CIRCA 1993: This fascinating article appeared in the Financial Post in 1993. Reasonably accurate and notes that some "U.S. exiles" may have thought they relinquished US citizenship by naturalizing as Canadians – but perhaps not. Notice that there was a US tax attache in Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/2KH555dfY5
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 27, 2020
Somebody recently drew my attention to this 1993 article, that appeared in the 1993 Financial Post. Although it doesn’t provide much, it is surprising that this appeared in the Financial Post. The article appears to be reasonably accurate. Of most interest, is the discussion about people who naturalized as Canadian citizens believing that by doing so they had relinquished their US citizenship. Relinquishment is an issue of the person’s intention when he became a Canadian. Did the individual naturalize as a Canadian citizen, with the intention of relinquishing US citizenship? Notice also that (at that time) the IRS had a phone number in Ottawa that one could (presumably) call. Do you feel safer with the IRS on Canadian soil?
IRS Direct: 613 238 5335 (this is currently the “Emergency” phone number for the US Embassy in Ottawa. Yes, it makes sense that any US tax issues would be an “Emergency”).
The title is quite prescient. In 1993 Americans abroad were not “Exiles”. In 2020 US policy has turned many of them into “Exiles”.
What follows is a pdf of the article (should anybody have any interest in it).
FEIE in ‘93 was huge at $70K and now in 2020 is only $101K?
Meanwhile housing and costs now are 5-10 times 1993 levels.
IRS lowering their threshold to increase the catchment
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, basically.
Two takeaways:
1. At least part of the Canadian media was working hard for the IRS long before FATCA came along.
2. Its apparent that not much has changed except that now we occasionally need to lie to a bank.
From the 1993 article:
I have not renewed my passport since turning 18, but this would mean the IRS likely has my information (including SSN) from passports my US citizen parent renewed in the late 90s and early 00s. I thought this only applied from 2016 after the FAST act was signed into law.
Somewhere in a dusty basement the IRS keeps many decades’ worth of passport renewal data. Has it ever used that data to enquire about non-residents’ lack of tax compliance? Nope.
When I looked to renew my US passport in 2018, that was the first time I noticed any requirement to fill in a SS number, so I doubt it was in place back in 2008, when I had last renewed it. I would have remembered a scramble to find that number.
@RH.
“Somewhere in a dusty basement the IRS keeps many decades’ worth of passport renewal data. Has it ever used that data to enquire about non-residents’ lack of tax compliance? Nope.”
And that’s assuming that State Dept. actually sent the IRS the data like they were supposed to do.