320 thoughts on “This is Fantastic! Don’t Think We Have Ever Had Support Like this!”

1. I think the well is dry- or at least down to a trickle. Why keep up FATCA when it costs more than it brings in?
   But in spite of all the damage done, this is good news nonetheless.

2. I think they are less concerned about using taxpayer money than they are depriving us of ours.

3. I like to tell homelander trolls that I was minding my own business before I got FATCA’d and learned about CBT and had to start filing again in fear that my EU banks would out me. The result: nothing owed, of course, but about 21 letters from the IRS (7 for each year filed; there was a typo in my forms that prompted them to think I owed tax), including 2 by registered mail costing them $15 apiece in postage. In the end I got a tax credit of about $1500 in the form of 2 checks. Completely absurd. This covered my tax prep expenses though, and I’m putting the rest in my renunciation fund for some time in the future (possibly near if the GOP bungles tax reform and the Dems win a chamber or two of Congress in 2018).

4. @ Japan T

   Generally speaking, many Americans are arrogantly dysfunctional, incapable of logical reasoning (and I stand by this opinion wholeheartedly). Recently, at one airport here in Europe, an American woman raised a raucous when security had to dispose of a banned item from her handbag. Her remark was, “Well, in the United States, it isn’t banned!” In other words, her very two feet were on American soil à l’extraterritorialité; therefore, she was entitled to act as she pleased. It is this ludicrous audacity and ridiculous mentality that has carried over into the financial world via FATCA. The Obama administration had the opportunity to switch over to residence-based taxation and to participate in the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard. (Must I keep on repeating this like a parrot?)

5. @ Nononymous

   Nicely put! This issue has attracted flat-earthers and flat-taxers like honey brings flies.

   CBT is the problem, not FATCA. (Except this, that FATCA is a unilateral approach to a problem that calls for a multi-lateral solution.)

   I am sure that the signers of the letter are basically frustrated tax cheats. They are certainly not people who give a damn for people of modest means, accidental Americans and Americans living abroad. But if FATCA goes away, that solves the immediate problem.

6. @Duality

   Sadly, I know the type, have encountered them many a time. I honestly know not from where it comes from.

   I know of only a few from my high school class whom I would expect to act that way. But they were children of the local bankers and lawyers who thought that that fact alone made them special.

7. Some people simply cannot understand why anyone would want to live outside the homeland.

8. @BB

   I can never understand why anyone would want to drink Starbucks coffee either but I don’t bonkers towards them for it.

   Not disputing your comment, just their behaviour.

9. Scrapping FATCA certainly wouldn’t hurt, but ultimately, it doesn’t really solve my problem. In the end, I just don’t want my life dictated by the expat hating politiscum that chronically infests Washington DC.

   They’re never going to drain that swamp!

10. A question a little off topic. An 83 year old born in Canada to an American father in 1933 wonders if he is at risk to be identified as American. He lived his entire life in Canada, never resided in the US, has never had a US passport, never voted in US, never paid US taxes. His father was American who left the US at age 15 and came to Canada and never went back to the US to live for any period of time. He married a Canadian and became a Canadian citizen in the 1940s. The laws regarding citizenship for those born abroad to an American parent are confusing and have changed or been amended many times. Is their cause for this 83 year old to be worried or is he safe because he did not fill any residency requirement and he was never registered as a US citizen by his father? Help.

11. @Bartb

    Your 83-year-old friend was born in Canada? Then he has absolutely nothing to worry about. He should give the matter no further thought. He is not at risk, period.

    The one thing he should know is that he should never say anything about possible US citizenship to any bank or financial institution. But with a Canadian birthplace the question shouldn’t even come up.

12. @Bartb

    Normally I am the one trying to warn others that they can not rest easy until FATCA and CBT are dead and that there are many ways to be found out. In his case, however, given the length of time since his father left the US and the state of info/data systems of the time and his age, I would think he would have little to worry about.

    Hopefully someone else with more knowledge will chime in soon to either comfirm or correct my statement.

13. @Bartb

    The CRA doesn’t seem to have a problem that the IGA is inadequate in detecting US persons with a Canadian birthplace.

14. @Bubblebustin

    In my case, I got remarried, and she happened to be Canadian. She had a kid, while I had no real ties back in Michigan, so it was easier for me to move there, than to bring them both stateside.

    Let them mix their vile with envy over this. 🙂

15. I am going to share something that is off topic, for whatever it is worth.

    A Canadian friend was settling his mother’s estate and was required by her credit union to swear that she was not a US citizen. She was not, so the matter went no further. However, presumably if she had been US or dual, something would have kicked in regarding reporting her estate to the US, with unknown consequences.

    If anyone has come across this before, it would be interesting to compare notes.

16. @Bartb,

    I agree with the others that he certainly has nothing to worry about in that nobody would be able to identify him.

    As for whether or not the US considers him a citizen, or whether or not he ever even had the right to optionally claim US citizenship, my take is no.

    The answer starts in INA 322:

    https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-10018.html

    BUT, as you know the law has changed many times, sometimes retrospectively and sometimes not, and was definitely different in 1933. Some history is here:

    http://www.americanlaw.com/citabrd.html\

    As of 1952 and then 1986, in order for a parent to pass on USC to a child, the parent would have to had lived in the US of a specified period of time, including 2 or more years after the age of 14. Today’s law would exclude him since he left at age 15 and even then, with just one US parent one must naturalize to obtain USC.

    However, according to one of the links above, the law when he was born in 1933 was different. If I read it correctly, the 85-yr-old did not satisfy the “Required Residence of the Child” so he would have lost USC by age 18 (or really age 13, the start of the required 5-yr-period of US residence).

    The history of the law changes is confusing, so read it yourself. Or, as I and everyone else suggest, it’s hardly worth reading as nobody will be interested or able to track him down, especially since today’s law doesn’t even give the parent the right to pass on USC (the DoS seems to like to prefer today’s laws).

    From the history link above:

    Conditions Precedent — Required Residence of Parent(s)

    Prior to May 24, 1934, children born outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were United States citizens, acquired U.S. citizenship at birth unless the father had never “resided” in the United States prior to the child’s birth. In the absence of a specific definition of “resided”, the Immigration and Naturalization Service took the position that even a temporary sojourn by the U.S. citizen parent was sufficient to comply with this requirement.

    Conditions Subsequent — Required Residence of the Child

    Prior to May 24, 1934, there were no requirements imposed on the child born abroad as a condition subsequent to retaining U.S. citizenship. However, the 1934 Statute did impose retention requirements on the child unless both parents were U.S. citizens.

    Where only one of the child’s parents was a U.S. citizen, the child would have to reside continuously in the United States for at least 5 years immediately before his 18th birthday and take the Oath of Allegiance within 6 months after his or her 21st birthday.

17. @Bartb

    If he was never registered as a US citizen at any point, then he probably shouldn’t worry. Given how the immigration laws have changed throughout those many years, it’s hard to tell if he might even have a claim to begin with. If I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t even bother to stick my neck out to investigate.

18. @NorthernShrike

    I was going to ask for clarification but then noticed that the pronoun gender removed ambiguity.

    Nevertheless, to repeat, your friend was required to swear that the deceased was not a US citizen?

19. Thank you everyone. This is very helpful. They had contemplated going to an immigration lawyer but were warned that this would be a bad move. Accounting firms seem to be asking questions about US citizen possibilities at tax time!!! Who do they work for? Are they yet again agents of the IRS or trolling for consulting business? So much of this sickens me!! Thanks again.

20. @NorthernShrike

    Wow, interesting. I have friends whose parents naturalized as Canadians in the ’70’s, but of course didn’t register it or have a CLN. As I became involved and had to document my own 70’s relinquishment, my friends followed suit. She renounced and had her parents claim relinquishment back-dated to the 70’s which they easily obtained (for free at the time).

    So, if they had not documented their relinquishment and died, and their financial institution required the daughter to swear about her parents not being US persons, what then? Of course we all here feel that they weren’t US citizens, documented or not, but what is the view of the IRS and DoS if and when they tried to look to see if estate taxes were owing? Not that the US would ever know as long as the financial institution didn’t report them for “some reason”. We’ve seen that some FIs tend to err on the side of caution (and report).

    Nasty, nasty business. The repeal of FATCA and our IGA would certainly help these situations even before the switch from CBT to RBT.

21. @Northern Shrike, WhatAmI

    This is interesting. Every so often I’ve heard advice that one should be rid of US citizenship before shuffling off this mortal coil, lest it create problems for your executors. I’ve generally assumed that to be scaremongering, but it did leave a lingering doubt.

    So my two questions are:

    1. What happens if the executor says “no” to the US citizenship question? Does the financial institution follow up in any way, to verify, or is it like the very weak FATCA enforcement today, where they simply take your word for it? Not that I’d want to put the executor in a position of having to lie, mind you.

    2. What if the executor says “yes” – what happens next? I have no idea. I don’t know of any mechanism where estates must be reported to the US.

    What I’m thinking is that this might just be another form of FATCA check, similar to what happens when you open a new account and the bank updates your personal information – they slip the citizenship question in after asking if your phone number is still current. Only now they’re doing it for a dead person. In that case I can only guess that the bank would start FATCA reporting on the accounts that now belong to the estate, nothing more. The same invulnerability to fines and taxes (provided no US assets) would apply as for a living person.

    I’ve also wondered what happens when an executor is a US person – does the estate suddenly become FATCA reportable? I would think not, since the executor doesn’t have authority to spend the money, but I’m not a lawyer so really have no clue. I have asked not to be my parents’ executor, for this reason, but probably I’m just playing it overly safe.

22. This is what, these days, keeps me awake at night, WhatAmI, especially as I have a discretionary trust (one in Alberta like the Henson Trust) that is set up for the needs of a disabled family member, as well as the Canadian Registered Disability Savings Plan (set up for the future needs of disabled). My Canadian-born to two US parents at the time son’s RDSP account information (of which I am the Holder) is in the hands of the US through the FBARs (and the 3520 and 3520’s re my US tax returns) that I filed 2005 – 2012 re my own renunciation of US citizenship (though warned in 1975 that I would be losing my US citizenship when my then-husband and I became Canadian citizens, a year after my son was born — and now unable to renounce (though not registered as a birth abroad, never lived in the US, never had any benefit from the US) due to *lack of mental capacity*. In my mind, he is Canadian (as in *A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian*) — however, as you and others (and by my own research) have outlined, the US says he had the US tattoo from his first breath taken in Calgary. I am soon to be 74 and would have peace of mind to know absolutely that my Canadian estate will pass to my children unchallenged if FATCA were repealed and, better still, if US CBT were, as the rest of the world, RBT.

23. @Calgary411

    In your case the first bit is easy, the executor can swear that you are not a US citizen. It’s true.

    And since your son has no US indicia, being born in Canada, he should have no problem staying off the radar.

    However, since you filed a bunch of forms after renouncing, there are records connecting you to your son. The question is whether the US is in any way capable of connecting the dots and pursuing him to file returns. I would think not, but who knows.

    Have you considered moving all your RDSP and other accounts to other institutions? You could open new accounts as a Canadian only (if asked, you can show your CLN to prove it – but don’t volunteer it lest it raise questions about your son’s citizenship). Then all the account data would be completely different from what you filed after renunciation. No FATCA reporting on the new accounts, and the paper trail would die if they tried to chase down the old accounts.

24. @ Barb I have a friend whose father was born in Canada to US parents who came to homestead in Canada 70 plus years ago. I believe that he is 74. He tried as an adult to get his US citizenship and they said he didn’t qualify. He would have been in his 20’s when he tried.

25. @Ann #1,

    I couldn’t find in this document how the person didn’t qualify. He was born in about 1934 and tried to get USC in the ’60s?

    http://www.americanlaw.com/citabrd.html

    A good exercise to see if we can match history with actual rulings. I’ll try reading a few more times some day…