I am sure a lot of Brockers will remember how horrifying it was to listen to this video referred to in this post. I remember thinking it couldn’t possibly be real and assumed at first, that it was a spoof. It was really that bad.
FATCA Citizenship Taxation https://t.co/ZLnXRhBwHs – excellent discussion by one of those #Americansabroad
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) March 9, 2015
The above tweet links to a video made by a young man studying in Germany who apparently has heard the Turks and this is his response. He obviously has a much better grip on the facts. Interesting to see a young person’s reaction to this dilemma. Worth a listen.
A quick search unearths a number of anti-FATCA videos (and some compliance condor scare videos as well). I really like this one, which is satirical, yet dead-on accurate (and only 4 minutes):
http://youtu.be/Y-EVF7CZt_w
This young man’s YouTube video on FATCA was right on – it should be shown to every member of Congress and “Mr.” Obama. The kid gets it – why can’t the US government?!
I believe the US Supreme Court upcoming ruling on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will act as a bellwether for Obama administration overreach.
If the Court rules against Obamacare, FATCA will be the next Obama law in its crosshairs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww9WYdMfU_8
www dot youtube.com/watch?v=ww9WYdMfU_8
A google search reveals another from the same guy.
This guy is cool. Knows his shit.
I couldn’t get very far in the video he references. I was done with that as soon as that pompous buffoon alleged that tax evaders are costing the US 300 billion dollars. (The Federal Reserve and Wall Street are costing the country at least that much, of course, but no one is coming after them.)
This young man was the opposite of that idiot. He was humble and honest. He spoke from personal experience about the hardship of getting a bank account. He made it clear what Americans expect from the history of America and what was in the Declaration of Independence, and how FATCA against it. He also explained how the US didn’t tell Americans abroad who hadn’t lived in the country that they were supposed to report to the IRS, and then the IRS lied to them when they finally did report. This video should be in the arsenal of all politicians like Paul Rand and other people who are fighting FATCA!
This smart young man has a better handle on the issue than most of our idiot Canadian Conservative politicians!
Congratulations to this articulate young man! If someone his age can understand the fundamental injustices of CBT and FATCA this well it perplexes me even more that government officials in the US and elsewhere cannot seem to grasp that the two policies are insupportable under any known code of human morality.
As for the “Turk” video: the first few seconds revealed it would not be worth three minutes of my precious time.
Let Cenk Uygur and his Young Turk followers pay CBT back to where Cenk was born — Turkey.
Let him taste some of his own bullshit for a while and watch how quickly he changes his tune.
This young man is an inspiration. I’m going from “renouncing US citizenship” to “making a Declaration of Independence”, as the US forefathers did.
This video is a whole lot better than the very long e-mail I sent Cenk Uygur in January 2014. I really wish I’d found this video last summer. Anyway I never got a reply to my e-mail but I sure hope this very bright young man got a reply. I notice he even posted a link to Brock. So thank you, Brendon Kent. You did very well indeed and I hope you do more videos! I don’t have a google account so I can’t give it a thumbs up but I’ll watch it a couple more times to increase the views a bit.
Are you a Jew? Do you do any business or share any financial activities or account(s) with Jews? Are you married to, or otherwise directly related to, a Jew? Have any Jews invested in your business? Do you have any bank accounts in Israel?. Do you have any financial investment(s) in Israel or Israeli banks?
Dear Isaac Brock readers and fellow U.S. Persons living outside of the US; please forgive my above introduction if you found it offensive, because it actually is. It is equally offensive if you substitute the term “Jew” with “American”, and that is exactly, according to Swiss friend, what Swiss banks are doing at present…
Today I was having a beer with a very good friend who like me emigrated to Switzerland some years ago. He has since, unlike myself, become a naturalized Swiss citizen. He’s originally from Kosovar and a lovely man who works hard, obeys the law(s) and loves this country very much. He’s put together his own landscaping business and works his ass off and employs two people, but I digress.
Seeing how he’s fifty and has two kids he told me that he went to open a proper retirement/pension/investment account at his bank. He initially called them up. They sent him the usual promotion pamphlets etc. He checked around with the competition and went were he went. It was down to the sign here wire, so to speak, but then the Swiss bank FATCA purity test suddenly raised its’ imperative, sinister head…
This is not bullshit. This is what the bank retirement account employee asked my friend. This is what he told me this afternoon…
“Are you American? Do you do any business or share any financial activities or account(s) with Americans? Are you married to, or otherwise directly related to, an American? Have any Americans invested in or have any shares in your business? Do you have any bank accounts in America? Do you have any financial investment(s) in America or American banks?”
And here I was thinking that this sort of horrific discrimination by government policy issue was settled in blood in 1945…silly me.
It’s my hope, ExpatEric, that many non-US persons like your friend will react with hostility to that kind of line of questioning on the principle that it might lead to themselves one day being discriminated against. A friend of a friend here in Canada (a non-USP) did just that – the bank asked her is she was American and she responded with “Are you going to ask me if I’m Jewish next?”
Most everyone’s familiar with the poem, “First they came for the Socialists…”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…
For what it’s worth…I submitted this to CNN….
“The U.S. is the only country that taxes individuals it self defines as ‘US Persons’ on a worldwide basis, for life, and regardless of whether or not the person has even lived in the USA for many years (or at all). The US practice of Citizenship Based Taxation started in the Civil War, and the Obama Administration is waging nothing less than a Jihad on US expats (some being ‘accidental Americans’ who were born in the US, or to one US citizen parent) to collect on-going taxes with no other connection to the USA. The US policy is destroying US expat international families, denying them banking services and putting them at risk for horrendous fines and penalties. CNN should interview some of these people and hear their stories, interview the Issac Brock Society in Canada, speak to American Citizens Abroad (‘ACA”) in Switzerland, and then ask hard questions to the US Treasury Secretary as to why the US insists on CBT when Residence Based Taxation is the world standard for taxing overseas citizens. I would urge CNN to do the research, reach out to ACA and Isaac Brock, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYEIGRezIiI for example and verify for itself the damage being done and the positive discrimination (based for example on place of birth discrimination) promulgated by the US CBT policy. “
@ Steve
It’s worth a lot actually … a very compact comment. I confess I’m lost though and don’t know which CNN piece you are referring to or did you e-mail this to them. Do you have a link?
@Embee – I submitted a comment submission to them via the CNN website. I hope someone actually reads and considers it. Perhaps others can follow suit.
Amazingly articulate. Well worth watching – and it will be interesting to see what comes next.
Doesn’t the US want bright articulate young people going abroad, and then bringing that knowledge and experience back to the US – or building bridges to other countries and communities? Instead, the US with FATCA and CBT and FBAR makes them criminal suspects BEFORE the fact, right from the get go – just for needing and having an ordinary bank account which is local to them.
How very very short sighted. The US is shooting itself in the foot.
@Badger – I wish I could say that the US has any brains or logic. I don’t think that the powers that be think any further than wanting to (i) collect as much tax as they can from expats and (ii) ensuring that US citizens overseas do not pay less than their ‘fair share’. Beyond that, they are as feeling and emotionless as the Borg in Star Trek.
This is not the USA I remember/grew up in…..not sure where to post this but here it is….
http://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/irs-actively-seeking-us-tax-dodgers-abroad/
@Steve — thanks for the link.
Seems to me quite alarmist. And some other adjectives. I particularly like
“Ask yourself: Are you nervous about having no protection from criminal indictment, or about having to pay the civil fraud penalty or draconian FBAR penalties? If not, Streamlined is OK.”
The usual stupid assumption that the innocent is serene and the guilty is nervous. Bull. It’s pretty obvious that a lot of innocents are afraid of disproportionate penalties and the complexity of it all, while many real fraudsters are just laughing their way to the bank, and wouldn’t raise their heartbeat even when targeted by the IRS.
Walt, unfortunately, Turkey is much smarter than that. I believe they have RBT? It’s Cenk who’s the idiot. He’s been living in the Land of the “handout” and home of the “entitled” for far too long.
@Steve @Fred
Look at Marini’s claim that FATCA has taken in $6.5B so far. How’s that possible? He’s referring to the OVD programs.
@Bubblebustin:
I’d be curious to know what proportion of the tax&penalties they recover come from US residents vs. US persons living abroad.
Let’s take Marini’s $100bn/year in taxes recovered thanks to FATCA.
And assume half comes from US persons living abroad. Say 5 million people.
Thats $50bn/5 m, or $50000 taxes owed per year per US person abroad. Of course many owe nothing.
I have no idea if this is realistic or not. It’s way out of my ballpark, that’s for sure. Perhaps the top 0.1% of the population abroad … And something tells me these people are savvy enough that they won’t be paying this very long.
@Steve, Re:
http://www.taxconnections.com/taxblog/irs-actively-seeking-us-tax-dodgers-abroad/
This ranks as one of the stupidest pieces of advertising I have yet seen. The guy is actually comical. Here are some great excerpts:
First:
Yup, all those Canadian citizens using Canadian Controlled Private Corporation are nothing but a bunch of criminals.
Second:
Right, after going to the trouble to become tax compliant for 5 years to NOT be a covered expatriate, paying thousands to do so.
The author of this article is either incredibly stupid or incredibly ignorant or maybe both.
On the other hand, his view does represent a certain view in the homeland, doesn’t it. Think of all those illicit offshore accounts in Canada. Just think of the penalty base.
This is obviously a lawyer who doesn’t have enough work.
@USCitizenAbroad
While the entire article is essentially a campaign of fear designed to drum up business, this statement is especially nonsensical: “The IRS said a record number of Americans have given up citizenship recently… EVERY ONE of those citizens will be thoroughly investigated with a view to seeing if they are trying to evade taxes”.
According to recent Federal Registers, the number of Americans who choose to expatriate in 2014 was a record 3,415, up from 2,999 in 2013 (which was also a record). (Time Magazine)
So that is more than 6000 people in only the two most recent years. Keep in mind this list is widely considered to be deficient, and also does not include US citizens who relinquished in the distant past due to a specific action (such a becoming a citizen of another country) and then applied for CLNs to confirm relinquishment later.
So simply looking back at 2013-14, we have thousands of people, who are citizens and residents of foreign countries (you cannot renounce US citizenship except from abroad and must have another citizenship). Many have lived abroad for decades, and have no US economic nexus at all; no US assets, real estate, or earnings.
What is the plan to investigate “every one of them” when these individuals live and work in foreign jurisdictions?
By comparison, more than 11 million illegal immigrants live and work in the US (Pew Institute) – that’s as if everyone in the Canadian Province of Ontario illegally moved to the US and set up residence. And yet, within its own borders, the US seems unable to do much about this. Yet they plan to “investigate” thousands of people who live and work legally in their own countries of residence abroad, where they are also full citizens?
The Emperor is clearly stark naked…
In stating “Also, if one has given up citizenship and spends more than 30 days in the United States in a calendar year, he may be taxed as if he were a citizen.“, Ronald Marini is flat out wrong.
This is the old section 877 treatment. HEART and the exit tax of 877A completely swept this away, so that renunciants now have the precise same US tax residency rules as any other non-resident alien.
(In fact, Marini was even wrong with this statement under old rules, which allowed 30 days ordinarily and a further 30 days, for a total of 60, for individuals “working in the US for an unrelated employer”. Of course, by the point that he states “IRS wants to help” he’s clearly just making stuff up!)