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@Don Pomodoro
Thanx Don. It took me quite a while ’till I came up with something that most acurately reflects my current feelings.
I have a worpress account and would like to post here one in a while. I just found something I’d like to post, but I guess I’ll just include it here now in this reply. I wonder how much truth is behind it!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/congressmen-seek-to-lift-_n_1528854.html
With this bill, they’re only trying to legalize what they’ve been doing all along anyway.
@tell@don I have done something similar with the banner on http://stopunconstitutionaldoubletaxation.wordpress.com/
@tell@don I have done something similar on the banner for my blog http://stopunconstitutionaldoubletaxation.wordpress.com/
@Uncletell – I love the little icon. I need one of those.
That article in itself is propoganda. The message they are saying is that they haven’t been using propaganda, which is a complete and total lie. Let those sheeple be manipulated!
@geeez
I’ll make one for ya, but I think you’ll have to register with wordpress so you can use it as a gravatar. That’s the main reason I registered with them 🙂 Who knows maybe I’ll start to post every now nad then. I put up a picture on my blog page from a trip with took a few days ago,
For all of those who have more that 2 citizenships you could use a 3 or even a four leaf clover as an outline instead of a heart 🙂
UncleTell – I’m registered with wordpress. That’s how I post here. I’m in Brazil though.. That will make a GREAT facebook icon too. People will think.. WTF is that!? Maybe I’ll get “UNfriended” by a lot of Americans. But my email is ac35155_at_sapo.pt – just take out the “_at_” and substitute it for @. <– this way I don't get too many spammers sending me Viagra emails 🙂
@geeez
If it were only Viagra !! 😉
I’ll see what I can whip up for ya.
Hi there. I’m ‘Curtis “Ovid” Poe’ mentioned above. I write the moderately popular expat blog http://www.overseas-exile.com/. I often write about these awful issues that Americans abroad are facing and I would love to join this blog as a contributor. I realize that I probably should have signed up for this wordpress account *before* asking to join above 🙂
Feel free to send email to ovid at overseas-exile dot com to verify. I think you’ll fine my FATCA posts (http://www.overseas-exile.com/search/label/fatca) very sympathetic to your viewpoint.
I read your blog often. Its excellent. Welcome aboard. I look forward to your posts.
@overseasexile
Thanks for joining us. Have read your blog.
@Overseasexile. Yes, welcome! I particularly enjoyed your blog on Michelle Bachmann.
@overseasexile I also looked at your blog, liked it a lot, and added a link to it at my blog http://stopunconstitutionaldoubletaxation.wordpress.com/ I hope that is alright with you, if not let me know.
Welcome, and glad to see you at IBS.
@Petros, could we add Overseas Exile to the list at the bottom of IBS site?
@Petros, I had rec’d an invite long ago to create threads, but have never been able to. I would like to cross post one of my posts. Could you either post for me, or we can try again with a new inviet?
the post I want is my latest on US Govt fundraising
http://www.outragedcanadian.ca
thanks very much!
@ outragedcanadian
“US Government Fundraising Event!” — Very good! 🙂
But as for that last line …
“Contact the IRS today to start your donation process!” — The dog ate my paper work and there’s a huge hole in my pocket. Sorry I’ve got nothing to give. 🙁
@Em, LOL!
Hello All,
I’ve been enjoying the posts. I left the U.S. in 1995 and moved to Canada. I’ve been a Canadian citizen since 1990 (my mother’s family is from Ontario). I moved to Switzerland in 1999 and am now applying for Swiss citizenship. I’ve been filing U.S. tax returns all along and have also paid U.S. tax (as U.S. tax rates are higher than Swiss rates). When I get my Swiss citizenship, can I then just stop using my U.S. passport, let it expire and then stop filing U.S. tax returns? What happens to investments in the US? I have both IRA and non-IRA mutual fund investments. Do I have to pay an exit tax? I heard if you are “rich”, they want you to continue to file and pay tax for another 10 years after you renounce citizenship. Is this true? What is the definition of “rich”. I hope I’ve posted in the right place.
@Mooley, you can find full answers to your questions by some googling drudgework. In brief…
Until you take explicit steps to renounce US citizenship the US insists you file a tax return, pay US tax, report your account balances to the US, and so on. Even if your passport has expired. Or indeed if you never held one at all. You can probably leave your US investments where they are for now — no choice on the IRA anyway — but beware of new US laws, in particular FATCA that tries to apply what are in effect currency controls on payments made to non-US citizens. To the US, “rich” means assets worldwide over ~$2MM, something that reaches well into the middle class. The 10 years after renunciation tax law is the pre-2008 (HEART) treatment of covered expats and applied only to US source income. Post-2008 that almost completely went away (replaced by the “exit tax” on your investments, taxed as if sold the day you renounce). A couple of goons in the senate are however now trying to bring it back for “rich” renunciants with Ex-PATRIOT, along with a permanent bar on ever visiting the US. Nobody knows if they’ll succeed, but with the poisonous political climate in the US it’s quite possible.
One final thought. You apparently already hold both Canadian and US citizenship. Why would you then need to wait for Swiss before giving up US? Can’t you drop it immediately?
@Watcher, thanks. I’m registered in Switzerland as a U.S. not Canadian citizen. If I were to do everything over, I would have registered upon arrival here as a Canadian back in 1999. Since my Swiss citizenship application is pending, changing my registration here from U.S. to Canadian would be quite complicated. Both my Swiss foreigner-ID card and my Swiss drivers license say “American”.
What I’m wondering about is the U.S. investments. It’s kind of a Catch 22.
I can’t invest in non-US mutual funds since I’m a U.S. person. I therefore have to hold all assets in U.S.$ in the U.S. (Swiss brokerage firms won’t accept me).
If I no longer am a U.S. citizen and I no longer have to pay U.S. tax, what will happen to my IRA? What will happen to shares I own in a U.S. partnership? I’ll google around. thanks!
@Mooley, my sympathies on the investing catch-22. Because it cannot conceive of any reason not to live in the US apart from tax, the US has made it that way deliberately to discourage folk from either investing or relocating elsewhere. What you are experiencing is the direct, and intended, effect of this. Shaking off US citizenship is unfortunately the only remedy.
On your IRA, if you renounce and are “covered”, that is rich or solidly middle class, your IRA balance will be taxed under the “exit tax” immediately as if you had withdrawn it all in the year you renounce. So that could wipe 30% or more off it. While some of the “exit tax” provisions might be somewhat defensible, its treatment of retirement accounts is outrageous. It often serves as a motivation to renounce early rather than late; presumably the precise opposite of what congress wanted to achieve with HEART. Also beware that this part of the exit tax can capture non-US retirement accounts, as well as plain IRAs.
Your US partnership stuff would probably be treated just like any (appreciated?) share. Instant exit tax on the appreciation, but with a ~$600k exemption. The latter might protect you from the exit tax, depending on how much you own elsewhere. If you own your own home watch out for unrealized gains in it.
Bottom line: It’s convoluted and affects different folk in lots of different ways. DYOR and if your situation is complex, consider professional advice also.
@Mooley: Once you swear your oath to Switzerland, you may be able to relinquish, instead of renounce. See the threads on this topic. You can relinquish if you become a Swiss citizen with the intent of voluntarily expatriating from the US.
You still need to do this as the Consulate. You would then turn in your US passport. You would eventually get a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (the time it takes seems to vary from country to country).
The advantage of relinquishing instead of renouncing is it should only take one appointment, there is no $450 fee and the US is less hostile to those who relinquish rather than renounce (So far–It could be changing).
I have no idea how the proposed EX-PATRIOT Act will affect relinquishment. My personal opinion is US would have a hard time claiming you expatriated for tax reasons if you simply relinquished because you became a citizen of Switzerland with the intent of giving up US citizenship. Even US Embassy website points to problems with dual citizenship. In your case, once you become Swiss, it would be triple citizenship. If I were in your position, I would go to Embassy to relinquish as soon as I became a Swiss citizen.
Welcome aboard at Brock. It’s good to have you here. I hope you don’t find it necessary to give up Canadian citizenship. Unlike US, Canada thinks it enriches us as a nation to have citizens living elsewhere (and we don’t stalk our citizens living elsewhere for taxes!)
@Mooley, by law US requires it’s citizens to use US passports to enter the US, but it seems border agents can use discretion in its enforcement, at least when entering form Canada. The last time I went through with a Canadian passport I was asked why I wasn’t using my US passport, but I explained that I was going to the SS office in WA State to a get a SS number so I could renew my US passport (not really necessary, I found out later). I have, however heard a story recently about a US born person who had attempted to enter the US on a Canadian passport and was denied entry after explaining that he/she had renounced US citizenship. I don’t have any details beyond that, but I assume they either didn’t have, or weren’t carrying a Certificate of Loss of Nationality to support their claim.
@ All / bubblebustin,
Re: I have, however heard a story recently about a US born person who had attempted to enter the US on a Canadian passport and was denied entry after explaining that he/she had renounced US citizenship. I don’t have any details beyond that, but I assume they either didn’t have, or weren’t carrying a Certificate of Loss of Nationality to support their claim.
Which means we have to continue to monitor how long it takes to get our Certificate of Loss of Nationality from various US Consulates / countries. We also should leave the US Consulate with some kind of proof in hand of what we’ve signed for our Oath of Renunciation! Another blatant discrimination of some of us if we need to cross a border into the US.
What if the person was denied entry not because they didn’t have a CLN but because they said they had renounced their US citizenship? Border guards can do whatever they want.
Their security people harrass toddlers and grandmas, the guards certainly would have no problems justifying refusing entry to people who had renounced.
I have a feeling every solution we find to the problem is just going to lead to a another problem. Like dealing with a person who is mentally ill.