Spread far and wide.
“We the people”: Your voice in the US government: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/tax-us-citizens-residency-and-not-citizenship-remove-fatca-requirements-we-already-pay-taxes-abroad/dwZ1c5wL
You can also comment at this CNBC International YouTube link — click on “YouTube” in the lower right-hand corner of this video …
Related for answers to this: WSJ Expat: When American Expats Don’t Want Their Kids to Have U.S. Citizenship
JC can you email me
Great Aussie Yanks here how do we get each others contact details ?
Jak Dac,
I can send your contact information to another person, assuming they have commented with a *real email address*. As an administrator here, I do have access to that, and your information will go no further than what you give permission for.
Please do so on commentators on your
February 15, 2015
Re: Impact of US citizenship based taxation on US person living in Australia
AND any other AU/US people you are aware of in Australia
Please include yours
Jak Dac,
I’ve started by sending JC an email with your address, saying that you would like him to contact you. Hope that works.
As nice as it is to see this subject getting attention in the mainstream media, I’m disappointed by this report. An average uninformed American viewer (or congressperson) will come away with the impression that US citizens are renouncing to avoid taxes, period. Only for 5 seconds (from 3:27-3:33) is the complexity of form compliance mentioned. No mention of the $2000 annually many people pay to tax advisors to fill out forms, the draconian punishments, even for those deemed innocent, for neglecting to fill a line on an FBAR that has no impact on actual tax, the sleepless nights many experience, starting in mid-January each year, continuing through June 15. All this report seems to say is: Americans abroad are double-taxed, so they’re renouncing.
A beginning perhaps, but not a report that will sway anyone to sympathize with US citizens abroad.
People are starting to pay attention.
Congress is “deaf and dumb” on this matter. Not giving up the fight, but angry as hell and I want to make damned sure that the USA drops dead as a functioning country.
The way the man says he had to pay 2350 to dump his unwanted citizenship says it all. The USA is now all about money. People around the world are beginning to hate the USA for what it NOW stands for. The USA has put it too many nails in their coffin to rise from this unless they apologize to the world and allow anyone born in the USA to live a normal life abroad. Congress needs to address this huge mistake NOW!
@calgary411
I noticed that comment as well on the wsj. It felt good to know that not all those people we’ve come in contact with at the consulates agree with what is happening and have sympathy for Americans living outside the US.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the accomplished Jonathan Tepper, he caused a bit of a flap with his article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/why-im-giving-up-my-american-citizenship-passport.html
@foo, This book explains in detail the experience of the Philippines with CBT. It was written in 1989, when the country still used CBT, but I suppose that the many theoretical and practical problems explained by the book were the reasons why the country eventually abolished it in 1997. It also briefly mentions Mexico, and suggests that similar problems were the reasons why it abolished CBT in 1980.
The other four countries were dictatorships and abolished CBT when transitioning to democracy or a more open regime. I suppose Eritrea will also end CBT if it becomes less oppressive.
Check out Phil Hodgen’s blog – even if you do comply to file those bloody intrusive IRS forms, they won’t let you send it by Fed Ex or UPS. The IRS only accepts US Postal Service at the Philadelphia centre they list. Therefore anyone outside the US loses the right for all forms to be considered ‘delivered’ by virtue of the postmarked date. Foreign postal services don’t count.
https://hodgen.com/you-cant-file-form-8854-via-fedex-or-ups/
The US, FATCA and the whole situation just becomes more and more of a joke.
What is the IRS going to do when they find the overseas compliance rate continues to be less than 10% – start writing scary letters?
You can’t make this stuff up. It’s too bizarre!
Correcting the link in my previous post:
https://books.google.com/books?id=RXCGTdlGE5kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
@calgary411
Could you send my email to Jak Dac as well…I’m not all that well hidden anyway. Thanks
Just on last night and #s are going UP
Tax US citizens by residency and not citizenship. Remove the FATCA requirements. We already pay taxes abroad.
The US taxes individuals based on citizenship and not residency. If you live and work abroad, pay taxes to your residential country for use of the public services (education, healthcare, benefits, etc), you are still required to file US tax returns and pay taxes to the US government. As a result, US citizens living abroad have to pay high fees for an accountant to deal with the complex forms and conversions. When you are making £18k a year (before tax), paying a large amount to prove to the US government you don’t make enough to be taxed is very detrimental. Also, FACTA requires you to report all of your foreign accounts, including the details of anyone who is a joint account holder, regardless of citizenship. This isn’t the only tax challenge US citizens abroad face but a first step.
Published Date: Feb 10, 2015
Issues: Budget and Taxes
Learn about Petition Thresholds
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY MARCH 12, 2015 TO REACH GOAL OF 100,00098,546TOTAL SIGNATURES ON THIS PETITION1,454
@ Jak Dac
I can guarantee the signatures will not even come close to the target. There have been previous WhiteHouse petitions on this. The good thing though is that I note a lot of signers are homelanders. Perhaps they are just beginning to get it. Hope so. However I did sign this a couple of days ago and if anyone else would like to here’s the link.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/tax-us-citizens-residency-and-not-citizenship-remove-fatca-requirements-we-already-pay-taxes-abroad/dwZ1c5wL
Any US citizens in Aussie here get in touch
Signed the petition, and clicked the email link to verify, yet the number on the petition hasn’t changed, nor do my initials show up on the list of latest signers. Sure this is working?
@ Barbara
It takes awhile. I checked the day after I signed and it looked like my initials were there … hard to tell though because there could be someone else with the same initials.
It takes a half hour to an hour for the thing to be updated. After that time, the initials come up, together with the city of the zip code used.
@foo
Some dumped CBT as part of joining up to international bodies, such as the EU or the WTO, and putting their countries in line with international standards. Burma took a fairly high percentage from its overseas citizens and lacked treaties against double taxation, so its citizens were preferring to sneak abroad without passports which caused all sorts of problems with neighbouring countries. In the case of Vietnam, improving relations with the Vietnamese diaspora was a consideration.
In general, the countries that had CBT did not tax their citizens at home on their full range of world-wide income. Either there were some classes of domestic income they didn’t tax or they didn’t require residents to report foreign holdings. A difficulty in the U.S. case is that the U.S. already has both global CBT and global RBT, so the tax base can’t be extended that easily.
1,513 signed petition GOING UP
Send yourself emails and check progress (unless a genius sets up a monitoring chart)
Keep spreading to every site that deals with the ex pat tax issue. The more it gets out there the (much) better chance