I’ve noticed that some of the people on Facebook really like Bernie Sanders. But let’s make one thing clear: this senator is a demagogue:
“a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary., Eleventh ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
I have myself given up US citizenship. I know lots of people personally who have given up US citizenship. I do not know a single billionaire. I am not a billionaire. I did not leave the United States to avoid paying taxes. For crying out loud, I live in Canada where taxes are much higher than they are in the United States. This man has vilified me and others like me who have become targets of the Obama administration of exorbitant fines, destroying our rights of due process and presumption of innocence.
We should remember that the colonists felt that it was unfair that Britain tax them and that is why they led a revolution and gained the independence of the colonies, thus creating the United States of America. Bernie Sanders may not realize it, but the current policy of the United States towards expats is ten times the son of the Devil what British taxation policies were against the colonists. Most of us who have relinquished US citizenship are victims not villains.
I really disliked this guy before you tell me he thinks renunciation is somehow evil.
If you believe in high taxes for some people then you have to stop them running away.
I was paying so much in tax the the USG so a few months ago I quit to do my research and bleed out my retirement accounts via Roth conversions. They can’t make me work. It the local version of leaving.
He parroting what pretty much all Americans think about those who leave. That is why I believe there is no hope and ditching US citizenship is the only option. Maybe this perception could be changed with a 500 million dollar nationwide marketing campaign but that’s not going to happen. No, you leave the USA you should be punished, how dare you. As far as hatred levels go in the US it’s probably 1) terrorists 2) atheists 3) expats 4) child molesters 5) tree huggers
Either (1) Sanders has never met a person who has renounced citizenship like myself who is not a billionaire and he is making judgments based upon his own ignorance and stupidity; or (2) he has met some of us and he doesn’t care that he vilifies us to achieve his goals, which means he is a sociopath. Either way, he is a demagogue, as is Obama and most other politicians in the United States.
Check this out from wikipedia:
>Sanders’s brother, Larry Sanders, lives in the United Kingdom.
Experts here can say if the brother must have renounced:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33254500
The US government itself has mandated that the only way to exit the US tax system is to renounce US citizenship. That fact coupled with CBT and FATCA is what’s causing the present wave of renunciations. Get rid of the CBT or come up with a humane way to exit the tax system short of renouncing and the renunciations will stop. Or at least come up with a tax system that doesn’t cause great harm to US citizens living abroad. People just get sick of the US government control and interference in their financial lives when they don’t even live in the US.
The crazy thing about the present state of affairs is that once you have forced people to renounce their citizenship, you have guaranteed they will never pay any US tax again, whereas if there were a way to exit the tax system without renouncing at least some expats eventually would return to the US, resume paying taxes, and probably bring a pile of money back with them. What a brilliant, self destructive system they’ve managed to develop over the years.
So if you don’t like it, Bernie, better get to work changing the system that leaves expats no choice but shedding US citizenship.
P.S. Wouldn’t it be entertaining to see the two blowhards Trump and Sanders running against each other? (I know, I should be careful what I wish for, LOL.)
The quote came from a floor statement Sanders made June 27, 2012 in reference to something he read in “the paper”. We know what a lot of papers write about us.
“So, yes, we’re going to have to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes. I saw a piece in the paper the other day. It was quite incredible. Some billionaires apparently are leaving America, they’re giving up their citizenship, and they’re going abroad. These great lovers of America who made their money in this country, when you ask them to start paying their fair share of taxes, they’re running abroad. We have 19-year-old kids in this country who’ve died in Iraq and Afghanistan defending this country, they went abroad not to escape taxes, they’re working-class kids who died in wars and now some billionaires want to run abroad in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. What patriotism, what love of country. So, Mr. President, yeah, we’ve got to deal with deficit reduction. But you don’t cut Social Security, you don’t cut Medicare, you don’t cut Medicaid, you don’t cut education.”
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-bernard-sanders-floor-statement-june-27-2012
Just posted on his twitter and Facebook care to join
https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders
https://twitter.com/berniesanders?lang=en
We can only hope his brother made him aware of a few things about expats in the last few years.
To run for MP, it would not be necessary for Larry Sanders to renounce. Look at Boris Johnson, he ran and won as a dual citizen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06hhn9b#play
Wind the player ahead to 1hour, 47 mins and they mention the US’ talking reporting BS on everyday UK radio.
Doubt it. He’s a leech and so are his followers. I wouldn’t spit on him if he were on fire.
“Get rid of the CBT or come up with a humane way to exit the tax system short of renouncing and the renunciations will stop.”
No, they’d drop a lot, but not to zero. There might still be some people who would naturalize in countries that require new citizens to renounce previous citizenships, as Japan does except for murderers like Peruvian ex-president Fujimori. There might also be some who have a sense of ethics, such as finding it unbearable to retain citizenship in a country that justifies torturing and droning.
“The crazy thing about the present state of affairs is that once you have forced people to renounce their citizenship, you have guaranteed they will never pay any US tax again”
Actually no. The legal amounts of my US taxes were zero in most years that I was a citizen. The IRS refunded my withholding in years when their embezzlers didn’t steal it. But now the legal amounts of my US taxes are higher than zero and I’m not entitled to refunds. Where the US has Source Based Taxation, that part of it actually conforms with most of the world.
“So, yes, we’re going to have to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes.”
Great. Will the US at the same time accept letting the other 99% pay their fair share, instead of penalizing us to hell and back?
There is an all out brawl on this subject at the American Expatriates Facebook forum.
Pretty sure Bernie as responding to this article he read in the NY Post just a few days before :
http://nypost.com/2012/06/24/us-citizens-leaving-the-country-to-avoid-stiff-tax-bills/
Bernie should read more and from better sources before he shoots his mouth off.
“As many as 8,000 US citizens are projected by immigration officials to renounce in 2012, or about 154 a week, versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week.”
Yup. Maybe 10 of them are America’s rich which the Post and Sanders are offended by. The other 7,990 are America’s middle class and poor which the Post and Sanders don’t mention, but which the IRS and DOJ and courts are offended by.
The same NY Post page has this advertisement at the moment:
“Meet Canada’s Sophie Trudeau, the hottest first lady in the world”
I’ll take their word for it on that. I haven’t seen Sophie’s photo and anyway the NY Post are experts on that kind of thing, right? I bet Michelle Obama will love the Post after this.
“in 2012” … OK, I just double-checked, and my mouse did copy that correctly.
Don’t forget that Sanders is a long-term member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, among whose platforms, stated in black-and-white, is the elimination of the FEIE, with the implication that all deductions for ‘foreign’ income be eliminated, including foreign tax credits.
It’s pointless arguing with Sanders Moonies, even on the Facebook expats forum. Most of my Homelander pals are wild about Bernie, and any time I bring up expat issues, the main reply I receive is: “Tax the cheaters!” You can practically see the pitchforks raised over their heads.
I’ve given up entirely. Renunciation is now in the cards.
The UK should use the US’s “Last In Time” rule to revoke the Treaty of Paris (1783) and reinstate UK taxation of every US person — along with penalties for every US person who hasn’t paid UK taxes the past 5 years.
The meme misquotes Sanders. Still Sanders plays into the stereotype in his Senate comments and thus damages expats forced to renounce. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/26/more_renounce_us_citizenship_but_deny_stereotype/
He also said that companies leaving the US renounce their citizenship to avoid taxes. Curiously, he has himself been accused of being a citizen of Israel and told he must renounce his Israeli citizenship. He has denied he is an Israeli apparently.
If what Barbara says about Sanders wanting to get rid of the foreign tax credit and FEIE, he is among the most despicable of American politcal leaders.
“Companies that have received billions in corporate welfare and have made billions in profits should not be allowed to renounce their U.S. citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes,”
Sanders makes an unfair comparison between expats who must renounce citizenship and corporations. This is the work of demagogue.
Not to be overly concerned, Sanders and his ignorant rhetoric will go the way of Harper.
They can both play cards together reminiscing
on how they both once fooled the populace .
Just really despicable how morons like this can get elected in the first place.
Some quotes from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Bernie Sanders is the sole Senator in the Caucus. Can’t find a reference for ending the foreign tax credits deduction, and in this case they specifically call for retaining it, though I recall having seen it mentioned elsewhere as a “loophole”. The Progressives seem to think that the FEIE, which benefits middle-class expats and is no benefit to “the rich”, is a terrible thing, even though they claim to speak for the middle class. Also note that a territorial tax system “is wrong”.
Bold-face emphasis below is mine.
“Close Exclusion of Foreign-Earned Income Loophole
Closes an exclusion enabling U.S. citizens working abroad to avoid paying any federal U.S. taxes on incomes below $95,100 for individuals and $190,200 for couples. This allows citizens to shelter income and violates the principle that U.S. citizens with similar income should incur similar tax liabilities. This measure closes the exclusion, but retains the tax deductions and credits for taxes paid to a foreign government and housing benefits for U.S. citizens working abroad.”
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/balancing-act/
“Some large corporate interests have marched to Capitol Hill advocating for a tax system that would worsen the tax code’s bias towards foreign profits and investment, and increase the deficit. They claim that the only way for the United States to remain globally competitive is to transition to a territorial tax system, which would levy taxes only on earnings in the country in which they are reported and exempt corporations’ offshore profits from US taxes. Their solution is wrong and ignores some very hard facts.”
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/progressive-principles-for-tax-reform
From the article about Bernie’s brother:
Which means that his brother is in the expat boat…so who knows? Maybe he will find out first hand from his own brother what is happening to US expats around the world.
Bernie Sanders is in La-La Land. He was on the Late Night with Stephen Colbert and talked about how the United States is the richest country in the world, and Colbert did not refute that but my 21-year-old wished he had. In reality, the Federal Gov’t has a debt of over $85 trillion according to John William’s last calculation at ShadowStats; several of its cities are bankrupt and its debt-to-GDP in the 100% range. But there must be a lot of Americans in La-La Land who still THINK that America is the richest country in the world, and that a leader like Sanders will make everyone richer. And that “Americans” who reside abroad should return our “wealth” to the U.S. as if we’re somehow in the same circle as Eduardo Saverin. Dream on.