Media and Blog Articles – Part 1 of 11 (to 26 May 2015)

3,971 thoughts on “Media and Blog Articles – Part 1 of 11 (to 26 May 2015)”

1. Thanks, JC (and Gwen who sent it by email). That’s three Brockers mentioned — also Gwen and Ginny. The part about me was from an article (not exact in detail) that appeared some time ago after many interviews with Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us/11iht-expats11.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global, before I got braver and spoke with CBC when I came out with my name. It felt good to no longer hide!

2. @WhiteKat

   It’s a step in the right direction in that Obama seems to be acknowledging that there’s a problem here, but instead of associating the problems with existing laws and correcting them, Obama’s transferring the responsibility of dealing with those bad laws to the citizen. He seeks to put his own citizens in a position to have to make a choice that they would not otherwise have to make if he would just deal with the bad laws instead. This is very poor custodianship of the American people when he would rather protect bad laws than the people laws are supposed to protect. Is the proper remedy for citizenship-based taxation to make fewer people Americans? It is if Obama has his way!

3. @Bubblebustin, It is also a step in the right direction, to allow some people to be free of the leg hold sooner rather than later. It might save some legs from being gnawed off.

4. I don’t oppose anyone who’d seek to escape, WhiteKat. I guess I’m more concerned about the general survival of Americans abroad than you are, which I suppose makes you a perfect candidate for Obama’s proposal.

5. BB, would you help cut off the leg hold trap of those non-American Americans if you could?

   Or would your support be limited to looking the other way while someone else did the job?

6. No one’s asking me to help, WhiteKat, nor am I obstructing anyone from helping, but I won’t cut my own leg off to prevent someone else from getting their cut off.

7. Even for the non-American American’s BB? Come on have a heart.

8. I don’t get why some people are so afraid to let accidentals and other non-American Americans (those who left USA before they became adult and thus Americanized) go.

   I mean really. We have pages and pages of dialogue here at this website helping people to escape the clutches of US CBT for whatever legal reason they can use, such as past relinquishment, yet those who really are NOT American, are not deemed worthy of assistance for extrication. For shame. Attitudes like this make me want to leave and never come back to this site.

9. @WhiteKat – agreed. Accidentals are less American than those who came as adults and yet we have no way to claim relinquishment like those who were able to swear citizenship oaths to their adoptive countries by choice. It’s quite absurd. So now we are stuck in the twilight zone and have no recourse but to be fleeced or become fugitives.

10. @GwEvil. but if they help or even just verbalize support for letting us go then they might not get to keep their Americanism.

11. @WhiteKat

    I don’t appreciate the fact that you’ve created this straw man by which to make me out to be some kind of villain. Are you interpreting the fact that I haven’t written to my elected representatives in the US in support of Obama’s proposal on your behalf as opposition to it? Just what do you expect me to do?

12. Time out!

13. BB, you just don’t get it do you?

14. BB, I don’t expect you to actively do anything in my support. But when you go out of your way to diss an out for people like me because you think it might get in your way of your goals for CBT (which by the way it won’t, and I also support your efforts, and will continue to support even if I get this fucking leg hold trap off), you come off as well…selfish.

15. Gwevil, “So now we are stuck in the twilight zone and have no recourse but to be fleeced or become fugitives.”

    That is false and you need to get out of that destructive mindset……

    Case in point, I am multi nationality person……with one of those nationalities from the former Warsaw Pact.

    Because of my prior life, the USG warned me quite specifically that my job made me a traitor to a nation whose nationality was imposed upon me. USG legal officials gave me all sorts of warning letters I had to sign.

    You are a Canadian Citizen.

    You are resident in Canada.

    You are obeying the laws of your Government.

    All else is FOREIGN.

    If you are fleeced by any foreign government it will be solely because you allowed yourself to be fleeced.

    If you hide like a fugitive when you are not having committed no crime in your nation, then you are a prisoner or fugitive in your own mind.

    Having said that, I truly admire your courage and to that say thank you. We all need lifting up at times and thats what I am doing.

16. I second my friend the right honourable Duke of Devon, time out…..

17. @George – to be clear – those choices are what the USG thinks they have given me. However, as you say, I am Canadian, and I wholeheartedly reject those “choices”. I will defy them til my last breath, just FYI. They are indeed a foreign government and have no jurisdiction over me.

    I will also fight this traitorous Canadian government til they are a distant memory or til my last breath. Whichever comes first!

    And thanks for the support! 🙂

18. @George re:”If you are fleeced by any foreign government it will be solely because you allowed yourself to be fleeced.”

    Yeah right.

    @ George re: “I second my friend the right honourable Duke of Devon, time out…..”

    Sorry, but neither of you get to call it.

19. I agree with the Duke – time out.

    The article also points out, as we have discussed previously,

    But it’s highly unlikely that the Obama budget proposal will become law. Congressional blowhards like Chuck Schumer will surely oppose it, and Republican lawmakers hardly want to make it look as if they’re friendly to the likes of Eduardo Saverin. In theory, Obama could issue an executive order authorizing the Treasury Department to make the change, but I really doubt he’d use up what little political capital he has left to do it.

    That doesn’t change the fact, though, that Obama made the proposal to begin with. While his motives may be purely political, this is the first time since the income tax was adopted in 1913 that a president has proposed modifying the current regime of citizenship-based taxation. While this effort is unlikely to succeed, it won’t be the last. And in retrospect, it may eventually be seen as the first nail in the coffin of citizenship-based taxation.

    It also says:

    If you’re not a covered expatriate, or if you meet these tests, you won’t have to pay the exit tax when you give up US citizenship. But you’ll still need to sign a certification that you were compliant with all US tax and reporting obligations for the five years preceding your expatriation. That poses big problems for people like Carol, her husband, and her disabled son Roy, who must still pay tax and interest on the “income” the Canadian government paid into their RDSP.

    Obama’s 2016 budget proposes to eliminate this certification requirement for some people who were dual citizens at birth. It’s a step in the right direction, although of the 7 million US citizens living abroad, most won’t qualify for relief under this proposal. But many – perhaps as many as several hundred thousand – will benefit.

    Unfortunately, that is not MY or MY FAMILY’S only big problem as there is not a provision for those like my son in this *proposal* — the ones that cannot renounce, though they meet the other PROPOSED requirements, because they lack the *mental capacity* to be able to renounce and a parent, a guardian or a trustee cannot influence them in doing so or do so on their behalf. The best I can do a work-around or my contention that all in my family are CANADIAN – only. I don’t believe any one of us should have to do some kind of *work-around*. We need tax law that makes just sense. So…

    We all need to work in the areas where we best can make a difference. It is well defined where my work has to continue.

    I don’t believe any of us here are opposing any others’ way out. Please, let’s not weaken what we have here at this site by another round like this. As always, it turns some away — persons who come here to find some help, some support in their own OMG moments — like ours in varying times ago. We all have different stories and facts — we also have a heck of a lot in common — and, it’s true all the things we’ve been told in our lives — that alone we can be strong (at least some of us), but TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER.

    None of this is going to get anywhere without LITIGATION wherever and with whatever people have the strength to stand up for their rights. My fight is in Canada as I am now OFFICIALLY *just Canadian* but I wholly support litigation and common sense from the US side of the border as well — as well as anywhere else around the world.

20. @Calgary, I realize you are an ACDC director. I also know you agree with BB, not me.

    However, there is something called ‘freedom of speech’ which is unencumbered for the most part at this site.

    Please don’t tell me ‘timeout’ and I won’t tell you ‘timeout’.

21. Obama’s offer to let some accidentals off the hook is not genuine. He is only trying to weaken the Canadian lawsuit against FATCA. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but that is what he is trying to do. He probably even has Roy Berg advising him.

    If Obama cared about expats as a whole, he would be trying help everyone. But he doesn’t. In fact, his goal is to preserve and harden CBT. Undermining the Canadian lawsuit will help him do just that.

22. I don’t have time for this and I’m not going to argue with anyone about what they know or don’t know about me. My being a Director in ADCS has nothing at all to do with any of what I think or don’t think other than my belief that litigation is the only sane way. I don’t need any last word so will try to move on to something less divisive.

23. @Calgary re: “None of this is going to get anywhere without LITIGATION wherever and with whatever people have the strength to stand up for their rights.”

    None of this (or any other human rights issue) is going to get anywhere if people don’t start looking out through eyes other than their own.

24. @Calgary, good deflection.

25. We have the US Financial Berlin Wall to keep people in by punishing those harshly who have left. Any cracks in the wall – say for accidentals – is a good thing that will weaken the wall, so says I.

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