Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 3 of 11 (Year 2016)

2,818 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles Open for Comments – Part 3 of 11 (Year 2016)”

1. @MuzzledNoMore,
   For anybody smug ask them if they filled BE-10. Legally everybody on the planet should have filed that form. It’s target is of course anybody with any foreign assets. It has a fine of course for not filling and a version of the form to file if you don’t have to file the form.

2. Sickening article on Schumer trying to do corporate tax reform.
   They want to tax at 19% what every other country taxes at zero. They try to make it seem like it’s a deal that companies accept rather than whats forced on them.
   It’s clear they never will back away from wanting to tax it all no mater where you live or where you earned it. After all American built all that stuff in other countries.
   Notice that they want to spend it on infrastructure even though that’s being paid for by taking people passports already.

   http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2016/02/11/sen-chuck-schumer-pushes-international-tax-reform/80238332/

3. Laugh as you read Jack Lew squealing about that nasty foreign governments trying to tax money that the US says is theirs.

   http://thehill.com/policy/finance/269154-lew-calls-on-eu-to-stop-tax-probes-of-us-firms

4. @Neill

   I just left a comment at the Jack Lew comedy page:

   Is there ANY limit to American hypocrisy? Apparently not – Empire has its privileges.

5. @Neill

   Meanwhile, that Chuck Schumer is just a one-man wrecking crew for the U.S. economy, isn’t he?

6. @Muzzlednomore
   Maybe she owned Canadian mutual funds?
   @Barbara
   That Canadian who turned American to vote for Bernie needs to talk to a Bernie volunteer I know who can’t vote for him because he had to relinquish their U.S. citizenship due to the complexity of the tax law.

7. @Barbara
   That woman who is getting U.S. citizenship to vote for Bernie has lived in the U.S. 21 years, so this makes sense for her, although won’t the U.S. expect her to give up her Canadian citizenship?

8. @ Publius,

   There is a line in the US citizenship oath about renouncing and abjuring former citizenship, but by Canadian law she remains Canadian despite this. If she wants to renounce her Canadian citizenship, she’d have to do so through Citizenship and Immigration Canada. If you want to retain your original citizenship, a renunciatory oath in a country’s citizenship oath is for practical purposes meaningless, unless you’re from a country which chooses to recognise it in their law.

9. Publius,

   Here is another discussion regarding the clause in the US Oath of Allegiance: http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/can-you-get-dual-citizenship-us-immigration-laws.html.

   If you were to try to read the U.S. law concerning dual citizenship – that is, simultaneously holding U.S. citizenship and citizenship in another country — you wouldn’t find much solid information. Nowhere does the law say that a person can be a dual citizen with the United States — but then, nowhere does it say that one can’t.

   Historically, the U.S. government has used this vagueness as an opportunity to make people believe that choosing U.S. citizenship excludes all others. The oath that people take at their swearing-in ceremony (quoted below) would make anyone think that they were agreeing to give up all other citizenships right then and there. It says that the person will “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which [you] have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”*

   However, the fact of the matter is that the United States will not actually stop someone from keeping citizenship in another country after becoming a U.S. citizen. Nor will it cancel the U.S. citizenship of someone who becomes a citizen of another country. The key is whether the other country’s laws allow it.

   Many people today successfully hold dual citizenship—that is, they are simultaneously U.S. citizens and citizens of another country.

   *Double-talk / shuck and jive

10. FINALLY FEATURED IN AUSTRALIA

    February 11, 2016
    Record numbers of US citizens surrender their passports to avoid paying double tax
    By James Gorman

    Thousands of Americans are renouncing their status as US citizens in order to avoid the tax man.

    The US Treasury reported a record 4,279 people abandoned their claim to citizenship in 2015, with one of the chief reasons being expats getting stung by double taxation.

    In 2010 the US Government established the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), which means if citizens live overseas they are required to lodge tax returns in the homeland as well as their adopted country.

    In an interview with the BBC, a woman identified only as Jane said it had been a tough decision to forfeit her citizenship.

    “If it weren’t for FATCA and the decision by the bank, I’d never be doing this. Never ever. It’s just breaking me in half,” she said.

    US taxpayers living abroad must declare foreign assets worth more than $200,000 USD (AUD$283,585.37).

    While not every expat falls into this price bracket, it does place heavy burdens on foreign banks who are strongarmed into enforcing the laws.

    Financial institutions across the globe risk cutting ties with US counterparts if they fail to report foreign tax.

    The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) warned any Australian financial institution failing to comply with FATCA would be declared by the US as a non-participating financial institution.

    DeVere financial advice group’s founder Nigel Green said the contentious tax laws were turning American citizens into “financial pariahs”.

    “Foreign financial institutions now routinely refuse to handle American clients, even if they have been clients for years, as it is too much trouble and too costly to comply with FATCA,” Green told the Financial Advisor.

    “Most Americans abroad are proud of their citizenship and indeed many find it an integral part of their identity when living overseas.”

    © ninemsn 2016

11. President Obama’s Final Budget Proposal Renews Call for Comprehensive International Tax Reform, Echoes Administration’s Prior Proposals

    Provide relief for certain accidental dual citizens.

    http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=df9e7b3b-2c59-4272-9491-e8de4a51b6d0

12. @Publius,
    This was covered at our ceremony. You don’t have to give up other citizenships. You have to give up titles you hold in other countries. I guess like if your a knight etc.

13. @Deckard1138,
    I find Schumer to be the most detestable of people. I always comment on articles that mention him.

14. Here is the so-called “relief” for “certain accidental dual citizens” from the newly-released Obama Budget Proposals.

    “To provide relief to so-called “accidental Americans” from the section 877A “exit tax” on expatriation, the Administration proposes that an individual will not be subject to tax as a US citizen and will not be a covered expatriate subject to the mark-to-market exit tax under section 877A if the individual: (i) became a citizen of the United States and a citizen of another country at birth; (ii) at all times, up to and including the individual’s expatriation date, has been a citizen of a country other than the United States; (iii) has not been a resident of the United States (as defined in section 7701(b)) since attaining age 18½; (iv) has never held a US passport or has held a US passport for the sole purpose of departing from the United States in compliance with 22 CFR §53.1; (v) relinquishes his or her US citizenship within two years after the later of January 1, 2017, or the date on which the individual learns that he or she is a US citizen; and (vi) certifies under penalty of perjury his or her compliance with all US federal tax obligations that would have applied during the five years preceding the year of expatriation if the individual had been a nonresident alien during that period. The proposal would be effective after December 31, 2016.”

    So the “accidentals” would *still* have to fork over $2350.00 to relinquish their American citizenship and “get right” with the IRS for the previous 5 years! What sort of nonsense is this?! Would someone please tell me that I have misinterpreted this paragraph?!

15. No — it’s the same old refrain, MuzzledNoMore. Some may choose to do so. Some may not be able to afford to do so — but still there is all of the expense — it just will not be ongoing. Some will say *F-off*. For some, those without *requisite mental capacity*, it would not apply no matter. There has to be something better for non-meaningful ACCIDENTAL Americans who became so without consent. I made choices (many of them at great financial cost, for me) — our children (born in the US to other-country parents and returned to their own country with their parents as infants, young children, before the age of majority or those born to US parent(s) in other countries with the requisite *qualifiers*) do not have choices other than, if this passes, to pay the ransom to a country that is not their own — a country that calls itself *The Land of the Free*.

    My broken record — surely any country called *The Land of the Free* with citizenship-based taxation law would not entrap any born as *Accidental Americans*. A FREE country would give those so-born choice to CLAIM US citizenship if their birth facts so allowed. Surely a FREE country, true and brave, would not entrap any *Accidental Americans* into the consequences of their exceptional CBT law — they would give such persons an OPT-IN, never an OPT-OUT with the onerous price tag for some (pay a *slave* price tag for freedom), and never for others.

16. @muzzled
    I think it means you have to have claimed any US sourced income during the prior 5 years just like all the non-slaves.

17. Obama is anti – American. He should be making it easier to stay American.

18. @MuzzledNoMore
    “So the “accidentals” would *still* have to fork over $2350.00 to relinquish their American citizenship and “get right” with the IRS for the previous 5 years!”

    As I read the above, yes, you are correct.

    As I read it, the only thing being “given away” is the trigger (stipulations) for the Exit tax no longer exists if the dual citizen is not currently resident in the “other” country of the dual citizenship, and provided they were not resident in the US past the age of 18.5 years. Currently the only way to not be liable for the exit tax stipulations ($2M, $150K average), is to be a dual citizen and resident IN the “other” country at present. Otherwise, nothing has changed. All other current requirements for renouncing/relinquishing are maintained ($2,350 plus 5 years returns).

    The generosity is astounding (satire!) and I’m left speechless. My fear is this sort of “generosity” is what we could look forward to if, for example, the Safe Harbour/Same Country Exemption were to be passed.

    They still can’t get past the threat of the exit tax as punishment for renouncing, and obviously see this as a benevolent loosening of the punishment for someone who perhaps never had the opportunity to “benefit” from being in the US.

    It’s an astounding statement to make in its own right. It’s an “EXIT” tax. Hubris? Arrogance? Words escape me.

19. @Neill
    Thanks for explaining that.

    @OAP
    It is surprising that the figures are so huge.
    p.164/182 “provide relief for certain accidental dual citizens” $63 million in 2017, $108 million in 2018.
    Thanks for that analysis. So the only ones who benefit are quite wealthy people who have the misfortune of living in a different country than the one whose citizenship they had a birth. O.K., that is fair and is undoubtedly helpful for the EU, but I am very disappointed that nothing is being done for the problems that poorer accidentals face.

20. Re: President Obama’s Final Budget Proposal Renews Call for Comprehensive International Tax Reform, Echoes Administration’s Prior Proposals

    Besides the hair-raising content of such articles, it’s the clinical and nonjudgemental manner in which they are presented by their authors that just sickens me. The complete absence of ANY critique or moral dimension makes my blood run cold. I am constantly reminded that these are EXACTLY the same kinds of technocrats who throughout history have unquestioningly facilitated the most egregious crimes against humanity. In other times and places, these morally-bereft “professionals” would have just as easily supported the status quo of slavery, eugenics, lobotomies, electroshock, apartheid, residential schools and on and on. These are the types who never ask questions, but who so cooly and efficiently keep the Deutsche Reichsbahn trains running on time…

21. No That’s not quite what the proposed change means. It would benefit most accidental Americans and is actually a recognition of the problem and worth promoting. Note however it went nowhere last year and will go nowhere this year. They did agree on one thing last year.They named a foyer in the Capital bldg. ‘Freedom Hall’
    The proposal is that an accidental American who lives elsewhere since the age of 18 and hasn’t used a US passport except perhaps to leave and relinquishes within 2 years will be treated as a non resident alien for the requisite 5 years. NRAs only file for US source income.
    Therefore almost all accidental Americans would have no income tax or FBARs to file.
    I repeat. This proposal aln’t going anywhere.

22. OAP, The way I read it, the ‘accidentals’ would not have to file 5 years like they do now. They would only have to have claimed US sourced income like other non-residents do now for the past 5 years. Still the proposal is way too limited (doesn’t help me for example yet I left USA as a baby) but for those ‘accidentals’ who can get out for ONLY 2,350 USD at least that puts them on the same level as the compliant US persons who can escape for the same price. It is the compliance costs and associated penalties, amnesty program risks, etc that have many ‘accidentals’ backed into a corner.

23. @Duke Unfortunately I believe you are correct which is a shame, not that the proposal is perfect but it could have helped a lot of people.

24. We will have to investigate but the stipulation is that accidentals file the same as “non-resident aliens” who would not file FBARs. And as long as there are not direct US funds in any other accounts, one is talking about filing a blank `1040NR for which no money is required.

    I am not suggesting anyone should do this. But if they adopt it, one might consider paying the fee to get out and forever forget worrying about this. Obviously this is not going to go away easily or perhaps, forever. It might be the best deal one will ever get. And I direct this only to those who are afraid enough that just leaving it alone will not suffice (for them).

    That is what I did (though paid more for tax filings) and I don’t regret it for one minute. I decided in spite of “principle” my sanity was worth much more to me.

25. What we really need though is the Canadian government to work with the US government to let ‘non-meaningful’ US persons go for free where ‘non-meaningfuls’ encompasses more than just dual born citizens as described in the proposal. I mean if they are going to FATCA us that is the least they could do.

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