33 thoughts on “Dear Mr. President, Why I’m Leaving America – Writer tried hard to be tax compliant #Americansabroad”

1. How the world has turned. I used to look forward to American tourists coming here every summer as they often do. Our streets fill with them. @animal, I don’t hate all home land Americans, I cannot,I have a ton of family there and they DO understand this issue and ARE very upset by it but, still the inclination to not be friendly anymore with those huge purse carrying, American tourists is there. I can’t help it, resentment of their ignorance is normal under the circumstances. Part of me delights in informing them I used to be one of you but, now am only Canadian. I’ve had one occassion to do so and the look of shock on the persons face was ….satisfying.

   I’m quite sorry I feel this way now but, after three years of put downs, scape goating and painful decisions…I just don’t really care.

   And now we talk about terminology. I was an emigrant to Canada, now a citizen. I do think when people leave the U.S. and land in other countries it would be helpful if the U.S. would have leaving pamphlets telling everyone the foot falls of leaving to live anywhere else. A warning if you will. I agree the whole expat thing when talking to Americans has way too much baggage.

2. Well, then you are a bigger man than I am. But when a member of my extended family calls me a foul name and then tells me that I should pay for his family’s healthcare (Obamacare) then calls me a tax cheat, that I should pay “my fair share”; I have no love for family either. Having come from a family who did nothing but render abuse…I have a very low tolerance for it and I will not be “financially abused” in the name of #FATCA, so my loathing goes towards those who elected Obama who took advantage of this hidden statute and to those homelanders that did nothing about it. That pretty much counts Democrats and Republicans on both sides.

   Only now that the Republicans Party have the spectre of reciprocity hanging over their heads are they actually doing something about it by voicing protest. Until then they were just as complicit in banging the “tax cheat” drum as much as the next Democrat. So yes, my loathing covers ALL American homelanders.

3. I’m sure you already know the situation that my family is in: Atticus, but just so that others can understand the extent of my hatred of the United States. This is why I hate the United States so much:

   My wife and I are low-income which means that my wife will be unable to extricate herself very easily from this mess. I am a Canadian citizen, born and raised here in the land of the Maple Leaf and I absolutely refuse to have my tax information get sent to the United States. I do not believe that the United States has any right to my tax information and will sue the CRA if they send my tax information along with my wife’s down to the IRS. I object to the United States deeming me a US person for tax purposes because my wife is a US citizen and Canadian landed immigrant (who wishes that she were a Canadian citizen only). I object to my children being deemed US citizens ((forced citizenship) when they were born on Canadian soil) just because my wife just happened to fulfill her qualifications to transmit her US citizenship to our children.

   You see, the problem that I have with the United States is not one where the “accidental Americans” in my family were born south of the border. They were born in Canada, yet because of the fact that my wife spent her formative years qualifying her to pass on her US citizenship, residing in the States, my “born-in-Canada” Canadian citizen children now have the clinging stench of US citizenship marked upon them. So where is the justice in that? Why should my kids who were born in Canada have to “renounce” their US citizenship just because their mother transmitted US citizenship to them. And why should my children have to choose. They were born in Canada, they are Canadian Citizens and the fact that PM Harper rolled over and took it up the @$$ from the United States government makes me absolutely furious.

   My mother-in-law has not seen her daughter since she left US soil over 14 years ago. Mainly because we haven’t had the money to visit her down in Shreveport. But thanks to this asinine FATCA, my wife will be exiled from ever touching US soil and thus being unable to see her mother for the rest of her life. But unfortunately that is a choice that she had to make to keep OUR family intact – with FATCA, she could potentially be detained if she sets foot on United States soil due to FBAR fines.

   All I want is for the United States to admit that they are in the wrong, take back their citizenship (with regards to our children), take her renunciation without penalties (as she did not earn enough to pay taxes if she was in the United States); forget the draconian penalties for the failure to file a form that she didn’t even know about (FBAR) and let her damned well go so that she can live in Canada, work in Canada and raise our family in Canada in peace.

   My hate for the United States though will take quite a bit of time to ease up. Probably when I’ve been 15 years compost will be roughly about the time I stop hating the United States. Right now, I wish nothing more than absolute financial destruction upon the United States and the sooner the better.

4. @The_Animal

   You write:

   You see, the problem that I have with the United States is not one where the “accidental Americans” in my family were born south of the border. They were born in Canada , yet because of the fact that my wife spent her formative years qualifying her to pass on her US citizenship, residing in the States, my “born-in-Canada” Canadian citizen children now have the clinging stench of US citizenship marked upon them.

   May I gently suggest that you get a third party opinion on whether your children really are U.S. citizens. As you point out, your children were not born in the U.S. …

5. http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/citizenship-child-born-abroad.html

   A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) of the INA provided the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child’s birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986, a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen, is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen, is required for physical presence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.) The U.S. citizen parent must be the genetic or the gestational parent and the legal parent of the child under local law at the time and place of the child’s birth to transmit U.S. citizenship.

   US Citizen Abroad – I know my wife transmitted US citizenship because she did not leave the United States until after she was 24. She was state-side until then (10 years whereas the minimum to transmit citizenship is 5). My oldest child is 12 years old this year – pretty much a given that the US considers him a citizen.

6. What’s even worse…is that she was born in the United States, had no inkling of leaving the United States until the age of 24. So she has more than fulfilled the requirement of being able to transmit United States citizenship.

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