A re-run from MapleSandbox …

From an anonymous donor come the top ten reasons NOT to donate to ADCS lawsuit

The Top 10 List To NOT Donate to the ADCS-ADSC.ca lawsuit:

10. You don’t like Canadian citizens of U.S. origin..

9. You want to help tax compliance vultures become wealthy.

8. In Congress you trust and Congress has spoken.

7. You are a shareholder in one of the big Canadian banks.

6. You are a shareholder in all the Canadian banks.

5. FATCA will give me grounds to divorce my U.S. spouse.

4. You believe in the Obama administration instead of believing in freedom and justice.

3. You believe that U.S. law should be imposed on Canada.

2. You are pretending to be a Canadian but are really a member of “Homelanders Abroad”.

and the NUMBER 1 reason to NOT donate is …

1. You believe that FATCA should be the Supreme Law of Canada.

Do NOT let American law become the Supreme Law of Canada. Donate now! Donate often. Donate as much as you can.

http://maplesandbox.ca/2015/04/16/top-10-reasons-not-to-donate-to-adcs-fatca-lawsuit/

From ‘Accounting Today‘ September 6, 2019:

The Internal Revenue Service outlined new procedures Friday to allow some expatriates who have relinquished their U.S. citizenship the chance to comply with their U.S. tax and filing obligations and in turn qualify for relief from back taxes, penalties and interest.

The Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens will apply only to individuals who haven’t filed U.S. tax returns as U.S. citizens or residents, owe a limited amount of back taxes to the U.S. government ($25,000 in the past six years), and have net assets of less than $2 million. Only those taxpayers whose previous compliance failures were non-willful can take advantage of the new procedures, according to the IRS. Many in this group may have lived outside the U.S. most of their lives and not been aware that they had U.S. tax obligations.
…

A post for Brock readers to analyze and discuss.

As well, analysis / commentary here:

IRS provides limited tax relief for certain individuals renounced(ing) after March 18, 2010

Update – My thoughts the Morning After – September 7, 2019:

After having digested this for a day (it was announced the afternoon of September 6/19, I offer the following thoughts:

I think that this IRS announcement/program has value. It may be that those who have renounced would NOT want to come into compliance (although there are certainly some who would – just to bring closure). But, the IRS announcement makes clear that this procedure is available to those who have not yet renounced/relinquished and wish to do so in the future. The point is that these future relinquishers can:

1. Come into tax compliance and have up to $25,000 USD in tax forgiven; and

2. Come into tax compliance without getting a Social Security number. This has the potential to be enormously helpful to a lot of people (but this is a minority view). It’s a way to make the compliance/renunciation process easier and less expensive (tax forgiveness) than it has been to date.

Of course, this will anger the thousands who have previously come into compliance, paid taxes and gone to the trouble of getting a Social Security number.

But, I can so how this new program has value.

Now on to the post as originally written …

Breaking news – just released today – September 6, 2019

From JC:

I nominate ,,, for a IBS feature.

The ACA RBT plan got a feature so this should as well. Karen wrote the into there. I don’t think much intro is needed. Just post as a feature and to highlight for comment.

Democrats Abroad survey report now out.

Can We Please Stop Paying Twice – Tax Reform for Americans Abroad

From George (Original George)
…
Could someone create a post on BOTH of these positions because it would be sure handy that we now have ammunition to write Reps and Senators REGARDLESS of Party!!!

WE will be attacked by do gooders in the homeland but now we have a shield from DA that must be used.
…

@Biscuit had a great llink to what Republicans Overseas is urging…

It seems that the RNC has passed a resolution calling for FATCA repeal and change to territorial taxation for individuals. Text is here:

https://republicansoverseas.com/rnc-approves-resolution-supporting-territorial-taxation-individuals/

Democrats Abroad is now speaking from the same song sheet;

http://www.democratsabroad.org/democrats_abroad_submits_recommendations_to_the_senate_finance_committee_on_tax_reform

On behalf of JC and Shadow Raider, I post the following:

Though a link to this is on the recent House Ways & Means feature, it is at the bottom of that post with a single line reference.

JC says…

It is unrelated and deserving of its own post.  I have provided some text below that may be included.

I have communicated with Shadow Raider via Facebook. He says it is o.k. to ask for his recent paper to be a feature on The Isaac Brock Society.

Constitutionality of Citizenship-Based Taxation

This is an important paper outlining how citizenship-based taxation is unconstitutional, especially in the case of U.S. Persons resident outside the U.S.  The paper appears well researched and presented.  However, the paper may be strengthened if it were subject to “peer review” with some probing of potential weaknesses and restatement (in different words) of some key points and strengths to assist others understand the concepts.

This was posted on Facebook, yet that posting only received “likes” and not comments. That leaves The Isaac Brock Society for review.

Shadow Raider reports:

I’ve also been sending my paper to many law professors. A few responded with an opinion, some positive and some negative, but always inconclusive and claiming that they were not experts on the subject. Those focused on taxation referred me to those focused n constitutional law, and vice versa. I’m starting to think that an “expert” on this subject simply doesn’t exist. I’m taking this inconclusive result as an indication that my argument is indeed a valid question for the courts.

Also, please include in comments ideas of how to get authoritative attention to this paper, and or authoritative affirmation/endorsement of the key points.

The paper has been cleverly linked from Google Docs as a “living document” allowing editing and revision by the author, accessible from the same link.

The paper has been “significantly updated” since it first appeared a few weeks ago.

The following is posted by me (calgary411) on behalf of its author, JCDoubleTaxed:

*******************

Most people do not have a twitter account. Twitter users tend to be politicians, press, opinion leaders, and celebrities. Joining Twitter will be a perfect New Year’s Resolution. It is easy and once accomplished you may enjoy the gratification of a resolution accomplished.

I shared the plan for this post with @wisecroneknows who commented:

“Just posting comments on IBS/FB isn’t screaming at the world to fix this…. they should not be frightened…. legislation is being drawn up now… shouldn’t wait for the inauguration. Even if they don’t actually tweet they can just simply like and RT. (AND…If I can do it anyone can).”

Twitter allows account names different from your real name. You might choose a Twitter name and profile picture related to highlighting the injustices of CBT and FATCA.

Twitter should be viewed as part of a range of means to communicate with politicians, press, opinion leaders and other US Persons overseas. Twitter is also useful for early notice on articles related to CBT so as to better get in early on comment sections.

On Twitter, hasthtag “#FATCA” is popular among Brockers. If you are new to Twitter you might search #FATCA to see what others are tweeting. People include hashtags when they want to send a tweet to a topic that others search for, such as #FATCA.

Addresses are included to send a tweet to particular people or groups. For example, a tweet with @SenWarren @RonWyden @SenSchumer will send the tweet to these three.

Some question if people really read tweets to them. Some politicians have staff manage their tweets for them. Some get so many tweets that “cut through” is a very slight possibility. So if one tweets @POTUS, for example, they may also include a hashtag or another address to increase the possibilities of getting noticed.

If you like what someone is tweeting then click on their address in a tweet and click follow. Their tweets will then show on your Twitter Home page. You might search a Twitter address for tweets to “retweet” (RT). Retweeting, or clicking on the arrows icon at the bottom of a tweet, is the same as sending the tweet from your account. Clicking on the heart icon or “liking” a tweet boosts the tweet further, as does both retweeting and liking other tweets and your own tweets. If two Twitter users follow each other they may send private messages to each other.

When others retweet or like a Tweet then this helps the tweets stay noticeable longer. Usually the more retweets and likes in the shortest time frame the better. Based on this information, we might create an amplified voice if we gathered at a particular day and time each week for tweeting about CBT injustices. How about:

each Wednesday @ 10 a.m., or earlier that day, (Ottawa/Washington D.C./ EST) from Wednesday 18 January. A program called TweetDeck may be used to schedule tweets.

If you search for a person or organisation then the first page that shows is the tweets, retweets, and likes by that person/organisation. Search again on that page and a “Top” tab and page appears of the most popular tweets to that person/organisation. The “Latest” tab and page is the most recent tweets to that person/organisation and those tweets with relatively fewer retweets/likes.

Good news is that for the hashtag #FATCA those in opposition to FATCA are crowding out the compliance organisations and those favouring FATCA. Usually the #FATCA “Top” page is full of tweets in opposition to FATCA and tweets against CBT that include “#FATCA.” Anyone wanting to use Twitter to do some research on #FATCA will mainly see tweets from US persons overseas in opposition to FATCA/CBT.

While Twitter only allows 140 characters there are a few tricks to expand on your message and give your tweet more impact. You may include in your tweet the URL of a news article and then such a tweet usually highlights a picture from that article and a snippet of what the article is about. Tweeting a jpg picture that you have added text to can amplify your message (I use the free software Gimp for that). An easier way is to use Word to type a message, and bold and enlarge it, then use a screen capture tool to draw a rectangle around your message and cut it into a jpg that may be attached to your tweet as a photo.

You may create your own collection of twitter images and urls of articles that you may tweet in future. You may click on a twitter image you like in a tweet and drag the picture to your desktop while holding down the mouse button.

More Brockers on Twitter and tweeting will mean greater highlighting of CBT injustices.

Don’t forget an important objective is to grow our community. Include urls of Isaac Brock Society posts, CitizenshipTaxation.ca posts, and related Facebook Groups in tweets and comments on articles.

Happy New Years!
@JCDoubleTaxed

I agree with others that Jim Jatras’ words in The Hill is important for its own post.  Thank you, Mr. Jatras, saying that…

FATCA’s only beneficiaries are the army of lawyers, accountants and software vendors who are making a fortune on it, with the costs passed onto consumers. 

I started my journey regarding US tax compliance almost ten years ago. I have paid dearly from my retirement savings and, although compliance has ended for me (but will that ever change?), the absurdity has not ended for my US-deemed Canadian-born son who has a developmental disability and, without requisite mental capacity, who would be trapped into such ongoing, never-ending costs of US tax and reporting compliance.  Again, I will say that it is not only for my son that I have come forward in this fight but for that of any person / family with the same entrapment.  My son will not be the only one so affected and for them this injustice to continue, year after year, to benefit that described army of lawyers, accountants and software vendors who are making a fortune on it, with the costs passed onto him and others like him.

I chose to go the route of having these professionals help get my family out of this US citizenship-based taxation nightmare, but have found it is impossible.  I don’t want any special work-around for my son.  I want this to end for all such sons and daughters.  Personally, I want the end result to be US residence-based taxation so no *accidental American* faces this injustice.  If there is the exceptionality of US CBT rather than RBT of the rest of the world (save Eritrea), then, in my eyes, there should only ever be an OPT-IN to US citizenship if the facts permit, never an OPT-OUT where some, the most vulnerable, are entrapped into, by US tax law, never-ending US tax compliance and reporting.

FATCA needs to go.  The unconstitutional IGAs need to go.  And the US needs to change to the same and much fairer residence-based taxation as the rest of the world and end the unconstitutional “warrantless seizure of personal financial information without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”

I continue to be incensed that my chosen country of citizenship, Canada, and the country in which my son was born and raised (and never registered as a US citizen abroad) chose to honour the US in agreement to sign the extra-territorial IGA with the USA.  I continue to say that the words of Prime Minister Trudeau that *A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian* were political rhetoric, untrue and audacious. It is discriminatory that some Canadians, those with some US connection, however meaningless, do not fit with his faux words.  I don’t know what will take away the injustice for many.  I continue to feel betrayed by both my chosen country and the country in which my children were born and the country of my birth.

Again, thank you for this article, Mr. Jatras.  I have included it all below.  (If there is a problem for this site with quoting all of it, I will update to remove part of it.  I think it important for all to read the article in its entirety.)

The Hill, Contributer: Jim Jatras, November 16, 2016 — Dumping Obama’s faux foreign tax legislation should be high on Trump’s to-do list