Author Archives: usxcanada

[Editor’s note:  This post clears up the issue of whether 8854 is required for people receiving backdated CLNs: If your expatriation date is before 2004, the rules are different]

(This comment from yesterday, buried at the end of an ancient thread, may have gotten lost in the perpetual flurry. So I repeat it here as a posting in its own right.)

Nobody has yet convinced me that any person who now relinquishes or renounces is not required to file Form 8854 to satisfy the IRS.

This official document says that 8854 applies to anyone expatriating after 16 June 2008.

And this official document says at 2.A — unless I can’t read — that for practically all of the Brock crew, unless you have already done the US consulate thing, you have not expatriated yet. Backdate that precious CLN to 1776 if you want, but when did you actually visit the US consulate?
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It is difficult to think of another group in Canada in the particular and peculiar situation of Americans
—  J.M. Bumsted

 
“U.S. persons” in Canada face difficulties that are encountered nowhere else on earth — at least not to the same degree, due to numbers and history and geographic location. A lengthy academic encyclopedia article touches on many strands of the complex web that ensnares American-Canadians. Brief excerpts from most of the ten sections are provided in the appendix below. The existence of that article in that collection was a landmark — a recognition that Americans are in fact one of Canada’s peoples! (By the way, nobody ever refers to an American-Canadian in the routine multicultural obeisances, do they?)

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I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member — Groucho Marx

 
Over the last day or so, on the Press Release Thread, we have seen perhaps the most sustained and extensive comment so far on the topic of what Isaac Brock Society is and who might speak as representative.

To start with, somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 different persons have posted to Isaac Brock Society by now. Not sorry to lose you probably does not want to count as a “member,” but so far represents an almost empty set. There are 29 persons currently listed as “authors.” Daily traffic runs in a usual range of 4000 to 5000 hits a day, sometimes taking a run up toward a 6000 ceiling. It could be speculated that for every active ongoing commenter there are 100 lurkers. Most days bring forth a handful of first-timers.
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“A new website designed for taxpayer identification (TIN) number validation for merchants who process credit cards. Starting January 1, 2013, new IRS regulations require TIN matching and validation.”

[ Newswire item picked up by Canada Business Review online ]

Capital Processing Network Creates Taxpayer ID Validation Site

Especially since my attention unnecessarily spiralled into the vortex of the latter stages of 2011 OVDI, I have been wanting to read The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Even without the IRS theme, I would have gravitated in that direction because (1) the book is a sizeable unfinished novel (2) the author committed suicide.

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Beautiful Souls is the main title of a new book that I’ve just finished reading. The subtitle lets you know more of what the book is about: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times.

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USxCanada can vouch for the reliability of the following reporter, personally known for over three decades. This report of no-fee relinquishment in Hong Kong, authorized for release to Brock, is cut-and-pasted from a just-received email. This case provides further evidence that residents of Canada are suffering execrable treatment by the country from which they seek release.
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It looks like the IRS set up a FAQ category for Canadian and U.S. Tax Issues back in February 2012!

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/content/0,,id=199920,00.html

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Check out Wayne Bewick on 18 April 2012 as he trolls for business and purveys misinformation via a Globe and Mail video.

Video: Tax tips for Americans living in Canada

Bewick says that FBAR reporting to the United States is all about the compliance —

if you have an aggregate of more than $10,000 in
accounts outside of Canada.

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Start by recalling that the Canada-US population ratio is roughly 1:10, while the Canada-US travel ratio is (more) roughly 1:1.

Clear trends are discernible for figures in each of the columns in the table below.
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