July/13 @Mopsicktaxlaw writes on "Being an American" http://t.co/p45vzgU4Ab – July/14 As #FATCA Hunt begins issue: "Being #Americansabroad"
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 30, 2014
Mr. Mopsick’s post includes:
I also highly commend to everyone, particularly our dear friends to the north, Victoria’s piece on the Franco American Flophouse published July 25, 2013. “On Being An American.” I trashed a draft blog of my own “on being an American” which I was struggling with before the Fourth of July. I was searching for words to express the feeling Victoria captured so eloquently below which I am sure has resonated with Americans abroad.
As we approach the 4th of July – Independence Day – one must ask whether the there is a difference between “Being an American” and “Being an American Abroad”. Another year has passed.
– the formal relinquishments of U.S. citizenship continue to grow
– the informal relinquishments of U.S. citizenship (run and hide) are going through the roof
– the rollout of “FATCA Hunt” is forcing Americans abroad to hide their “USness”
– the U.S. Congress has shown no interest in freeing Americans abroad from the “prison of citizenship-based taxation” – AKA taxation based on place of birth
Tomorrow July 1, 2014 marks the Official start of FATCA Hunt.
As Americans abroad contemplating the arrival of Independence Day:
What are your thoughts on the MEANING of being an American abroad?
What message would you like to send to America this Independence Day?
And thank you for reminding me of that post and I think I will repost it on July 4th just for the hell of it. 🙂
Last week I had houseguests from the Old Country (the US) and as I was talking with them about our woes I found myself using “us” (US Persons abroad) and “you” (US homelanders). One was rather sanguine about it, the other was visibly offended.
Not sure if it helped or hindered understanding but it was a shock to realize how natural it felt to say “you and us.”
@Victoria;
The “you” vs “us” makes it hard to find a co-operative solution. Also, like your post today on why Americans abroad are “non-willful” – nicely written.
For those who haven’t seen it:
http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2014/06/non-willful-non-compliance-how-we-got.html
Use the 4th of July to go and speak to events where Americans go to ‘celebrate’ and other holidays. Perhaps the odd London pub that does an event (like Thanksgiving dinner) and contact all the social organisations, ?? – American Chamber of Commerce, to spread the word about FATCA.
Unless the vast majority of the 7 million stand in unity against FATCA it’ll end up to be a case of divide and conquer and the likes of Levin and Schumer know this.
Start burning the flags the news cameras!.
Remember, Victoria, we are not the ones who created the the “Us and Them” situation. As prima facie stupid as it may sound, it is all “their” fault. We never asked to be treated like this.
I must say, though, that this whole series of events has given me a much greater respect for Americans abroad than I had ever had before. Previously, I had never thought of “us” as a community. And to be honest, we weren’t. We were just individuals in whatever societies we had found ourselves. Now I realize what awesome Americans there still are, at least outside the Homeland.
I just wish that we all could have met under better circumstances.
But hey, adversity is when people really shine, right?
@UScitizenabroad: Thank you for posting the link. That was very kind of you and I am glad you liked the post.
@Foo, But we have to pick our targets here. One of my houseguests does advocacy work in the US and gave me some really good advice. The other had no idea what any of this was about but she was willing to listen. And here I was channelling my inner b$%^ toward the very people I was trying to convince of the rightness of our cause. Clearly, I have not been going to enough AA meetings lately…
But, yes, we are a community in the making and it is wonderful to see.
Interesting experience you describe, Victoria. It is “You” and “Us”. I’m surprised your guests who know you cannot know that.
Perhaps speak of the conflict as being between “They” and “Us”, with “They” being the U.S. Homelanders who do not understand, or refuse to understand, FATCA and its effect on anyone outside the U.S. who that country defines as “US Persons”. It might be very hard to do, especially if your “homelander” friends speak of themselves as “we”, but you’ll make it plain that you don’t blame your friends – if they are your friends – personally, but people like X, Y, and Z and organizations like IRS, etc.
We’ve become “us” to fight a common adversary, “them”, when “they” continue to be wilfully ignorant of the plight of “us”, and refuse to recognize that “they”, interestingly enough, are “us” too.
I keep trying to draw the connection between the record renunciations today to the eventuality of America being in the exceptional position of having none of their people living beyond US borders. “Even a trickle will empty a tub” I say, in hopes that my words might trigger some to imagine a world devoid of an American diaspora – all because of stupid laws that has no place in a free society.
@Victoria, @Calgary and @Queenston, to be fair though, I’ve found most homelanders seemed quite understanding after I’ve successfully explained it to them. This is all the more why I believe that Congress and the DOJ are aware but don’t want to change the status quo. I figured out that my accountant and advisor are also quite happy to retain CBT as it keeps them chugging along….
The irony is that even the IRS probably find implementing FATCA a major headache. It’s the certain politicians’ agenda, along with the compliance industry, that makes reform so difficult. This is the real problem with America: that Congress essentially being a private club bought up by Big money interests. It’s too much of a ‘me’ vs ‘we’re society.
Thanks for your EXCELLENT latest, Victoria. I’ve just had time to skim it, but looks like it will be a link that I will pass on. Your wise words and getting to the points should be able to explain what is happening to any of the “them”.
Thank you, Calgary. Clarity, damn it, and full disclosure. It is just so darn confusing.
And the tax compliance thing is actually very interesting. There is a lot of literature about it – folks trying to figure out why people comply in the first place and it turns out that it’s not a simple question. This book is hard going but has a lot of references: Factors Influencing Individual Taxpayer Compliance Behaviour by Devos. For some reason the Australian Tax Office has done a lot of work on this. Not sure why but it’s interesting stuff.
“them” and “us ” for sure. Just spoke to a swiss financial management firm employee who told me quite dryly that they had gotten rid of ALL of their US clients. A few were hiding behind some other guy but they found them out too and let them go.
Imagine if this happened to a homelander.
@Polly
**Imagine if this happened to a homelander**
They would hit the media… call every gov’t rep to protest this… get their gov’t rep to see why… Retain a lawyer who would probably do it for pro-bono for the free publicity…. Everyone would be up in arms causes their rights & privacy were violated. Ohhh… wait… expats & immigrants got no one to talk for them…. No one wants to hear our complaining… US govt or our own gov’t… we are just hanging in the wind…. broke… No one gives a flipping leap about it. Each pointing the finger at each other… u deal with it… no… u deal with it…. just surrender your funds… we can work it out later
“I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun see how they fly
I’m crying…”
Canada Day makes me nostalgic for the ’60’s as the first time I stepped into Canada, my mother’s home, was when Canada celebrated its centennial. That’s when I went from having NO relatives to having what seemed like thousands of cousins, aunts and uncles! Fun times!
What are your thoughts on the MEANING of being an American abroad?
I am an American Canadian with only Citizenship of Canada with my CLN locked up in my safe.
Being in Canada for over 4 decades I can truthfully say I am happy.. Before becoming Canadian citizens my husband and I filed US tax returns. The year we became Canadians was the last year we filed US tax returns..We did them ourselves and did not know anything about FBARS. We were below the US limit to pay taxes – combined for a single person.. It was not until 2012 that I found out about FATCA and then I became a basket case. I declined buying two US properties to snow bird in because of it. I found Brock and MSB and became enlightened and informed to go for my CLN last year and to get it this year. Now I am concerned for the rest of you all. I am hoping the Charter Challenge will succeed. I have become an informer to many of people I know and don’t know about FATCA. I finally have no qualms about talking about it. I wait for my opening and then begin, nicely. It gets easier.
What message would you like to send to America this Independence Day?
Please get your lawmakers to change your citizen based taxation to resident based taxation. Be part of the world, rather than trying to be the ruler of the world.
I would want them to remember that their country started out as a group of people who felt poorly represented by a distant government and unjustly taxed. If I had the time, I would update John Adams’s Novanglus to reflect the current situation and have them read it. I would want them to ask themselves whether they still believe that ‘taxation without representation is tyranny’ and, if so, how can they justify what the U.S. government puts non-resident greencard holders through? I’d want them to remember that laying claim to people who did not want their citizenship and forcing upon the the duties of citizenship was what Britain used to do to them. I would ask them whether the money is really worth the sacrifice of some fairly fundamental national values.
@Publius, I ask myself the same question!
I find that I refer to myself as a Canadian with ease and my family and friends down south as
“you Americans” just as easily.
Now that the time for taking the oath to queen and country and relinquishing is practically upon me, it’s easier and easier to be distance myself and just be Canadian.
Sure, there are things about me that will always have American-ish vibes. My accent can suddenly slip into a twang and I will likely never be able to take seriously the Canadian notion of conservatism. No one is conservative here, imo. Not really.
Mostly, my feeling is “whatever”. Dual citizenship is not a viable option and Canadians don’t seem keen on it anyway. This is my home. I have felt more at home here than I ever did in the US despite my being born, reared and spending most of my adult life there.
I am lucky. How many people on the planet are afforded the opportunity to emigrate to and become a citizen of the country where they should have been born in the first place?
Happy 4th to them. May they be happy in the land and life they are stuck in.
We have 435 Congressmen and women, 100 Senators, two Executives and 9 Supreme Court Justices.
These 546 people have caused all the problems we have and they tell us to re elect them so they can fix them and we will send 95 % of the elected ones back while blaming them for their short commings. The Supreme Court justices have lifetime appointments and can only rule on cses before them, however they get to decide which cases to take and which not to take, so they are a part of the problem also.
Who is at fault for all our problems. We are, for sending them back time after time. Vote against all emcumbents!!!
I will spend the 4th of July watching the HBO series “John Adams.” Ironically, watching it had helped me with my decision to renounce US citizenship. America is doing the same harmful things to its expats today (maybe worse) than the British had done to the colonists during the 1700’s.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6DPeCXV5bI
.
Tears come to my eyes every time I watch it because it shows how far out of touch America has become with the principles upon which the country was founded. From my point of view as an expat, renouncing US citizenship was more patriotic than keeping it — emotionally challenging and nearly impossible to explain to homelanders, but I am at peace with myself for having done it.
@Polly
Ethnic cleansing of American account holders with Swiss efficiency. Another myth according to Robert Stack.
America’s War on Expats continues.
@Samuel Adams
I cried the day I left the USA for Canada, which accepted me and my husband as refugees. It was a few years before we decided to become citizens of Canada. We talked it over and realized we were never going back to live. We both had good jobs. We had good health care and we were finding that Canada had the same kind of beliefs and ideals we had. We visited family and each visit we realized how different the USA and Canada was. Our families noticed how different we were.. I am looking forward to the Harper government being voted out and that the real Canada come back to life.
This:
“1) The taxes are not worth the value being returned.
I don’t have a problem paying taxes, so long as they go to something worthwhile. I will end up paying around 33% – an entire 1/3rd of my income – in my 2013 tax return. Yes, I am getting a refund, but when I am paying tens of thousands of dollars and not getting the services I should receive for that investment in my country, celebrating the return of a few hundred dollars seems absurd.
Where is my benefit from my government for all of this? Do I have free healthcare? No. Do I have a world class education for my child? No. Do I have any kind of guaranteed income should I lose my job? No.
No, instead, I have a country which is the only one in the world to tax its overseas citizens. A country that bails out banks who prey on those who just want a home to raise a family when they become insolvent – but when it happens to me, and I short sell my home, the IRS is there, ready to tax me on “phantom income” – forgiven debt.
I have a country that spends billions on fighting wars for political gain, but does nothing when there actually is evidence of WMD use against others. A country that hemorrhages so much money on military spending, it must turn around and take loans against my child’s future – her income – in order to continue to pay for programs we don’t need.
2) I’m tired of people being surprised that I’m American because I have manners, common courtesy, and the ability to see the other side of issues.
Seriously, the number of people I meet who think Americans are rascal-riding land whales (like in the movie Wall-E) with handle-bar mounted machine guns, a sack of Big Macs in the front basket, a clinical addiction to NASCAR, and a passion for the modern day artist that is Jerry Springer – it’s just too much. I’ve been introducing myself as Canadian because apparently I’m so polite, that’s where they mostly assume I’m from.
3) The fact that none of this is ever going to change, regardless of what party is in charge, and the fact that the American government continues to shred the constitution a little more each year, until it doesn’t even matter anymore.
You may not think of America as a police state, but it is. Nobody’s going to come grab you in the middle of the night, unless you’re reported as a terrorist of some kind. At that point, just forget about “police work” and get ready for the SWAT team.
Nobody is going to take your children way from you, unless Child Protective Services is called, and someone decides – for whatever reason – that it’s “in the child’s best interest” to be removed.
Nobody is ever going to interfere with your access to medicine, unless you’re trying to get something that isn’t ridiculously expensive from another country; in that case, get ready for being charged as a drug trafficker.
Nobody is going to freeze your bank accounts, passport, and other means of movement, unless the IRS believes you haven’t given them enough money. Suddenly you have debt to prove isn’t there, and it will all get “sorted out” at the blistering fast speed of government efficiency. Or you could just pay the amount they say and it all ends quickly.
4) The fact that the future for my child in the US is so dark.
All this debt, and it’s going to fall on her and her children. She’s broke, and she doesn’t even know it yet. Disgusting.
Well, I count myself fortunate that I don’t own a home in the US – it affords me the ability to even consider leaving it all behind. There’s so much propaganda about how wonderful America is but, when you look at it without those rosy lenses on, what you really see is horrifying.”
I think it’s quite clear, AMERICANS ABROAD ARE NOT AMERICANS AT ALL.
I have decided to follow the path of renunciation, at a cost of $20,000.00 for 5 years of tax return prep and FBAR filings. That is a big chunk of my retirement savings, but I do feel it’s the only way I can get on with my life. I only learned of all this in March, and it has almost been a full time job trying to become “compliant” since then. Earlier today, I allowed my accountant to send in all the bank information for myself and my Canadian company (thank goodness I own it with a Canadian business partner or the US would come after that too) and just found out I sent it in to the FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK. I think that clearly states what the USG thinks of Americans abroad.
Of course this is of no interest to homeland Americans, nor to Canadians who do not share US citizenship – and I do understand that. That’s why we need to stick together, get our stories out to our MP’s (even though it might seem like it’s too late). I met with my MP a few weeks ago and vow to keep fighting. Though I have chosen to give information to the US, I still feel that Canada’s signing of the FATCA law is a crime of treason against all of us. I will continue to support the ADCS and the work they are doing. I will NOT give any US birth information to my Financial institutions as that goes against everything I believe in. As far as they are concerned, I am Canadian, and I AM.
Victoria:
Yes, true, it is important not to treat Homelanders as a monolithic block. That is unfair and counterproductive. In fact, I would guess that most people living in the US don’t even know that the US practices CBT, and would not consider it fair if they did know about it. (Heck, the same ignorance has characterized Americans abroad, too, and is only starting to change now.)
Well, I’ll keep up the good fight as long as I can. It does get frustrating and dispiriting at times, though.