@CBCAllInADay interviews law Professor Michael Kirsch about his reasons for supporting taxation of #Americansabroad http://t.co/FcVL4QJIXa
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 16, 2014
Notre Dame law professor Michael Kirsch defended citizenship-based taxation at the May 2, 2014 ACA Conference on citizenship-based taxation.
Here is a very recent interview with him. Listen carefully to his rationale.
CBT problems are in the enforcement of it, and the fact that with tax credits Americans end up paying nothing in taxes anyway is justification for the US to continue taxing its citizens abroad? Jeeeesh!
I am sorry but Michael Kirsch just did not come across as informed of what Americans like Gwen are experiencing In fact he sounded very robotic.
Kirsh keeps talking about helping people come into compliance. What about that vast majority of us who have zero desire to be compliant, even if we would be happy to immediately forfeit all of these great so called “benefits” of being a USC. What a heap of BS this guy spews, however, at least this gives us a glimpse of what we’re up against. Grow up America!!!
Listening to him at the ACA conference, he sounded like a kid with no real rationale, continuing to insist that it should be this way because “it’s just so GREAT to be American…people should pay for the privilege”. He came across as naive and whiney to me. And I agree…compliance? Obviously, in his world, everyone wants to come into compliance because it’s just the GREATEST country in the world!
Kirsch’s rationale was thin and subjectively argued when he presented it at the debate, and it has not gained anything in the retelling.
Basing and justifying a practice via some kind of historical timeline does not justify its continued existence and application in the present and future. The US hasn’t even existed as a nation for long in comparison to other societies. And not only does the rest of the entire globe not practice citizenship based taxation, (except the ‘failed’ state of Eritrea), but the weight of the total population, nations, and years of practice of taxation based on residency is entirely and overwhelmingly against any possible usefulness as a logical rationalization of the practice.
“Because we’ve ‘always’ done it that way”, is a pretty flimsy and inane argument for justifying the burden the US is forcing on people entirely outside its national boundaries and the limits of its jurisdiction. Taxing people based on their parentage or their geographical location at birth is a laughable basis for an academic to defend.
If this is what passes for law professorship in the US (at Notre Dame even, who does Kirsch think he is, Ronald Reagan giving his all for “the Gipper?”), the US and most homelander Americans are even more f****d than I’ve long known and believed.
Pathetic but not even slightly surprising to me. I grew up in a town where my Grade Eleven Social Studies teacher in high school was preaching to my class that Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist fellow traveller (sic!!! I couldn’t possibly make that up). The US is full of some very deranged, one might even say demented, folks when it comes to politics, law and many other matters.
Kirsch sounds like someone who is brainwashed, talking and spouting words he is told to say.
Shubert1975,
I agree with you, but I grew up in the USA . My high school US History teacher said empires implode from corruption after 200-250 years. I never heard Eisenhower spoken about like that. Sounds like the South or Midwest. I grew up on the NE coast. In the present I can say my own US family are crazy talking like your SOcial Studies teacher.
Kirsch is just not mature enough to admit that there is no “moral” basis for America to keep taxing citizens (subjects) who live abroad for benefits that they just plain don’t receive.
When Kirsch speaks of entering the US freely, so does every visitor who arrives carrying a visa free passport.
When Kirsch speaks of the right to work in the US, well they can pay taxes on the money they earn when working in the US. While on the subject of employment, I would be interested to hear Kirsch’s view on Americans abroad being ineligible to collect unemployment, medicare, medicaid, food stamps etc while living outside the US?
Regarding so-called protection, we all know that “Marines will come rescue you” is bullshit because the State Department will not intervene on behalf of US citizens who get into trouble. Moreover, any evacuation assistance from the State Department or Military must be fully paid by the citizen (subject).
When comparing the increasingly weak and even “mythical benefits” that US subjects living abroad supposedly enjoy to the potentially lethal liabilities imposed upon them (CBT, FBAR, FATCA, Double T, Exit T, Reed, Discrimination, Double Filing with Extra Forms and Penalties etc, etc) the Scale of Justice flies right out of the hands of the blind lady trying to hold it up.
If Kirsch is a professor of law, his bullshit arguments provide clear proof that when it comes to CBT, the law and justice have diverged so far apart that it is no longer possible to reconnect them, because Kirsch is certainly not able to do it.
the time has come for Cook vs. Tat to be overturned (body slammed) and tossed into the graveyard along side Jim Crow.
Michael Kirsch will be part of the video that we are waiting for — at least I hope all his participation there will be in the video. I have sent a note, asking when that will be – it is important for people who were unable to travel to Toronto to attend the American Citizens Abroad Global Foundation: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/08/15/the-irs-agents-in-our-midst/comment-page-1/#comment-2622919. The video will also be, I predict, a good reference for some of the educating that needs to be done to the Canadian population in general and our MPs, Senators, etc. about what US citizenship-based taxation combined with the US FATCA IGA signed by and implemented in stealth by the Conservative government in Omnibus Bill C-31 means for *US Persons* in Canada — even though some may have believed they were no longer US citizens from decades ago, even though some are entrapped into US citizenship through no fault of their own — being born to Canadian parents in the US but who returned to Canada with their parents when they were infants or children OR those like my son, born in Canada to US parent(s) but who were never registered a US births abroad, never lived in the US, never had a SSN, never had any benefit from the US.
Mr. Kirsch talks about there could be better options for *US Persons in Canada* to come back into the system. How about those who DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK INTO THE US SYSTEM, be given a REAL amnesty — let your people go — the ones who do not want to heed the government of the US’s advice to “come home”? We are home. So, just make it happen. A M N E S T Y — look up the real meaning of the word.
Did Michael Kirsch really say VOLUNTARY IDENTIFYING IN SOME WAY? VOLUNTARY??????
For those that work in Canada and wish to return to the US one day to live, that is another story. They are here for a good time, not a long time — they don’t have a commitment to be part of Canada. My family does and did from the start of our lives here and so do many other families. If Michael Kirsch wants something that will work for such people who do not want to return to the US nor claim any so-called benefit from the US, the US can make it happen. If the US will NOT do that, it is just a punitive bunch of hot air from a bunch of too-long-in-Congress geezers, lost in their exceptionality.
Can our fellow Canadians — and the MPs and this government — really swallow the BS reasoning that Michael Kirsch gives for retaining US citizenship-based taxation and the enslavement of *US Persons Abroad* wherever they may have chosen to make their lives? Really?
PS: I sent my email based on this information on their website:
northernstar,
Kirsch was brainwashed and so were you and I and everyone else to some degree who got their education in the USA. Some of us abroad though have been reprogrammed — what do you call that process?
Rehab.
LOL — and litigation.
When Michael Kirsch spoke at the ACA Global Foundation meeting in Toronto that Calgary411 mentioned above, I asked him how the U.S. could justify extracting money from the Canadian economy by taxing its citizens who live and work here. He didn’t provide a satisfactory answer to that.
I don’t understand why the Canadian government puts up with that kind of revenue poaching from outside the country, which is what CBT amounts to.
He is reaching at straws—somehow he has taken up the flag to fight for CBT. He has a cause to defend, which includes the “society” and “progressive” themes. Those are the themes that drive him and he has decided that CBT is one theme that will advance that.
“society” and “progressive” words stood out in his emphasis.
His strongest argument of all is that the battleship is going to come and pick you up when you are in a troubled country.
To play Devil’s advocate, here are some arguments in favor of CBT:
1. When you go on a long vacation, you may pay someone to feed your pets, water your plants etc. while you are away. Similarly, when you leave the USA, you should pay to make sure it’s still in good shape when you get back.
2. The USA may have paid to educate you and provide you with opportunities to enrich yourself. If you leave, you still have a debt to repay.
3. Some people will claim residence in a tax haven but spend most of their time in the US and other countries where people actually want to live. CBT frustrates these freeloaders.
4. The US military maintains a Pax Americana that you benefit from even though you do not live in the USA. You should pay for this.
Fire away!
OMG – that was just so pathetic. If he is the one to defend CBT- then his interview should be sent to the UN along with the human rights quest to end CBT! His arguments are so LAME. How can the world of lawyers adhere to something that just doesn’t make any sense? His arguments don’t make any sense whatsoever. He even ignores the very person who explained her situation at the beginning. Absolutely empty-his arguments don’t hold any water.
@All
This was a very significant interview. Professor Kirsch’s argument(s) for citizenship-based taxation are two-fold:
1. Citizens are a member of he political community.
2. Those who are members of the political community should be taxed based on an “ability to pay”.
(Of course the real issues are: who should be a citizen, what does participation in the political community mean and can a tax code that punishes anything foreign really be an expression of “ability to pay”?)
He specifically dismisses both the “historical arguments” and the “benefits” arguments. He is simply saying that YOU are ONE OF US and as one of US you should contribute if you have the ability to. Furthermore, the Internal Revenue Code is the tool to determine whether you have the ability to contribute.
@Polly
Professor Kirsch himself was NOT pathetic. In fact he was brilliant. He did a fantastic job defending the indefensible. It’s the notion of CBT that’s pathetic NOT Professor Kirsch.
In fact, on behalf of all Americans abroad, I would like to thank him for demonstrating how indefensible citizenship-based taxation really is.
At uscitizenabroad
As I have said many times this is not a tax issue its a citizenship issue
Professor kirsch would likely agree the rich need to be taxed more but not define rich. Then you find the rich means John and Jane average
I will agree for argument that Usa citizens abroad should be taxed
But having agreed to that we have to define us citizen
Abroad weither the professorr likes it or not means things are defined under international law
Under the master nationality rule most brockers are and can only be Canadian you can only have one acting citizenship at a time
The us could require you to show compliance to get a passport or to enter their country but then so could Canada or Brazil in retaliation
The problem is that with catcalls they have crossed the line and are defining who is a Canadian in canada
@Johnson, your phrase “when you get back” assumes that US citizens abroad intend to “get back”. Many do not ever intend to do so. Otherwise, most of your arguments could apply to other countries, too, and could be taken as arguments that all countries should practice CBT. The reality, however, is that all except Eritrea practice RBT. So the US should join international practice and convert to RBT. Otherwise, as I said earlier, it is practicing revenue poaching on other tax jurisdictions — as if New York taxed the income and capital gains of people who were born and educated there even after they moved to California.
As for your inclusion of “Pax Americana” as an argument for CBT, many of us see the US military as supporting US economic imperialism, not peace, and do not want to pay to support that.
“When you get back?”
What of those who have never lived there in the first place?
How would the US feel if other countries started taxing US citizens in the US on the basis of “clinging nationality” based on the place of birth of parents or grandparents?”
@AnonAnon, “So the US should join international practice and convert to RBT. ”
Until that time comes, all other nations should adopt “Retaliatory CBT” and treat their own nationals who find themselves in the US the same way as vice versa.
I have started that discussion with my MP as a means to get added revenue back “home.”
Tax rates are lower in the US compared to most of the EU. Ergo, EU citizens in the USA need to pay that difference in tax back to their respective EU State.
Goose…..Gander………oven……
@Fred, “How would the US feel if other countries started taxing US citizens in the US on the basis of “clinging nationality” based on the place of birth of parents or grandparents?””
Other countries need to do just that.
It would greatly help countries like Greece and Ireland.
Some Brocker said the fastest way to bring down an unjust law is absolute enforcement. I think retaliatory motions will help too.
@George or Mexico. That’s convert the dems to RBT in a heartbeat.
Being a ND grad myself I am absolutely embarrassed that this intelligent but warped-minded professor
is associated with ND. Prof. Kirsch – you made no strong case for justifying CBT. You did very well
in executing lawyer double talk. That is, saying words with no substance.
But your support for CBT is a true disgrace. To pay into a society when one receives none to limited
benefit from it is morally wrong. “Association with society” is safe to say not unique to the USA.
Every country can say this. Then WHY is the US ALONE on CBT ?!?!
Overseas Americans pay taxes to the society where they live and receive services. Foreign citizens in the USA pay taxes to the USA for those services where they live. WTF?!?!?
Do you mean to say Americans should not pay taxes to the foreign country where the live/work??
Boy I wish that was true. Get with the program professor. CBT is morally, ethically WRONG.
If your basing your conlusions on “its always been that way” , then why don’t we bring back
slavery and segregation. Those at one time were in the category of “always been that way”.
Your mind is obviously warped and you sound like a pathetic horn for the Treasury.
You rationale is a disgrace and you need to do some soul searching.