“I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to leave with their capital and there’s capital controls and there’s people controls. Every time you think about the fence, think about the fences being used against us, keeping us in.” Ron Paul
When a slave owner allows a slave to buy back his freedom, he must consider the economic loss to himself. Thus, he may consider the price of manumission to equal the future potential profit that he could make from the labour that the slave provides to him. In this way of thinking, it is clear that $2350 renunciation fee is still pretty cheap. Since the US federal government profits from the US citizen–because in the Internal Revenue Code a US citizen is by definition a taxpayer. It is therefore only right that the US government should try to recover its real costs in losing a taxpayer citizen.
The average taxpayer pays every year about $11,000 in federal taxes, and over the course of 50 year working career that would be a total of $550,000. Of course, if you take the US State Department at its word, the actual cost of processing a US renunciation is $2350, so the true cost of full manumision/renunciation really should be $552,350–but in that light $2350 is merely a rounding error. It may be of interest to know that the citizenship application fees are much less than the renunciation fee (see Why It Costs Immigrants $680 to Apply for Naturalization: Critics argue that the fee is too high, discouraging green card-holders from becoming full-fledged citizens). So I don’t actually believe John Kerry’s State Department when it says that the $2350 fee actually reflects the true cost. Logically, it should cost more bureaucratically to investigate a citizenship application thoroughly than to rubber stamp a citizenship renunciation.
Originally, my understanding was that existing customers would not be signaled under FATCA regulations unless their accounts were over $50,000. Yesterday, I spoke with a woman whose accounts never exceed $10,000 in aggregate. Furthermore, she is a young mother who hasn’t worked much in the last few years since coming to Canada, and so she has never had an IRS tax liability, as her income would be well below the Foreign Earned Income Exemption. She holds her accounts jointly with her Canadian-only husband. This case highlights why we need the legal action of ADSC.
Yesterday she received the following correspondence from her bank. It shows that they have determined that she has US indicia. They have threatened her with reporting her accounts to the CRA in violation of section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights, which would require the CRA to obtain a warrant before seizing her account information. But now the TD Bank has threatened to transfer her account information to the CRA. But what crime has she committed that the TD has threatened this action? None at all.
I have recommended that she do nothing–not fill out the self-certification form. But I’d like to hear what others think. Please discuss.
So join with me in the singing of the commemorative song, and toast with me to all that is is possible in a group effort! We are fighting our War of 2012, FATCA.
China fighter jets intercepted a US military patrol plane flying near its coast. The Pentagon reacted that their maneuver was “unsafe and unprofessional”. China says that the USA is “a disgusting thief spying over his neighbor’s fence”.
That is what FATCA is. FATCA is the United States being a disgusting thief spying on the bank accounts of people who have citizens in their countries of residence. By forcing FATCA on other countries, the USA is indeed the biggest rogue nation in the world, and “spying over the fence” is an appropriate metaphor–the fence being that of normal banking privacy. The USA is a financial voyeur.
Here is the full article of the Sina News response originally in Chinese (translation at Simon Black, Sovereign Man, emphasis his):
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Jack Townsend says that civil disobedience is only really justifiable in the case that there is a possibility of jury nullification, but no jury of US citizens would find a tax evader Canadian citizen “not guilty” for shirking the US tax code. Furthermore, he says that Americans don’t admire those who do their disobedience in hiding. I offer here the continuation of our discussion:
The following conversation that took place at Jack Townsend’s blog. Jack Townsend is of the opinion that Canadians can’t simply choose not to obey the IRS. I am of the opinion that the IRS is a criminal organization that is violating the rights of Canadians and it is only good and proper to disobey what are clearly unjust laws. Jack’s view is that Canadians who choose to disobey US tax laws are not going to get any sympathy from him. What he says about jury nullification is particularly interesting in light of my argument that the US tax laws applied in Canada are a violation of the right to trial by jury in the district in which the alleged crime was committed. It is sad to see the law professor with such little sympathy for the our situation, as it is so very much like the causes of US revolution against British rule.
That an RRSP is even considered some kind of delinquent account at all is offensive to Canadians. The IRS could take a much more lenient stand towards RRSPs since they are equivalent to IRAs except in a “foreign” country. Foreign only from the point of view of the IRS, but domestic as far as Canadians are concerned. What’s “foreign” to us is the IRS, which is the External Internal Revenue Service.
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Here is a list of international Certifying Acceptance Agents for the IRS. In particular the IRS site mentions some of the big FATCA compliance firms:
National / International CPA Firms *
Deloitte and Touche, LLP
Ernst & Young LLP
KPMG LLP
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
BDO
For a list of Canadian IRS agents, see this list.
No free country in the world actually allows the agents of the revenue service of a foreign country operate within its borders. To do so would be to admit the loss of sovereignty. But certifying agents of the IRS are doing work for the IRS.
Here is a correspondance between “the knower” and me in the comment section of the Financial Post article, Canadian government faces constitutional challenge over FATCA deal. Perhaps “the knower” just needs to hear more about what’s really going on. I think that’s true of most Canadians. Once they understand what’s going on and that we are not making this stuff up, they’ll be on our side.
One of the commonest responses by those who have never studied the issue of US personhood is,”If you don’t want to pay your taxes, then renounce your citizenship.” Well, just off the top of my head here are some reasons that people may be reluctant to renounce United States citizenship: Continue reading
