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Days 1-52
■83,030 hits on Isaac Brock Society in 52 days, Incredible!!
Look at this Canada….There are MANY of us out there, and this is just the start!
@Whowthissucks We’ve got to keep pushing. If Congress will not repeal double taxation, FBAR and FATCA, we need to get the governments in the countries where we live to declare these unconsitutional.
@ Jefferson D. Thomas
I agree!! Whom do we write our concerns too? Ill be 100% honest, before this went down, I have not followed politics at all….I do not have much knowledge when it comes to who does what and where.
@Wowthissucks @all
You can get the name and address of your congressmen and senators here:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
If for some reason you are unable to vote because you don’t have a home state, I suppose you could write to the congressmen/senators in the state with which you feel that you have the most affinity. In that case, the Article 1, Section 2 argument that Congress does not have authority over you would be even more convincing.
Most industrialised countries have the names of representatives/MP’s whatever on their websites.
Just let us renounce.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
@Proud’; @All: I fully agree as to your evocation of the Univ. Decl. of Hum. Rights: Your post emphasized again to me that (correct me if I am wrong) renunciation should not be subject to approval of Dept. of State or IRS. If you haven’t already had the chance please see open letter from 2 weeks ago: http://stopunconstitutionaldoubletaxation.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/chc3a8re-madame-la-prc3a9sidente-de-la-confc3a9dc3a9ration-english.pdf (Search the text for: “renunciation is a violation of Article 15”).
I think that those “US Persons” who are able to exercise their right to vote in the US (through absentee ballot) should continue to exercise their right to vote (hence reserving the right to petition their Representatives and Senators) from abroad if they are able without risk to themselves (or their families). Of course, one should avoid trips to the US if one thinks they might be at risk for detainment or other troubles. I would encourage everyone to develop their personal risk plan, and base their decision as to renunciation or relinquishment thereupon. If you must renounce or push for relinquishment, do as you feel necessary. Otherwise, remain in your country of residence and continue the fight by debate, petition, and voting. With time, I am confident that we will win.
May I post articles on this group’s site?
I’m a US native and multi-award winning entrepreneur living abroad. I love the expat experience. I’m head of a firm called Bright!Tax and we help the 6.4 million Americans living overseas with their US expat taxes . Our site is http://www.bright-tax.com . My contact info is gjjdewald@bright-tax.com. Thanks for allowing me to participate.
Hi gjjd: this website is designed for peer-to-pear discussion–not a place where professionals drum up business. If you want to sumbit an article for discussion, please send it to me first. I will send you my e-mail address.
Petros, Can you adise how to get a WordPress ID? I have gone to their site, but find the array of information overwhelming. Can you provide a sequence of links! Thanks, and keep up the good work.
@NorthernShrike Yeah WordPress’ homepage is really confusing. They seem to think everyone wants to sign up to make their own blog subdomain. You can use this link to just sign up for a user ID: https://en.wordpress.com/signup/?user=1
I would like to become an author on this blog. I have a WordPress ID. (Thank you, Eric, for the assistance.)
NorthShrike (formerly NorthernShrike…someone already took that WordPress ID.)
Many thanks!
I would like to join in as well. Nice site and glad someone took the initiative.
If you can read French, a good article just appeared today in today’s Swiss Hebdo entitled “Hounded Americans are giving up their passports.” http://www.hebdo.ch/pourchasses_des_americains_rendent_leur_passeport_146769_.html
In it, the Director of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce says, “Double nationals who have no real need of their American passport are well advised to give it up, because it has become too onerous to keep it.”
@avowd
My favourite comment in this article comes from the US embassy spokesman in Bern: “In most places in the world, people are literally willing to die to become U.S. citizens…”
Most? Really? A tiny handful of despotic third-world regimes perhaps. But most?
It’s likely this spokesman commented in English, and maybe the article writer mangled the meaning somewhat when moving to French. Nevertheless, this comment appears to reveal a lot about the skew found in the general American view of the rest of the world.
@Watcher I agree, this Amero-centric attitude is making me sick.
Watcher: I have my reasons to doubt that he mangled what the man said. He reflects how most Amercans think Stateside: the USA is so exceptional, why everyone, but everyone wants to live there. As you so correctly say, though, the main people who do want to go there today are from the most desititute places on earth. Not that this is a bad thing, because early on in U.S. history, the immigrants were usually the most destitute.
What I’ve observed, in additon, over the past years, is that more and more Americans who come to work & live in Switzerland want to stay here–forever. And more and more of them are applying for Swiss citizenship. You didn’t see this 20 years ago. Back then, everybody couldn’t wait to get back home.
@avowd
Thank you for posting that. Very refreshing from the usual driven that English language press seems to produce on the issue. Somebody should reproduce this on the main page though in a post of its own.
I personally find the most damning quote to be at the end when the head of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce openly advocates dual nationals to get rid of their passports due to the costs involved in keeping citizenship.
@Watcher & Jefferson D. Thomas
It really does seem like those in power in the US or even based at its consolates live in a very isolated world, even whilst abroad. I would venture that the majority of consular employees who are not locally contracted have only lived abroad in the employ of the US government, which probably means that they don’t even understand the fuss over FATCA or FBARs, since I bet that almost all of them do not bother to open any local accounts and have only limited contact with the countries that they live in.
The comment about people dying to move to the US might apply to poorer parts of Central America (guessing here), but I’ve only met a single person in the last decade in the EU who wants to move to the US, and he was a doctor who stood to increase his salary by something like 400% if he did so. Everyone else that I know has absolutely no interest in moving there whatsoever.
@avowd I agree with what you say about Switzerland. Switzerland has increasingly become a modern multicultural democracy, especially since the new constitution a decade ago. I hope Switzerland will still insist upon the integration of its population (so as not to find itself in a difficult form of multiculturalism like that of the UK). I hope that it will still defend the rights of its people and its legal residents, even with the Americal Elephant in the room.
What a fantastic site! Please add me to your list of members.
Hi everyone. I am new to FATCA and am trying to understand its implications fully. But I got this very trivial doubt about FATCA. It requires the FFIs to report to the IRS about its US accounts or be subject to withholding. What I have a doubt about is what if the FFI agrees to report but deliberately reports incorrectly (like leaves out some US accounts from its reports). How will the IRS be able to detect this, as they don’t have the info. about those accounts which is exactly why they have enacted FATCA? – Thanks
I am not sure anyone knows the answer to all these questions but there does seem to be at least one way of verifying the bank’s acting in good faith: Those in an OVDI program must rat on the banks who held their offshore accounts. FATCA makes the banks rat on the client; OVDI makes the client rat on the bank. That’s how they were able to indict Wegelin, from what I understand.
Well, I am about to give up. I got a WordPress ID. I have been accepted as an author. But the WordPress blog system is quite opaque to me. My thanks to you who are contributing. I would like to as well but cannot aside from adding comments. And maybe that’s all I will be able to do…
Apologies for a grumpy post. In order to be more positive, may I make a suggestion? How about somewhere on this blog instructions that are simple, 1 2 3, about how to participate. I am afraid I am not going to spend an afternoon on the WordPress site in order to do so. Thanks to anyone out there willing to help out with such!
@northshrike: I’ve sent you an email on how to contact me.
I am in as Canadian expat living in US. I am doing the very opposite -:)