(10) Lying to prevent a crime is a virtue.
Commentary: USA citizenship-based taxation is a crime when applied to people living outside the USA jurisdiction. It is theft at multiple levels: (1) It is territorial theft of another country’s tax base. (2) It is theft to tax a person without representation. (3) It is theft to tax a person for the benefit of others. Furthermore, many of the reporting requirements of FATCA and FBAR cause crimes to be committed. The government of Canada, e.g., has committed a crime by sending the bank account information of Canadian residents and ciitzens to the IRS–it is national origin discrimination which is forbidden in the charter of rights, and it is a violation of their right to privacy.
It may be necessary to lie to prevent the IRS and one’s own local government from committing crimes. One may have to lie to a bank about where one was born. One may have to omit details when filling out forms.
While lying to prevent a crime is a virtue, lying to cover up a crime is politics as usual.
Previous Discussion:
Rahab’s renunciation of citizenship–Was she a harlot, liar, traitor and tax cheat or a heroine of faith?
California genocide and the Indian Tax Revolt of 1851
Fair tax, unfair tax: or When is it paying my fair share?
Is it taxation without representation if you can vote? Damn right!
Previous Petros Principles:
(1) What the IRS can’t know unless you tell them can’t hurt you.
(2) Fear makes the IRS more dangerous than it really is.
(3) Haste is the devil.
(4) Those most hurt by the IRS’s persecution of expats have engaged the services of cross-border compliance condors.
(5) Those least hurt have done nothing.
(6) Home is where you live.
(7) An unjust law is no law.
(8) Don’t feed the beast.
(9) Do the minimum in trying to achieve the least bad outcome.
(10) Lying to prevent a crime is a virtue.
(11) Cynical derision of Homelanders is healthy.
About: Petros is the alias of the founding administrator of the Isaac Brock Society. Petros Principles are guidelines that have helped him and others deal with the United States’ world-wide tax invasion.
@UKRose
Yeah- that has been suggested before. 🙂
“Bubblebustin says
August 6, 2016 at 1:04 am
We don’t know if the IRS will pursue non-residents based on the information it receives through FATCA. If past behaviour is any prediction of future, they won’t.”
It remains my belief that until our Canadian Charter case has been completed, the IRS will provide us with no ammunition against them. I believe once the case is over, the demand letters from the IRS to international addresses will flow fast and furious.
@The Mom – “It remains my belief that until our Canadian Charter case has been completed, the IRS will provide us with no ammunition against them. I believe once the case is over, the demand letters from the IRS to international addresses will flow fast and furious.”
What’s the exact information that gets reported? Account balance, and account identifier, no doubt, but what personal information gets reported? Does it include contact information?
Contact information is included. For example, the Australian IGA (Article 2) says that Australian FIs must exchange the following information for US reportable accounts: Name, address, US TIN (SSN) of account holder, account number, name and identifying number of the financial institution, account balance or value, gross income (interest, dividends), gross proceeds from sale or redemption.
The IGAs are all based on the same model, so I assume the Canadian IGA requires similar data to be collected.
Thanks Karen.
So they’ve got enough information to be able to match with other forms bearing the same TIN, and with other FATCA reports bearing the same TIN, and they’ve got an address to write to.
If the person’s been filing, and the balance is high, they have what they need to determine whether to audit. Likewise, if the person has recently entered Streamlined, or recently backfiled a bunch of FBARs, the FATCA report can be added to the file for processing.
But if the person has never filed, or hasn’t filed since leaving Texas thirty years ago, the FATCA report doesn’t give them much to go on in deciding whether it would be cost-effective to pursue the person. If they decide to pursue, presumably they’d write a letter.
If they were to write to me, I’m concerned that the letter might get lost, international post being so unreliable.
@iota – yes, international post is very unreliable ;). And they would have to start with a letter – probably demanding a return and requiring a response at least 2 weeks before the letter arrives.
As long as the income from the account(s) is below the filing threshold (the highest threshold, because they have no idea of filing status if you’re not in the system), then you’re probably not worth bothering with. This will hit retirees the worst – especially if they have avoided “foreign” retirement accounts (which are generally exempt from FATCA). Of course, in the current interest rate environment, you need to have a reasonable amount of money to hit the filing threshold with just interest or dividend income.
@Karen –
” yes, international post is very unreliable ;). And they would have to start with a letter – probably demanding a return and requiring a response at least 2 weeks before the letter arrives.”
LOL… I was only speaking hypothetically. I’m not expecting a letter – I’ve renounced and filed a minimalist nil-tax 8854 stating assets and income at a level which should make it quite clear to them, should they ever look at it, that I’m not worth wasting their time.
I am indeed retired. Not having filed US taxes for fifty years, I wasn’t sure whether my pensions were exempt or not, so I decided they probably were, and once I subtracted them from my gross income I was below the 1040 filing threshold, so that was lucky! 🙂
@iota —
LOL. I’ve renounced too. Received a letter last month demanding interest (small amount) on my streamlined filing. Interest was computed based on paying on 4 July – letter received 22 July. Par for the course with international mail. You’d think they would figure out how long it takes a letter to get to Australia (via the UK, of course) – but maybe I’m expecting too much in the way of common sense. Still have to file the 8854 next year. Can’t wait to be out of this mess.
Via the UK? Why did it go via the UK?! There’s no IRS office here anymore – they took the money and ran, fearing FATCA riots.
No clue why it went via the UK – but that was the postmark. Final destination was Australia. Not really the most efficient route. But then that’s how efficient the IRS is (not)!
That’s enough info on one document to make anyone wanting to steal IDs grin from ear to ear for eternity. AND it will be handled by hundreds of faceless people in scores of institutions in more than one country.
Might as well as well just post everything on twitter.
Karen & Iota
Nothing sinister. The UK has a business arrangement and deals with many bulk postings from all over the place. It must be some cost saving measure.
@Karen
Sometimes when I get mail from the US it takes an awfully long time to get to Australia. I figured the mail comes to Australia via Austria.
My record thus far is three months from US to Japan via air mail.
Having heard directly from the Canadian Revenue Minister herself confirming that the CRA sent my banking info to the IRS, I can tell you exactly what the CRA did and didn’t send to the IRS on these information slips:
Sent:
On reportable accounts,
First name
Middle name
Last name
Address
City
Prov/State
Country code
Postal/zip code
Res. Country code
Account holder TIN
TIN issue country code
Year
Status
Error code
Client account number
Account balance
Dividend amount
Interest amount
Gross proceeds/redemption amount
Other amount
Not sent:
Information on all my reportable bank accounts. Not all banks where I bank sent info to the CRA. One investment firm where I signed a W-9 did, and so did another where I didn’t sign a W-9, but had personal knowledge of my being a USP. I don’t however know how this investment firm where I didn’t sign an W-9 got my TIN, as I never gave it to them. Maybe the CRA? There were no reports from my two other banks where both bank managers know I am a USP (including one who sent me to the CRA to verify whether my banking info had been sent to the CRA under FATCA – in breach of the bank’s requirements under Canada’s IGA):
6. Does my Canadian financial institution have to notify me if information on my accounts is reported to the CRA?
Canadian financial institutions must be open about their policies and procedures for complying with the agreement and must be prepared to make this information available to anyone who asks about them. Although financial institutions do not have to automatically notify their account holders about reporting to the CRA under the agreement, they must, upon request, allow account holders to have access to the personal information that has been reported.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/nhncdrprtng/fq-eng.html
Redacted:
According to the Revenue Minister, the CRA redacted my SIN and specific references for storage in the CRA’s systems before sending the info slips to the IRS.
I should clarify that the bank manager who sent me to the CRA came to know I am a USP after last year’s info slips were sent to the IRS. The other bank manager who knew of my USness knew in 2011, but retired from the bank before last year’s reporting.
That is a hell of a lot more info than the person who stole my indentity had on me.
When the criminal element gets their hands on that it will be quite easy for them to get other information, mother’s maiden name for example, needed to get more financial information on you. All it takes is just one of the however many people who will handle this information to be careless or criminally inclined or just one hack and there will be multiple “yous” out there running up debt that you will be responsible for, or worse.
Same with the CRS, by the way.
That’s also a lot of information the CRA itself has on me, no other Canadian is expected to report.
True.
This is REALLY terrifying stuff.
‘there is a penalty for lying on any form to the USA government. The forms call it “perjury” (a crime well known to the Clintons).’
There is a penalty for NOT lying on a form to the USA government. It’s called being “frivolous” (a civil offence well known to myself).
Even when you know that some of the information on attached forms and schedules are false (for example a US employer falsifying a W-2, or other problems that you can’t solve) you’d better sign the preprinted jurat saying that you know and believe them to be true. If you alter the jurat to tell the truth, you get penalized.
Part of a settlement written by the IRS coerced me to commit perjury on refiled returns for 2002, 2006, and 2008. I had already filed two briefs in US Tax Court stating what the perjuries would be if I signed the preprinted jurat, described them again in a letter accompanying the perjured returns, and described them a third time in a brief to the court. The IRS confirmed that I complied with their requirements, and the court didn’t care. I still got penalized for having told the truth in the first place.
The IRS had also informed me about a year before trial that writing true jurats was a reason why they were penalizing me, I had already refiled returns for 2005 and 2007 committing perjury as required, and the IRS accepted those so they weren’t included in the settlement. I still got penalized for having told the truth in the first place.
US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the IRS rejected my perjured refiled return for 2005. The IRS is now in contempt of court because the IRS still insists it accepted that return. But the IRS doesn’t get punished for it, I do.
By now I have learned that the IRS’s real reason for penalizing me was that I declared US withholding that had been paid from my accounts and embezzled by IRS employees probably including Monica Hernandez. That’s why they didn’t penalize my equally honest declarations in other years. However, when honesty was they only thing they could penalize me for after their other efforts fell flat, that’s what they did — and it’s the law.
Anyway, the forms have to be processable not true. It’s unwise to file a good faith US return.
I wouldn’t say I have a clear conscience. I didn’t like doing what I had to do. I very much regret that I had kept US citizenship when I didn’t have to, that I had waited so long before renouncing.
Sure perjury is well known to the Clintons. Bill was acquitted in an impeachment trial. Hillary isn’t even being charged. Honesty doesn’t meet the needs of the US government; perjury does.
‘There is also 5th Amendment privilege’
That’s one for the history books. It’s a museum piece now.
…
‘the IRS obviously doesn’t like the Fifth Amendment or any of the amendments. And it probably infuriates them when it is invoked properly on a tax return. But it is not frivolous and it is one’s right according to case law, if one provides sufficient information to assess taxes.’
Are you talking about US v. Sullivan, Garner v. US, etc.? The IRS’s Tax Crimes Handbook, dated 2009, mentions them but they’re museum pieces. US Tax Court allowed testimony under seal but no other court did.
By the way the 5th Amendment also used to prohibit executions without due process. The 5th Amendment was “executed” together with Anwar al-Awlaki by the US’s chief “executive”.
“Back when $450 might have been saved through relinquishment instead of renunciation, it was a marvel to watch fantasizers concoct intentions, even when counterfactuals like an old US passport loomed in the past. Woo hoo! I can put US$450 into my pocket? I’ll just remember an intention I never really had. Liars.”
Funny enough, the US Department of State proposed exactly that to me during my first renunciation interview, suggesting they could save me the US$450. I declined and paid the US$450.
So far it’s only been US tax returns where I gave in and committed perjury under coercion.
“As far as I have heard- Eritrea threatens hurt your relatives if you dont pay up.”
But does Eritrea threaten non-Eritrean relatives if non-Eritrean relatives have a reason to remain silent on a particular question while not even owing any taxes to Eritrea?
“The thing is, the penalties can’t be applied just on the whim of the IRS.”
Yes they can.
“One of the main reasons the IRS wouldn’t waste their resources pursuing a UK-resident taxpayer with no US-based assets is because there’s no US-UK collection agreement.”
The IRS wastes their resources pursuing a US non-resident alien who never had any US-based assets and never had any residence or citizenship or business operations or any such tie to the US. The IRS gets to waste our resources at the same time. Our letters likely line the bottom of the IRS’s birdcage, but the IRS continues to harrass both of us.
“It remains my belief that until our Canadian Charter case has been completed, the IRS will provide us with no ammunition against them. I believe once the case is over, the demand letters from the IRS to international addresses will flow fast and furious.”
Nope. Letters from the IRS to international addresses will flow slowly and furious. If a letter requires a reply within 10 days, the IRS will choose a method of delivery that takes more than 10 days. If you’ve reported a change of address to the IRS on Form 8822, the IRS will send their letter to your old address. Or maybe they’ll just scramble it and send the letter to an undeliverable address, with the IRS’s unreadable return address in Great Britain or Germany or somewhere. (Sure the IRS closed their offices in Great Britain and Germany, but they still mail letters from those countries to Japan, just to make sure they’ll take more than 30 days for delivery.)
Norman Diamond – On the subject of the IRS making you complete tax returns with THEIR figures, I recently found someone who has actually been charged with “telling what you believe is the truth” on her taxes; you can search the Internet for “Doreen Hendrickson” if you want to learn more.
I’ve already posted about how many same-sex couples with marriages recognized at the state level, but not to the federal government while DOMA was in effect, felt they were “forced to lie” by being required to file as single.
Perhaps if the IRS insists on behaving the way they do, the jurat should be changed from what I (the filing taxpayer) believe to what we (the IRS) believe is true/correct/complete.