I had a couple of my posts taken down by Keith Redmond at the American Expatriates Facebook Group.
The first made use of Lebron James comment, ‘I’m the best player in the world’.
I wrote, “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the best basketball player of them all?” Keith Redmond, the co-administrator of the Facebook group asked me what relevance it had to the group and I said it is analogous to American exceptionalism, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most exceptional of them all?” It is really about the National Narcissistic Personality Disorder from which Americans suffer as a nation. It leads to the USA unilaterally imposing FATCA on the rest of the world as so beautifully captured in this video, which is still the best explanation of FATCA ever:
The second censored post reported on the State Department’s denunciation of Dominican Republic citing the United Nations human rights provisions. I said the USA was hypocritical because it violates the human rights of its own expats.
Then as Deedee Gierow, the Democrats Abroad co-administrator of the American Expatriates Facebook group, posted that she was sick and tired of all the bashing of the USA and that she, Keith and others were working very hard to lobby Washington (Facebook link). This solicited a discussion in which Redmond and Gierow heroically defended the purpose of the group and that they would henceforth delete any America-bashing content.
The American Expatriates group’s mission is to inform, educate, and provide the most up to date information regarding United States government policies affecting the lives of Americans living overseas. It is extremely important to mitigate the misconceptions about Americans living outside the United States vis-à-vis the public at large
It remains unclear to me how it is possible to have a group which discusses Citizenship Based Taxation and FATCA from an expat’s perspective without being anti-American. This is the conundrum–either the content is irrelevant (e.g., cookie recipes) or it is anti-American–e.g., discussions of the lives that are being ruined by FATCA and CBT. How do you stand by and allow innocent people to be destroyed by a foreign government and say positive things about that government?
There was some back and forth between myself and some of the other active members of the group, in which I learned that I am argumentative and offensive. Really? That really surprised me.
My third censored post was a comment: if we can’t really complain about how the USA is treating us, then we are supposed to be like a battered spouse, who quietly accepts abuse, and so I posted a link to the following page and suggested the situation was comparable to spousal abuse: Intimate Partner Violence Dynamics.
It seemed like Expat Forum deja vu, when I concluded that a censored forum is an oxymoron. So later when I suggested that some people would indeed leave the group because it wasn’t a safe place anymore, Redmond told me to leave. So I suppose my days are numbered.
I guess that is all I can write for now. My knee is bothering me and it is hard to stand up at my desk. In any case, it is good that some people are trying to lobby the US government, but I have no faith that that will change anything. So perhaps my cynicism and pessimism is not welcome in best of all worlds–but certainly not on certain “forums”. Cheers to you all.
I beg to wonder how many people I have vexed, or even pissed off over there by promoting the ADCS lawsuit for a while? Or FATCA Legal Action? I can’t believe they’re actually going to try and lobby the government.
I do wish them luck, but I don’t see how it will work. Glad I am of no part in it, anyway. It smells like a fool’s errand. I really don’t see the legislative process working, as it is the same mechanism of tyranny against the same expats that are trying to survive out in the trenches.
I believe that the only avenue that may possibly work is litigation, and I have believed that for a long time now.
@mjh49783 Obama did have in his budget (did not get passed) relief for accidentals. That is something.
I don’t see it necessarily about Homelander intent to harm. I think it is more about a very strong US centric focus. I like to compare it to the famous Saul Steinberg’s New Yorker map of the world, where new York streets are very prominent, New Jersey gets a sliver, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles don’t get a dot, and China, Japan, and Russia way in the distance. http://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/9548256842 There was a more interesting one about Washington D.C. Instead of China, Japan, and Russia most of the focus was within “the beltway” with Trade Missions, Junkets, and Vacation on the other side of the ocean.
I asked Allison Christians about the damages done to nonUS person family members from their US person family member (all living overseas) subject to CBT FBAR FATCA etc. My position was that the laws violate the sanctity of the family financial security net, in foreign lands, to the detriment of nonUS persons. I suggested that could be a case/class action by harmed nonUS persons against the US government. Allison’s view was that it was up to the courts. So onward legal action!
@JC
I am not an accidental though, so it really does nothing for me. I emigrated of my own volition just over three years ago.
@GreenbackTax Tried to block me on Twitter. I had a go or two at them. One they Tweeted a blog talking about how expats were “smashed” by some legislation. (They want to gain business from Expats, but then delight at their misery?). I got after them on that. Probably the word “boycott” peeved them. Then I called out their recent survey as sales dressed as survey, with I felt some really silly questions on it – not sensitive or appreciative of the situations of US persons overseas. Their survey came out, they put together a nice graphic about it, I tried to Tweet it, and was blocked.
@mjh49783 Relief for accidentals would perhaps represent a crack in the Financial Berlin Wall.
My tweet from 5hrs ago:
5h: The day the USA stops taxing expats who can ill afford to be taxed, is the day I stop ripping the US a new asshole! #FUCKUSA #FATCA
This is one Canadian who is pissed off at Harper, the PC, and their little cronies in politics, Trudeau Jr. and the Liberals. My vote is vascillating between Green and NDP in October.
“I figure TheAnimal and MJ used the F word tonight, so I can too” – WhiteKat
Be my guest…WhiteKat, the more the merrier. 😀
@JC
I’m naturally skeptical, but I won’t say that it wouldn’t. I can see the potential.
What F word is that? Is it…..Fabulous?
(ducks)
@MJ, I’d repeat it, but I don’t want to press my luck (hint it rhymes with luck).
@JC
You wrote: “I don’t see it necessarily about Homelander intent to harm. I think it is more about a very strong US centric focus.”
I disagree, CBT started out as a punishment and remains a punishment to this day.
Oh gosh, here we go again, the old “crack in the dam” theory. Viewed from the other side, its the Obama “undermine the ADSC lawsuit” theory.
I see USCitizenAbroad’s message in the way it was summed up:
It would be good if we could ALL (Brockers, DA, RO, etc etc) could focus on that and not demand consensus where it is not going to happen………
Now this, is what I find amusing, and no F bombs are required.
https://youtu.be/_k8YpQKzl_k
While it would be best that US persons didn’t splinter off, it is most unfortunate that every different expat based group now has its own agenda, and will even go so far as to throw other expats under the bus in pursuit of said agenda.
Being an expat now is simply too dangerous these days. That is why I’m now no longer considering myself as an expat, but as a Canadian. At this point, it is the only shield available to me, and the only cure for my disease of being a US person.
@mjh49783
Donald Trump will proclaim your clip as documentary proof that America has been overrun by illegal aliens.
Woo hoo, there’s so much to hate about america, where do we start? their values, their hypocrises, their pop culture (I can’t even open my email without being blitzkrieged by those loathsome kardashians) but when it comes to their sham of a financial system WE CANADIANS are UNIQUELY qualified and have earned the right to bash bash bash. when billionaires, bankers ceos and wall street crooks lose trillions, they are bailed out. when joe q nobody on the other hand is sold a phony bill of goods or stock or abcp or cds or whatever, (choose your financial instrument) and then it tanks (pumped and dumped or issued fake ratings or other “legitimate/accepted” wall st scams), we are left holding the empty bag and lose our homes/assets etc. but if LTCM (long term capital management and other billionaire hedge funds ) default, they are bailed out by guess whom????? this is AMerican capitalism folks. but why do we as Canadians have a unique right to complain and bash? b/c when america coughs we get the flu. what happened in 2008? the wild west of mortgages, ppl without a pot to pee in, no job, no money, no assets, were given mortgages based on ZERO ability to pay, and those phony ratings by moodys standard and poors etc. caused a financial holocaust that crashed the GLOBAL economy. but who was the most fiscally responsible and prudent all along? CANADA. CANADA CANADA. why does the world bend over and bow to the USA? hasn’t the US demonstrated many times over its lack of fiscal responsibility???? THE ENTIRE G20 lauded Canada for our cautious and steady economic policies, for our strong banking system. yet we suffered the worst. why? b/c the us is our biggest trading partner. the USA.deserved to suffer the most. they caused this fiasco. some folks are still rebuilding. others will never be able to rebuild. some committed suicide but out of all this human and financial carnage it is, the Canadians who are being told they are US tax citizens, who suffer the most. Honest, tax-paying Canadians who, in many cases struggle to make ends meet, are being singled out for finanicial abuse. Americans mock us Canadians constantly, yet when it comes to our precious funds, the US is simply ARBITRARILY CHOOSING TO ALMOST LEGISLATE outright theft. why don’t they go after the billionaires who really ARE hiding $??? b/c it’s easier to pick on the weak, the small, the poor, the oppressed, the joe and joanne q nobodies, the disenfranchised. although I do have faith in Joseph Arvay, this lawsuit is still not the answer. getting rid of CBT is the only answer. It’s all so freaking unfair. make the billionaires pay I say. but the sycophant pimps in washington need their campaign money. it’s all so unfair. the us is coming after anyone to fund their self made financial fiascoes. it’s all arbitrary and ABSURD. SOON THEY WILL COME UP WITH A NEW LAW TAXING ANYONE who wears a red shirt on wednesday and so on and so forth. no one knows what they’re doing. the inmates are running the proverbial asylum indeed. CBT HAS TO GO, that’s all I know.
Donald Trump. Joke and punchline, all in one. 🙂
All the more reason why as Canadians, we need to diversify our trade away from the US.
Just because they’re the convenient assholes next door, doesn’t mean that Canada should be dependent on trade with them.
June 18: today is the one year anniversary of their streamlined program, btw
@IRSNEWSFORCANADA it is not about USA bashing, it is about USA bashing its own citizens and those citizens wanting back the old America which once better represented its founding principles. Your handle makes it sound like you work for the IRS. I bring your attention to the IRS Taxpayer Bill of Right #10 The Rigt to a Fair and Just Tax System. This website is all about how the US Tax system is neither fair nor just for US persons overseas. Then the US Taxpayer advocate saying along the lines of ‘why are we tormenting these people.’ The IRS violates its other Bill of Rights for overseas taxpayers, but I will not get into that here.
@Walt I agree it is about punishment. Yet the punishment is directed at US residents who happen to have an account/investment overseas. Then laws are to punish them without a thought about how the laws may impact US persons living overseas. What is a law directly made with thought of punishing only those who live overseas?
So fun to see hackle-raiser Petros going off to wreak trademark insouciance elsewhere.
I’d like to make some constructive criticism for all sides:
1. Many commenters on this website seem to assume that US residents are patriotic “homelanders” who support CBT. I live in the US and I can tell you that this is not true. The vast majority of Americans don’t even know that CBT exists. When I inform them, I get various responses: some say that the US should not tax foreign income or demand information on foreign assets because it’s none of their business; many sympathize with the problems of Americans abroad (complex paperwork, fear of penalties, financial restrictions); some try to justify CBT with consular services or the right of return, but when I reply that these things are not funded by taxes (or don’t actually cost anything, in the case of the right of return), they concede; only a few invoke patriotism, but as a joke.
2. Many here also seem to believe that “homelanders” see Americans abroad as “tax cheats”. I don’t know where you got this idea. I’ve only seen this as a brief mention by a US politician from the 19th century, and I don’t think anyone else believes that. I’ve certainly never heard anyone say that here. US residents correctly assume that people move abroad for various reasons. Many of them have family or friends who lived or are living abroad.
3. Condemning US patriotism while praising Canada is inconsistent and alienates those who are not from Canada. CBT applies equally to all countries outside the US, and the Canadian government has done the same as the rest of the world regarding FATCA, it’s not a special case. I’ve also seen some commenters focus too much on issues in specific countries such as the various 4-letter Canadian accounts or Australian superannuation. People outside these countries have absolutely no idea what these things are. The problem is CBT in principle, not the details of how it affects specific investments.
4. Some people, like Republicans Overseas, are focusing way too much on FATCA. Blocking or repealing FATCA is very unlikely, and even in that case it would not solve the myriad other problems caused by CBT.
5. Expatriate lobbying groups seem to be ridiculously afraid that the US government will not pay attention to their demands if it looks like they don’t love the US. Seriously? Michael Kirsch cleverly pointed out the inconsistency of identifying yourself as part of US society while requesting to be taxed as someone from outside that society. It would make much more sense if they just stated the truth: they are actually more attached to the countries where they live, but want to keep US citizenship simply for the peace of mind that they could return to the US one day. Maybe the CBT debate should be centered on whether the right of return constitutes membership in the society or merely the eligibility for membership.