"I complied with human rights-violating U.S. renunciation rules — and this leaves a bitter taste." https://t.co/H5qRkzhxxq
— Citizenship Lawyer (@ExpatriationLaw) August 24, 2016
Click on the link in the above tweet to see the complete discussion.
The bottom line is that Dr. Stephen Kish – Chair of the Alliance For The Defence of Canadian Sovereignty and plaintiff in the Bopp FATCA Lawsuit, has formally renounced U.S. citizenship. He performed this act in Iceland which is the final resting place of Robert James Fischer – one of the most famous and well known cases of U.S. citizenship relinquishment.
Correction: The Nikon D5 is $8,995.95 CDN… and a beast of a camera…yes, I want one. But my statement of this accountant equating the CLN to a receipt for proof of sale is utter complete BULLSHIT!
I make no apology for calling Phil Hodgen – Phil Hodge or Phil “Dodge” Hodge…that bullshit long-winded piece of crap allegory http://hodgen.com/what-if-the-cln-does-not-come/
That’s assuming that the CLN is a receipt for product received.
The expat has not received any sort of product on a product for cash transaction. So I call BULLSHIT on Phil’s entire article.
While this over edjamacated (not a misspelling) idiot is not alone with these inane analogies, he IS a paid professional dealing with these issues. UNF’in believable.
If anything Animal, your name for him is diplomatic. No apologies needed, he has earned every once of derision he receives.
I think that’s a bit excessive. Hodgen used to try to help. He wasn’t always right, but he tried. He wasn’t like Townsend or US government employees. He deleted comments posted by others who put forth honest efforts, but he still didn’t turn into a Townsend.
Your CLN Is Your Proof of Purchase
Think of it this way. Pretend you go to a store and buy a camera. You hand over the money and the cashier puts the camera in a bag and you walk out. The camera is yours.
Now pretend that you buy the camera, but the cashier puts a receipt in the shopping bag, along with the camera.
Does the receipt make a difference as to whether you, standing on the sidewalk, are the owner of the camera? No. It is merely a proof of purchase, so that if needed in the future (e.g., you want to return the camera and get a refund), you can prove to someone else that you are the owner.
A Certificate of Loss of Nationality is like that receipt. It is an acknowledgment from the U.S. government that you stopped being a U.S. citizen, just like the receipt from the camera store is an acknowledgment that you bought a camera.
Plainly put, getting the Certificate of Loss of Nationality doesn’t make you a noncitizen. Not getting the Certificate of Loss of Nationality does not mean you remain a citizen.
Standing in front of the Consular official and swearing the oath makes you a noncitizen.
However, what the State Department thinks (you are relinquished your nationality) and what the IRS thinks (we’re not sure whether you are an “expatriate” or not) is where we get confusion.
You know, Phil ol’ boy, this is the first time that I’ve ever heard of a “un-servicing” having to be paid for. I guess it’s really true that the United States thinks that US citizens are all slaves. I guess we have to pay for an acknowledgement that the United States decided that they are kind enough to let us go quietly rather than a flaming AGM-65 Maverick up the wazoo. But in this case if you’re comparing the loss of nationality to the purchase of a camera… you are absolutely nuts.
In the first case, all I’m left with is a receipt in my hand and no product other than a kick in the ass and a “see you later, traitor”. Not much for customer service, are they?
In your comparison: let’s see if I go to The Camera Store in Calgary, BC for example and say to Chris or Evelyn, “Hey, I wanna buy a Nikon D5 (y’know. The latest and greatest), I have product in my hand, a brand-new Nikon D5 which I can take to shoot landscapes, hockey (Canada’s greatest sport) and all that. And on top of that, I get a cheery smile from Chris and Evelyn and a “thank you for your business.” I think I prefer that customer service over the US Department of Immigration which hasn’t done shit for me except take my wife’s hard-earned money.
With the CLN, that’s all I get…and nothing else. If I was getting some benefits, Medicare, US infrastructure and education for all that tax-money that we are supposed to pay out to the United States, I’d be more apt to agree with you that the CLN was actually a receipt for “services rendered”. But my wife got her post-secondary education in Canada – Canadian taxpayers helped pay for her education.
But we have to pay the United States for what? Wastrels who spend their time getting knocked up and then exclaiming that “Someone done need to pay for my kids.”? And entitled scumbags that want free money for doing nothing?
You know what; I’d rather not pay them a dime if supporting those in the States who want to do nothing is what my wife’s expat taxes have to do. So fuck your CLN and fuck your people who want others to pay for them.
And fuck your comparison of obtaining a CLN/receipt to a legal transaction of services/product rendered for cash paid. Because a CLN is nothing but highway robbery; essentially a comparison should be made for an acknowledgement of slave-ownership and the $2350 is the emancipation fee.
My apologies… Can someone Calgary’s location to Alberta? 😛
“And fuck your comparison of obtaining a CLN/receipt to a legal transaction of services/product rendered for cash paid. Because a CLN is nothing but highway robbery; essentially a comparison should be made for an acknowledgement of slave-ownership and the $2350 is the emancipation fee.”
And doubly so for those born of USCs outside the States and for the spouses of USCs.
If this is the kind of help we get from our friends, who needs enemies?
This Phil fella really doesn’t have a clue if that is how he sees this.
There is no threat of losing my bank account if I don’t have, or lose my receipt. If I can not afford the camera, I can live life like everyone else without it, not so without a CLN. My children are not required to buy the camera to enjoy life as the rest of their nation’s citizens do but must have a CLN to do so.
A complete failure of logic and understanding.
@The Animal1970
Save your energy and don’t waste it on the likes of a Phil Hodgen et al .How can a southern californian sun -drenched yank have your interest at heart,really..I think his/their interest is only on your wallet .No matter how genteel and honest they may seem.
It is truly sad that so many Canadians are running scared for those sacred CLNs . I always wonder what would happen if the IRS put on a show(extortion fee) and no one showed up,here in Canada at least.
“Save your energy and don’t waste it on the likes of a Phil Hodgen et al “, I agree, Robert,
But unlike most of my “born-in-Canada” friends like me…who would have no connection to this sort of problem unless they married an American (I did and thus was hooked into the FATCA mess – I’m trying to extricate my spouse who still unlike me has no idea of just how vitriolic the land of her birth can be)… who continue unawares of the injustices of the donkey of a nation south of the border against those who would seek to leave.
I have lost absolute faith in the humanity of those of my countrymen who just say “shut up and pay the taxes”…or “lose your citizenship”. This coming from Canadians who don’t seem to get the problem that presents itself of my wife having to pay for taxes for services that she doesn’t receive and that would, in an instant of Canada revoking services, revolt on paying taxes – what hypocrisy!
On top of that she is expected by both Canadian government to pay taxes to a country (in whom she is a landed immigrant/permanent resident) who treats her like she doesn’t matter, that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms isn’t worth the paper that it is written on. Well, we use services here and our children go to school here in Canada so pay we will.
I WILL NOT pay a country whose services my wife does not receive. I will not pay for someone else to receive those benefits that my wife is supposedly “on the hook” for. In otherwords, the United States who has sent a bill to every single expatriate living outside of the United States.
The country that she lives in is Canada and she will only pay for the services that she receives from Canada where she works in. She will not pay the United States to allow someone ELSE to NOT work and collect welfare. She does not drive on US roads, She does not use the United States education system. She has paid into Canadian taxes and has made use of the Canadian education system of post-secondary education. So I won’t let her pay a single penny into the United States tax system and they can FUCKING WELL GO TO HELL!
Yeah, I should really save my energy, but nothing pisses me off more than the United States 99% leeching off of countless expat families who are making middle-class wages to minimum wage. What pisses me off even more is that those 99% think that they’re ENTITLED to those families’ money in return for nothing from the United States Government.
My question to them is: WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!!!
I share your outrage at the US and its plainly bonkers policies on citizenship based tax, but I’m going to defend Phil Hodgen here. He is one of the good guys, and not even close to worthy of the bashing he’s getting here.
As for only being interested in his wallet… Phil has been consistently critical of the all the silly ‘disclosure’ programs the IRS has implemented, and a while back he stopped taking any more OVDP cases, even though he apparently had a queue of willing customers, because the sheer unfairness of them were making him “grumpy”. He regularly posts about how nuts the exit tax is and how bad FATCA is, and he provides excellent yet nuanced answers to reader questions, many of which seem to involve a fair bit of unpaid research. These are not the actions of someone only concerned with their own financial bottom line.
“It is truly sad that so many Canadians are running scared for those sacred CLNs . I always wonder what would happen if the IRS put on a show(extortion fee) and no one showed up,here in Canada at least.”
If banks require a CLN to maintain accounts, then a CLN is required for those who need to maintain their bank accounts, regardless of what the law says about them being or not being required.
@Watcher
Yet he STILL has a huge deficit of understanding as demonstrated by his comparison between a receipt for a camers and a CLN.
No one can solve a problem if they do not know the nature of the problem, and he has demonstrated that he does not know the nature of the problem.
@JapanT
Phil’s camera receipt analogy might be a bit clumsy, but the entire post that contains it is clearly the result of careful and diligent research, and his conclusion is that a) this entire area of law is badly designed, badly written, and bad for the taxpayer, and b) the best action is to ignore the actual language of the law and supply a raft of protective paperwork to get the best result for the (victim) taxpayer.
As to what happens if the CLN never, ever turns up… all the FATCA IGAs in existence allow for banks to accept either a CLN or a ‘self certification’ with an explanation — “renounced but have not (yet) received CLN” seems adequate. Non-IGA countries might be more problematic here, but it’s too early to tell. And so far at least, I am not aware of anyone who has not received(*) their CLN. It might be slow, delayed, untimely, and so on, but it comes eventually.
Phil Hodgen seems to be one of very, very few US homelanders who is both exceedingly knowledgeable and ready to take the side of expats and against the IRS and its stupidity (compare to Steven Mopsick, for example). US expatriation is Phil’s bread and butter, but that doesn’t mean he cannot tell right from wrong here. In fact, I’d say this is probably one of the main reasons that he is unhappy at the way the US treats expats, since he sees it day after day at the coalface.
(*) There was a case here of someone whose relinquishment was approved and then subsequently denied, but that’s evidently an edge case. And their subsequent renunciation should go through. All doubtless very, very annoying for the individual involved, but ultimately even they won’t be left CLN-less.
Whether you like them or loathe them, the individual “cross border tax professionals” can be put in one three groups:
1. Those who have “on balance” been harmful to those impacted by U.S. extra-territorial taxation
2. Those who have “on balance” neither helped nor hurt when it comes to those impacted by U.S. extra-territorial taxation
3. Those who have “on balance” been helpful to those who have been impacted by U.S. extra-territorial taxation
Given his educational initiatives (blog postings, etc), it seems fairly clear that, “on balance”, Phil Hodgen is in Category 3. If there is any appetite for trashing individual “professionals”, shouldn’t the focus be on those in category 1? Mr. Hodgen may not have ALWAYS been helpful. But, it does seem to me that “on balance” he has been helpful (which is about as good as it can get).
The trashing of Phil Hodgen reminds me of an old Chinese proverb which was something to the effect of:
“I don’t know why he is angry at me. I never tried to help him.”
(maybe somebody can find the exact quote)
@Watcher
I do have a better understanding now, thank you, but a fudamental problem remains. First, I should say that I do not fault Phil nor anyone else for making a living by filling a need. But that raft of paperwork he prescribes costs money, money I do not have. Why should anyone pay for his assistance if he does not understand the problem?
That self certificating “seems” adequate is not good enough. If, IF, I can some how come up with the money and the time to gain Japanese citizenship and renounce cleanly, again a really BIG IF, I got one shot and one shot at it only. I must know the target, recognize it when I see it, wait til it is in range or be able to get myself in range of it and hit a bullseye. If I miss or have a misfire, it’s the end. Doubtful I can get together all I need it the time allotted for the one shot, no way in hell I’ll be able to do so for a second try. I simply do not have the resources for a second go.
If on my own, especially younger, I might try a Hail Mary shot in the fog, but not with a family.
This being the case, when your guide makes such a sloppy mistake, the hunter begins to wonder not only if he’ll get a clear shot but whether he’ll ever get out of the woods.
@JapanT
Phil Hodgen might be willing to take your money in exchange for filing the raft of stuff he thinks needs to be filed, but I don’t see any attempt here to sell you the service. In most postings, including this one, he provides all the details you would need to file it on your own — not just the how, but also the why — and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him recommend exactly this self-filing to potential customers.
My sense is that he has more than enough business to keep him occupied, and his web postings are pure education and not advertising in any way. This is in direct contrast to the compliance condors who simply say that it is “complicated”, run through the usual threats of dire consequence if you don’t “come clean”, and then end with the phrase “…and could involve jail time, so contact us now on yada yada their-own-phone-number.”
In my experience, Phil Hodgen is one of the strongest advocates for fairness for US expats and accidental citizens that you could ever hope to find in the US. Yes, the entire US tax and expatriation system is utterly and completely screwed up, but this is not his fault. And yes, he sometimes makes money off that complexity. But he seems to not feel good about it, and shows a genuine desire to freely help out folk stuck in difficult situations. I consider him a long, looong way from being a ‘compliance condor’. Pretty much polar opposite, in fact.
@Watcher
That does shine a different light on it. But I can not spend time on something that is so doubtful. I have slightly more time at the present than I have money but not enough.
He may not be aking for my money, but it is hard to trust the advice of someone who lacks fundsmental understanding of the situation.
My harsh feels towards him are replaced with a tinge of dispair. If he is the best we can hope fore and he doesn’t get the reality then what to do?
Well for me, really a mute point I guess as I have niether the time nor money to desl with any of it.
But thanks for clearing up the situation for me.
I’ll put in a good word for Phil Hodgen as well. I have never paid him one penny but the information on his website has been invaluable as I have charted my course through this minefield. He provides for free what most charge a lot of money for. That’s not someone who is trying to get rich off the problems of others.
I’m also mad as hell and bitter about all of this, but Phil is most certainly NOT the guy anyone should be pissed off at. The US Department of State, Congress, the IRS, and our own cowardly Canadian government are the ones who deserve all our vitriol.
@the Animal
I think I’d like to use the word “sleazy” to describe what the US is doing with CBT.
The fact that the US expects to receive tax when it’s non-resident taxpayers exceed an almost arbitrary threshold (based on a perception that it’s only “rich” people affected, with no regard for the actual cost of living and other taxes paid in the host country) and when both countries have been negligent in adjusting its tax treaties to exempt retirement, education, disability savings plans and the sale of principal residences, makes it pretty clear that it’s not beneath the US to skim any tax it can from those oversights – under the false pretence of mitigating tax for the majority of those affected by CBT.
As for Phil Hodgen, I don’t think you can be a enforcer of CBT without having some kind of blind spot (or spots), big or small. He may not be using typical condor techniques, and it can be argued whether his sales approach is passive (with his blog and all). I’ll always remember what my manager told me when I started out in real estate: “People tend to gravitate to people they know, like and trust”. Phil has HTQ – high trust quotient. Beware.
Re: “Phil has HTQ – high trust quotient. Beware.”
When people have HTQ, it makes the eventual betrayal all the more bitter.
Remember when Justin had HTQ?
“Whether you like them or loathe them, the individual “cross border tax professionals” can be put in one three groups:
3. Those who have “on balance” been helpful to those who have been impacted by U.S. extra-territorial taxation
Given his educational initiatives (blog postings, etc), it seems fairly clear that, “on balance”, Phil Hodgen is in Category 3. If there is any appetite for trashing individual “professionals”, shouldn’t the focus be on those in category 1? Mr. Hodgen may not have ALWAYS been helpful. But, it does seem to me that “on balance” he has been helpful (which is about as good as it can get)”
“My sense is that he has more than enough business to keep him occupied, and his web postings are pure education and not advertising in any way.”
“Phil’s camera receipt analogy might be a bit clumsy, but the entire post that contains it is clearly the result of careful and diligent research, and his conclusion is that a) this entire area of law is badly designed, badly written, and bad for the taxpayer, and b) the best action is to ignore the actual language of the law and supply a raft of protective paperwork to get the best result for the (victim) taxpayer.”
“Phil Hodgen seems to be one of very, very few US homelanders who is both exceedingly knowledgeable and ready to take the side of expats and against the IRS and its stupidity (compare to Steven Mopsick, for example). US expatriation is Phil’s bread and butter, but that doesn’t mean he cannot tell right from wrong here. In fact, I’d say this is probably one of the main reasons that he is unhappy at the way the US treats expats, since he sees it day after day at the coalface.”
To US Citizen Abroad & Watcher: By that reasoning, I should be grateful to the thief who breaks into my home in the night and robs me blind for “teaching” me how valuable my possessions are.
“As for only being interested in his wallet… Phil has been consistently critical of the all the silly ‘disclosure’ programs the IRS has implemented, and a while back he stopped taking any more OVDP cases, even though he apparently had a queue of willing customers, because the sheer unfairness of them were making him “grumpy”. He regularly posts about how nuts the exit tax is and how bad FATCA is, and he provides excellent yet nuanced answers to reader questions, many of which seem to involve a fair bit of unpaid research. These are not the actions of someone only concerned with their own financial bottom line.”
“US expatriation is Phil’s bread and butter,”
My sense is that he has more than enough business to keep him occupied, and his web postings are pure education and not advertising in any way. This is in direct contrast to the compliance condors who simply say that it is “complicated”, run through the usual threats of dire consequence if you don’t “come clean”, and then end with the phrase “…and could involve jail time, so contact us now on yada yada their-own-phone-number.”
Watcher: If Phil Hodgen was that averse to how the United States was treating its diaspora, perhaps then compliance accounting should not be his “bread and butter”
Thank you for the contradictory POV. I see that Phil Hodgen’s viewpoint is this: “Well, I know it’s unfair and I disagree with it, but if they come to me, I’ll take their money anyway.
Caveat Emptor.
“I’ll put in a good word for Phil Hodgen as well. I have never paid him one penny but the information on his website has been invaluable as I have charted my course through this minefield. He provides for free what most charge a lot of money for. That’s not someone who is trying to get rich off the problems of others.”
See above.
And just in case you don’t understand; maz57. I take exception to the CLN being referred to as a receipt when if I pay $2350.00 to extricate my wife from tax theft of her CDN income, it’s not a receipt, it’s the thing that I am paying for: A FUCKING PIECE OF PAPER TO PROVE THAT SHE IS NOT A US CITIZEN ANYMORE!
Understand this: Expatriation and loss of citizenship is HER RIGHT, not something that she should have to PAY FOR.
Make no mistake, my hatred of the United States has NEVER been higher: And my anger and hatred is directed squarely at ALL who are in the compliance industry from the US Department of State, Congress, the IRS, and our own cowardly Canadian government to the LOWLIEST COMPLIANCE CONDOR, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR ALIGNMENT OF MORAL VALUES IS!!!
DOES THAT MAKE IT ANY CLEARER!!!?
…AND that hatred towards those in the compliance industry: also includes the government-backing leeches of the 99% electorate who cheerfully accept the monies stolen from families of the United States diaspora.
Hope that makes it clearer for you.
The_Animal1970 wrote: By that reasoning, I should be grateful to the thief who breaks into my home in the night and robs me blind for “teaching” me how valuable my possessions are.
Sorry, but that comment makes no sense at all.
Look, I genuinely share all of your outrage at the pain and suffering that the US has wrought with its ridiculous policy of CBT, now backed up by the FATCA jihad. Really, I do. I have taken my share of knocks in this area as well, up to what amounted to a nervous breakdown and a prolonged period of anxiety/depression. And even though I saw the writing on the wall and got out nearly a decade ago now, I remain bitter about the way the US tax system treated me (which is why I continue to lurk and post here). It is just that you are wasting good — and righteous — anger here on an inappropriate target. It would be far better to save it for those actually responsible for all of this mess.