Today’s taxation torah from Phil Hodgen goes over the top for scrupulous nitpicking. I could care less about green card from a personal standpoint. But it is so much fun to watch a monster truck roil around in the bureaucratic muck.
http://hodgen.com/tax-residency-starting-termination-dates-for-green-card-holders/
These concluding words deserve quotation. Not from a crass compliancer. (Hodgen shared these thousands of words for free.) From a “cleaner” — think Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction — who don’t want no blowback.
I like to do stuff today that prevents future messes tomorrow.
I am an enthusiast for excessive overkill when it comes to solving problems. (See my point about preventing future messes).
…
To my mind, this has the highest possibility of solving the problem permanently, at the cost of an extra few hours of work right now.
Reasonable minds may differ. Your good judgment, fortunately, is not encumbered by my opinions.
I dont get it. People all over the world are groaning at having to pay US taxes because they hold a green card- even if they have not lived in America for decades and make their money elsewhere.
@Polly. If that’s the case, those people should shift out of groaning mode and get into simply ignoring mode because there is not a damn thing the US (IRS) can do to them. They don’t have to worry about being FATCA-ed because they don’t have a US birthplace, they have a non-US passport, and they live outside the US. The only way a problem might arise is if they foolishly continue to own US assets.
I appreciated Phil Hodgen’s comment:
I just hope that the consular official in Bern felt a twinge of guilt while watching her cry. That civil servant was personally enabling a broken system.
I am past the point of giving such people a hall pass: “everybody’s gotta work, hey I’m just doing my job, I do what I’m told, I’m powerless.” Nope. You’re helping to make things worse. At some point you must take responsibility for your actions.
+++++++++
I also am well past that point too Phil, if I ever was there.
Personally, if I were to go through that experience there would be no tears but the biggest grin on my face and I would skip and hop my way to the exit. I realize it is much harder for others who have had a closer connection and/or have relatives there etc. We have read reports of how traumatic it is.
But it is moot anyway, as @ George gets. I was free as soon as I moved back home to Canada at age five. If my father were alive today, he would also say he renounced my birth place for me on that day.Laws which change and are applied retroactively would not impress him either.
Years later when I was required to document my conferred from birth Canadian citizenship, I was quizzed by a Canadian official as to why my parents did not register me as landed when we returned. That was decades ago when I was quite young, decades before law school training, and yet my explanation that I didn’t need to be as I was a Canadian satisfied that officer. Sometimes, you have to ‘splain things to government officials. Those were the days when a Canadian was a Canadian was a Canadian . No flip flop from politicians like today.
I didn’t know that giving up a Green Card was as simple as “filing the I-407 form in the US embassy in my home country”. Does that involve paying a big fee like relinquishment of US citizenship does?
This is just another example of the bureaucratic, if not financial dangers to the unwary of “winning” the Green Card lottery or taking out U.S. citizenship. Both should come with a warning, maybe not yet “All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” but something appropriately threatening like: “Warning: Don’t plan to change your mind. Choosing to leave this Paradise is punishable bureaucratically and financially.”
@maz57
They may have left the US but they may still have family there… own their homes, pensions, SS, etc in the US… Chances are… when u headed to the US… u still have bills to pay in another country… which u took care of in the US… I know we did… u put down your US addy… not a big deal… wrong… you gave yourself away… If u get funds from the US… that has also marked u… Innocent events can now mark u as a US person… many people do not realize that u leave a electronic footprint forever…. I tell my kids this all the time… they did a quick google search on themselves… surprise… they found things there they didn’t know about… GC holder is not in any better position then a US citizen… except we have no rights or voice… Here is another thing… who the heck knew u had to formally give it up… We have lived all over the world… we never had to do that… we leave… see u… that was it…