canada. The $42,000 in fees that I paid were for tax returns and tax law from 2005 through 2012, three different US accounting firms (one in the US that was worthless and I had to fire, but they kept the “retainer”. Early returns had to be re-done as they were not done properly. That figure also included hiring a Washington, DC immigration / nationality lawyer to confirm my son’s US status and give possibilities for his renunciation. Result was that my children were US citizens from the moment of their births. And, straight from the US Department of State:

   DOS persons he talked with have “sympathy” for such cases. However, the developmentally disabled person will have to have FULL understanding of what he’s doing; if any question of lack of comprehension and grasping meaning and importance of ramifications, they could NOT approve such a case. From DOS point of view, US citizenship is precious and they have therefore established fundamental requirements for “compelling reason”. Even though there is the risk that a person’s financial resources could run out before his/her life was over, they will never approve a renunciation for financial / economic reasons. DOS has NEVER had such a renunciation case approved due to “compelling circumstances”. Bottom line: “compelling reason” in their regulations is not helpful to my son’s case. I could sue – persons he talked with at DOS are SURE no one would ever win such a case as the courts view the discretionary action that DOS has would take precedence.

   Does it not make more sense that a second US (or any other) citizenship be opted into, when there are facts that make that a possibility? With an opt-out only (as is now the case), those with a ‘mental incapacity’ (even age-related dementia) are entrapped as their parents, their guardians or their trustees cannot renounce US citizenship on their behalf, even with a court order.

   Essentially, my son is ENTRAPPED into US citizenship and the costs of administration of US tax return and bank account reports, year after year, for which there would be no taxes owed due to the Canada / US Tax Treaty. The tax that I paid to the US is for the CANADIAN Registered Disability Savings Plan (an investment account that Canadian families are encouraged to save for the extra expenses that their family members will have) I am the Holder of the account as his trustee. The Canadian government has contributed to that account, which means that Canadian taxpayer money has gone into that account. That is the portion that the US has taxed. Not one penny of Canadian taxpayer money should go to the US when it is intended for a Canadian citizen with a disability. There is no way that I can renounce a US citizenship for my son that was never in the first place registered with the US. Tell me, what would you do? Tell me, what is my son’s fair share of the US debt? Ours will not be the only family so affected by extra-territorial FATCA coming into our country.

   PS: The Foreign Earned Income Exemption is just that — for EARNED income. I am retired. I earn no income. The US can tax on retirement income and it can tax on the capital gains on personal residences in other countries / things that are not covered in the US/Canada Tax Treaty. It is absurd. I will not go through such stress and such reduction of my hard-earned retirement savings year after year. That is why I now have officially renounced and have a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) that I can show to my local CANADIAN “foreign financial institution” (that I use just like you use your banks or credit unions or insurance companies for your financial needs in the US). It is not “foreign” to me or the any other person the US now deems a US Person in Canada, which can include Canadian spouses, children, business partners — even Canadian “snowbirds” if they “snowbird” too long in the US. Just want a little common sense I needed and less stress for my remaining retirement years. I was lucky enough to have some retirement savings for my expenses — many who are being “criminalized” (more US collateral damage) do not.

   If you want tax evaders (the ones you call “FATCA(s)” — they have so far been US Persons who are RESIDENT in the US and SEND their untaxed money offshore. They are not persons who legally live and work in other countries and who pay their taxes there. Change to residence-based taxation and go after them or after the ones that use the “tax havens” right in the good old USA.

   Try to read this story putting yourself into the place of families affected here. Don’t build a new “Berlin Wall” around the U.S. There will be blow-back in the tactics / legislation passed by the Congress of the US. It doesn’t have to be this way.

   Now on to more positive ventures like more submissions to the Canadian Senate. This country is where my focus needs to stay.

8. Interesting observation from a guy who just naturalised in NZ:
   http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=43548

9. A partial comment from one of the nine thousand, ” I spent decades in Europe, myself, as a child of a DoD teacher. But like you, I never once thought of renouncing my citizenship. ”

   What a stupid comment.

   This DoD teacher was very likely solely a US national.

   So yes, renouncing to become stateless is likely most would never ever think of.

10. This article appears to be a hit in the global press. it is being reprinted all over the place. I tweeted a few links, but got tired of hitting the “share” button. There are just so many articles on this.

11. @ SwissPinoy
    I don’t know what the normal number of comments would be at Yahoo News but there are over 10,000 on the Geller article now. Calgary411 made a great comment yesterday trying to set things straight with some of the dingbats there but now it is completely buried. (One does get so weary with all those “door hits” type of comments.) I think the article took off because it was of human interest rather than a lot of technical talk about taxation which makes Americans tune out (unless it’s about a tax law which specifically affects their pocket book).

12. Great interview Carol and Peter. Good to see Drudge has picked up article. I’ve emailed the link to Pierre Bourque at Bourque.com. Hopefully the article will gain some visibility in the Canadian press.

13. @Calgary411, not sure if I told you this or not.

    You came out of the closet on this to protect your son. I know one or two said you made a target of yourself, I disagreed with that.

    Your story is so compelling, coming out provided a layer of protection you did not have.

    What did you do? Victoria reminded us of Eduardo Saverin which is what ALL of us are characterized as one way or another. Guess what, you shattered that mold and broke it into a million pieces.

    I will never forget the photo of a lone student in Tiananmen Square who stood in front of a tank and stopped it.

    You went before the world, you laid yourself bare and the world has listened.

    Your effort has been vital and when the history is written, your actions will be noted.

    God bless you, your son and your family.

    Thank you ever so much.

14. Here it is in the National Post:

    http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/26/cast-as-tax-evaders-but-deciding-to-give-up-u-s-citizenship-as-much-for-life-as-wealth/

15. My son-in-law in the US just forwarded the article from the AP. I’ll send him Carol’s comment correcting a few of the misconceptions. Any reason why I shouldn’t send him the link to IBS?

16. Absolutely, send him a link. Send everyone you know links. Misconceptions from the comments on this article are taken as fact by the many others who read the comments. Seeing so many hateful comments, to me, is reminiscent of the McCarthy era.

17. George — I so value your continued support and the wisdom you’ve passed on to me. Yours and that of others here helps wipe out the ignorance and hatred shown in so many of the yahoo.com comments (which I fully expected, just not so many — almost like gang violence). Thank you once again.

18. @Queenston, agree send a link with some of your own words.

    The worse part of this ishow many would like to renounce but are afraid of the US Government to come out and renounce. Is that ratio ten to one, one hundred to one, one thousand to one?

19. I found a very good comment buried in the sea of 10K comments at Yahoo News. Take heart, @ calgary411, one good comment like yours and this one cancels at least a dozen “door hits” comments. I’ve taken the liberty of adding some bold to the Rick/Donna comment to make it easier to read.

    Rich posted @ Yahoo News:

    Donna-Lane NELSON is a close friend of mine, and we’ve been fascinated by the widely varied comments about this topic. Here’s an overview of her thoughts:

    I never thought I’d see my name in The Drudge Report

    I’d talked with the writer Adam Geller as did many others. He quoted me accurately. I do wish he’d mentioned FATCA.

    FATCA is the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act. It requires banks, pension funds, insurance companies, investment houses all over the world to report on Americans who have accounts with them. If they don’t there are huge penalties payable to the US government.

    Many countries have had to change their laws to comply. (I don’t want to go into the arrogance of one country demanding another change their laws. I can’t imagine the US changing its laws to report on French citizens at the demand of France.)

    As a result banks all over the world simply close the accounts of Americans which means no bank account, no credit card, no car loan, no debit car, no mortgage. Some mortgages have been called in for full payment. Technically US expats are not allowed to have a bank account from a foreign address so that means absolutely no way to do an ordinary banking transactions.

    Many missed the point of the story.

    Some went off on their own agendas. It wasn’t about gays, abortion, Obama, socialists, liberals, etc. It was about people who need to protect themselves and their families.

    The responses fell into a few categories.

    Why not?
    A few said let people make up their own minds with little condemnation. They were in the minority.

    Millions want to be American
    Respondents cited illegals who want to be in America. Well yes.

    People from Latin America do come to the US for a better life. Just like Africans flock to Europe for the same reason. Most want to feed their families. No one looks into increased immigration numbers after NAFTA when the dumping of American products caused untold numbers of farmers to lose their livelihood. When you’re looking to escape poverty you go to the closest better country.

    They did not consider when a person lives in another country for an extended period of time and plan to stay in that country they want to become a full part of that country with voting rights, etc.

    Many expats were transferred for work reasons and found they liked where they were living. Some married locals and have raised families there. The ties to the US become weaker. Sometimes the only tie was tax.

    Accidental Americans
    The accidental Americans are those that were born in the US when their non-US parents were visiting, working or studying there temporarily.

    Some never lived in the US more than a few days, yet every cent of their earnings is the subject of the US taxes and they are losing their right to bank accounts all over the world.

    Imagine if you were born in England when your parents were on holiday. How happy would you be if every cent you ever made or would make would be subject to English taxes and your American bank accounts were being closed because the English government was too threatening to the US banks? Sounds pretty ridiculous doesn’t it?

    There’s no place as good as America
    Hmmm. What is better in other industrialized countries? Health care, cost of higher education, quality of education, roads, bridges, safety legislation (products such as US makeup are banned in Europe because the chemicals are not deemed safe) food safety, violence or lack thereof, holiday leave (4-6 weeks), maternity leave. All the countries do NOT offer a perfect life. These items were gathered from a number of international reports by reputable researchers that show the above are better in most industrialized countries than in the US.

    America is really good with income inequality, child poverty and number of prisoners. The top of those lists.

    Does this mean America is horrible? No, it means people have chosen to live elsewhere for many reasons.

    American Expats get a $96,000 deduction
    True on salaries. Unemployment, investments, pensions, SS are double taxed.

    Everyone should pay taxes
    Yup they should. Where they live. It is the price of living in civilized society. Taxes should mean we have good schools, a reasonable safety net for the weakest, safe food, safe water, safe roads, safe bridges, etc.

    Think if you were born in MA and moved to NH? How willing would you be to continue to pay MA income taxes on everything you earned? What if you couldn’t bank in either state? How loyal would you be to MA then?

    Renouncers are tax dodgers
    Not really. We pay taxes where we live. Most resent paying taxes twice. Many resent having to spend thousands to stay in compliance to learn no taxes are owed. My accountant’s bill was three times what I owed but I had the assurance that I wouldn’t be hit with fines anywhere from $10,000-50,000 if I messed up in the filing.

    Renouncers hate the US
    No, but many of us are sad at the state of the US today, not because we are liberals or socialists. We see the boarded=up houses, the crumbling roads, the ignorance of people about what is going on in the world. Many still have family and roots there. It’s just our lives have taken other turns.

    Renouncers should be forbidden to ever enter the US again
    Actually a law was proposed on just that but it died in Congress. Other “punishments” were suggested such as confiscation of property, SS, pensions. Hmmm. I wonder if these people think those who take American citizenship should have England, Holland, South Africa confiscate whatever they have by their birth countries? Admittedly many people who did go to America sacrificed everything but in this global society changing countries isn’t all the unusual.

    Renouncers won’t be protected by the embassy in time of trouble.
    No, the US embassy won’t. But the embassies of their other country will. Maybe even better.

    If you don’t like the government you have the right to vote out the government
    Not really. US choice of candidates is limited. Had I been able to bank I would have continued to vote as a US citizen because I was politically active calling Congress regularly on proposed legislation.

    Different country elections vary but in Switzerland we’ve voted on whether the air force can buy planes, whether to join the UN and EU, the retirement age and many, many, many other topics that I couldn’t vote on in the US.

    Soon we will be voting on whether to grant every citizen a minimum income.

    We vote many times a year on legislation proposed by the citizens or enacted by the parliament on which we disagree. Sometimes the vote is stupid, but at least it is decided by the citizens.

    Renouncers want to escape payments to the US
    If you have under $2 million in assets (and they can be all outside the US) the cost of giving up US citizenship is $450. Over $2 million it’s now up to 23% of all your assets (and they can all be outside the US) Any American heirs will pay a much higher rate on whatever their renounced parents leave. So when they talk about the Facebook guy who was a naturalized citizen giving up his US citizenship to escape US taxes and what a traitor he was, it was his second country, he did not plan to live in the US again and he didn’t like being double taxed, but he still paid a small fortune for not being double taxed.

20. Donna-Lane Nelson has a good friend in Rich, who posted that comprehensive comment. Great if commenters could double back to find it and then take time to read and think about what it says. Understanding is a long way off for many who have closed their minds.

21. @ calgary411
    I doubt I could find that comment again. Rich (not Rick as I put in one place) is correct I hope. Yes indeed some minds are closed, some have sub par reading comprehension and some obviously didn’t even bother reading the article. Good comments like yours and this one scroll down the page too fast to even collect enough “up arrows” to put them at the top of the “popular” list. None of this can decrease our appreciation of you and others having the courage to speak out — only increase it.

22. It’s too bad the National Post version of this story didn’t appear to have a “comments” page. Did I miss something?

    To Calgary: Thank you so much for your courage and leadership!

23. @MuzzledNoMore

    I couldn’t open the comments page either. Too bad, it would have been interesting to add some Canadian content to the comments.

24. Here is is in the UK’s Daily Mail with fewer comments:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614215/A-record-2-999-people-renounced-US-citizenship-year-not-just-avoid-taxes.html

25. The local English-language rag here in HK ran a heavily edited version of the story: they cut out all mention of Norman Heinrichs Gale, Donna Lane-Nelson, or disabled children & RDSP issues, while leaving in the references to Turner, Saverin, and Denise Rich.
    http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1498385/growing-numbers-americans-renounce-united-states-citizenship

    Fortunately one Chinese-American newspaper already did a full & complete translation of Geller’s article, so I hope the Chinese-language papers in HK & TW will pick up that version rather translating SCMP’s dishonest cut-up job.
    http://dailynews.sina.com/bg/news/usa/chinapress/20140428/02095675835.html