Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad
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Author Archives: Eric

Overseas citizens encouraged to make monetary contributions to national defence

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A detailed set of guidelines for making monetary contributions to the government has recently been issued to overseas employees of companies and other citizens on business abroad. The guideline for making monetary contributions in support of the military was issued in the form of a National Defence Committee (NDC) order. A detailed set of guidelines stipulating the awards system for monetary contributions is unusual, but not unprecedented. Notably, such guidelines have been issued previously during times of economic crisis.

Based on guidelines issued by the government, those who make contributions of US$1,000 or more will be rewarded with a national decoration. Contributions of US$10,000 or more will guarantee the donor a ‘Letter of Appreciation’ from the President. Those who offer up more than US$100,000 will receive a Medal for Efforts. In addition, they will receive either an extension to their right to work abroad, or a guaranteed re-issue of their right to leave the country for business purposes.

This has resulted in increased pressure for overseas citizens to make monetary contributions, in addition to the usual taxes. According to our sources, there is a rumour spreading about how a businessman offered US$1,000,000 and received an important government position.

Read the full story at New Focus International.

Judicially-denaturalised ex-Americans are subject to exit tax but do not have names published in Federal Register

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Here’s a small extra piece of the puzzle for those of us trying to figure out exactly who gets listed in the expat honour roll Federal Register “name-and-shame” list of ex-citizens. There are indeed some people who have to pay the exit tax but don’t have to have their names published: naturalised citizens who are stripped of their citizenship by U.S. courts, usually for naturalisation fraud or war crimes committed prior to naturalisation.

This post is not particularly useful to most Isaac Brock Society readers contemplating relinquishment or renunciation — unless you’re in need of some comic relief and would like to read about a mildly amusing drafting error in the exit tax statute.

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Q1 2013 Federal Register list of ex-citizens published; numerous names missing

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Looks like I’m losing my edge — AnonAnon wins the prize for being the first to notice the Q1 2013 Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who have Chosen to Expatriate, which has been placed on public inspection for printing in tomorrow’s Federal Register. Grammar and spelling aficionados will note that the list’s title no longer contains the awkwardly-placed relative clause “As Required by Section 6039G”; unfortunately, the misspelling of HIPAA as “HIPPA” has now entered its eighteenth year.

This quarter’s list appears a mere eight days later than required by law, and with about 680 names — a far larger number than most of us would have expected, though well short of the 850 people renouncing under INA § 349(5) whom the FBI entered into their NICS gun control database during the same quarter. And that’s not even mentioning the people who relinquished citizenship under INA § 349(1)–(4), who are not subject to gun control and so don’t show up in NICS but do belong in the Federal Register — or the backlog of thousands of others who renounced last year and also showed up in NICS but never had their names added to Treasury’s list.

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FBI releases April 2013 NICS report; January through April renunciations up by 78% against same period last year

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Innocente beat me to the punch and pointed out in a comment that the FBI released their latest report on Active Records in the NICS Index last Friday. NICS now contains the records of 21,823 persons who renounced U.S. citizenship under INA § 349(5) (or, theoretically, the wartime provisions of INA § 349(6)) and are thus barred from purchasing firearms in the United States. This is an increase of 319 records as compared to March 2013, and 1,169 records since December 2012.

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China does not allow dual citizenship, so did Deng Xiaoping’s grandson Deng Zhuodi renounce his U.S. citizenship?

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DengZhuodi

Deng Zhuodi (邓卓棣), the 28-year-old grandson of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, has just taken up a new position as Vice-Governor of Pingguo County in Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. English-language reports from Bloomberg and the South China Morning Post give a little more detail, but leave out a crucial fact mentioned widely in Chinese-language reports from outside the mainland (such as those from the BBC’s Chinese service and from Taiwan’s NOW News) — Deng Zhuodi was born in the U.S. while his father Deng Zhifang was studying at the University of Rochester.

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The history of the requirement that U.S. citizens only use U.S. passports to enter the U.S.

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As Fred reminded us in a comment, 8 USC § 1185(b) (Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, § 215(b)), “Travel Control of Aliens and Citizens”, demands that:

Except as otherwise provided by the President and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid United States passport.

This requirement traces its roots all the way back to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. However, it’s worth remembering two rather amusing facts about the law as it originally stood: it only required United States citizens to bear a “valid passport” and not a “valid United States passport”, and it only applied in time of war or national emergency:

(a) When the United States is at war or during the existence of any national emergency proclaimed by the President, or, as to aliens, whenever there exists a state of war between or among two or more states, and the President shall find that the interests of the United States require that restrictions and prohibitions in addition to those provided otherwise than by this section be imposed upon the departure of persons from and their entry into the United States, and shall make public proclamation thereof, it shall, until otherwise ordered by the President or the Congress, be unlawful …

(b) After such proclamation as is provided for in subsection (a) has been made and published and while such proclamation is in force, it shall, except as otherwise provided by the President, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid passport.

So when did these two facts change, you might ask?

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Jack Lew continues Timmy Geithner’s tradition: gross violations of 26 USC § 6039G

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Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 30 days after the close of each calendar quarter, the Secretary shall publish in the Federal Register the name of each individual losing United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877 (a) or 877A) with respect to whom the Secretary receives information under the preceding sentence during such quarter.

The Federal Register for 30 April 2013 contains no Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G. Perhaps Lew got confused by the badly-punctuated title and thought that Section 6039G required these individuals to expatriate, rather than requiring him to publish their names. (In reality, it is other invasive sections of 26 USC — such as Section 1297 and Section 1471 — that require individuals to give up U.S. citizenship if they want to lead normal lives abroad.)

On the bright side, this means Lew also has not yet told any bald-faced lies about the number of people giving up U.S. citizenship since he was officially confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. The FBI received information from the State Department about 850 people who renounced U.S. citizenship in the first quarter of 2013; Lew is supposed to publish not only their names but also the names of individuals who relinquished U.S. citizenship by any of the other five methods specified in 8 USC § 1481(a) — of whom there should be roughly three or four for every five renunciants — as well as the names of individuals who turned in long-held green cards.

Therefore, if Lew belatedly decides to set the unusual precedent that the Secretary of the Treasury actually follows the nation’s tax laws, the list should have thousands of names, rather than the few dozen it has contained in recent quarters.

Technologist Lee Kai-fu goes public about 2011 renunciation of U.S. citizenship

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In May last year, I wrote:

Incidentally, while looking at an earlier Federal Register list I came across a name matching that of another famous tech guy — one who is well known to have started a new venture outside of the U.S. recently after a number of years living abroad … I’m reasonably sure the renunciant listed is him and not another guy by the same name: a name matching his wife’s name is listed in the same quarter, and neither name is very common. I don’t think I’ll mention his name publicly right now; it may be better just to leave him and his kids in peace.

The man in question, Lee Kai-fu, has decided to discuss his renunciation publicly for the first time, and wrote a post about it on Chinese micro-blogging site Sina Weibo over the weekend, which I’ve translated after the jump. His name appeared in the Federal Register “published expatriates” list for Q3 2011, as does someone with the same name as his wife; alongside them are the names of a number of other public figures who gave up U.S. citizenship around the same time, such as Tsinghua University School of Life Sciences dean Shi Yigong and Jamaican politicians Shahine Fakhourie Robinson and Everald Warmington. Indeed, the whole reason I noticed Lee’s name was because I was browsing the list when doing research to write Robinson’s Wikipedia article.

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Great embassy services!

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Homelanders are quick to cite the expense of maintaining U.S. embassies overseas as a “great service” provided to all us disloyal traitors living the high life abroad, and the primary reason why all of us tax evaders should shut up and quit whining about paying penalties of $13,000 in response to tax deficiencies of $21 per year.

Well, the State Department put up their 2014 budget a couple of weeks ago. As they emphasise in its introduction:

No investment matches the returns we collect on the down payment we make in our foreign policy. In fact, for just over one percent of our national budget – a single penny on the dollar – we fund our civilian foreign affairs efforts: every embassy, every consulate, and the programs and people that carry out our missions

How much of the $2.8 billion consular services portion of that budget is planned to be spent on “American Citizens Services”? Answer: $8.6 million.

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GAO report reveals OVDP minnows paid penalties of as much as 129x tax owed

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On Friday, the Government Accountability Office released a new Report to Congressional Requesters on “Offshore Tax Evasion”, which warns that the “IRS Has Collected Billions of Dollars, but May be Missing Continued Evasion”. It provides more in-depth information about the characteristics of OVDP participants, and also reveals some details about the treatment of (and government attitude towards) people who make quiet disclosures.

For those U.S. Persons abroad too busy or in too good a mood to deal with the depressing drudgery of being insulted by the GAO for seventy-two pages, Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Pressreleases has helpfully regurgitated the contents of the report and all its fallacious assumptions, without bothering to commit any actual journalism such as, you know, interviewing actual “offshore” voluntary disclosure participants who have been well and truly screwed for daring to save where they live (as Amy Feldman did back in 2011), or breaking down some of the appalling statistics in the report.
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