Monthly Archives: May 2012

https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/198031688910127104

https://twitter.com/#!/nobledreamer16/status/197930708155629568

Just received another update on the activities of Democrats Abroad’s FBAR/FATCA Task Force. Previous posts can be found here and here.

From: demcan@sympatico.ca
Subject: FBAR/FATCA Relief Efforts Underway: Tell Your Story Now!
Date: May 3, 2012 1:11:52 AM GMT-04:00

Your DPCA FBAR/FATCA Task Force,
Joe Green (Canada) Chair (demcan@sympatico.ca), Stanley Grossman (UK), Maureen Harwood (Canada), Carmelan Polce (Australia), Maya Samara (Switzerland) and Joe Smallhoover (France)

See also:

US Citizenship-based taxation and FATCA are egregious violations of the Master Nationality Rule 

Cook vs. Tait: The Book

———————–

This whole situation is getting ridiculous. Through citizenship-based taxation the U.S.:

1. Steals from the wealth of countries;

2. Steals from the wealth of individuals who:

– just happen to have been born in the U.S.; or

– were born to U.S. parents who just happened to be living abroad

3. Terrorizes U.S. citizens living abroad and dual citizens in the same way that Eritrea does.

4. violates the national sovereignty of other countries by: Continue reading →

The phone rang this morning.  For a few minutes, my actual phone number was on the blog, by mistake, and one very quick reader, Dianne, phone me from Winterpeg.  Not long ago, she learned that the United States still considers her to be an American, even though she hasn’t believed herself to be American since the age of 18.  So I asked her to write up her story so that the Isaac Brock Society could help her sort out this issue.  Here it is: Continue reading →

Put Sweden down on the side of the good guys. Here is their comment letter. Pretty blunt. More than even Brazil

http://bsmlegal.com/PDFs/SwedishBankers.pdf

I found an interesting guide to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the Canadian Bar Association’s website with an interesting commentary that I always suspected to be true but have never seen in black and white.

Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to equality Section 15 does not require everyone to be treated the same way regardless of different circumstances. Showing that the government or the law is treating you differently, or showing that a law that appears to treat people in the same way affects members of a particular group differently, is just one step in showing a violation of section 15 equality rights.

You also need to show that section 15 applies to the different treatment you received. Section 15 prohibits discrimination because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability. It also prohibits discrimination on “analogous” (comparable) grounds. The Courts have said that something “analogous” is a personal characteristic that you can’t change at all, or you can’t change without great personal cost or difficulty – like sexual orientation or CITIZENSHIP.

The Supreme Court has said that the central purpose of section 15 is to promote “substantive equality” by fighting discrimination. So in addition, courts will focus on whether the law or government action is discriminatory in creating a disadvantage by perpetuating (or indefinitely continuing) prejudice or stereotyping.

http://www.cba.org/bc/public_media/rights/232.aspx

Today I happened to run across the IRS’ list of tax forms provided in Braille format for the benefit of blind and visually-impaired taxpayers who are filling out their own returns. All the forms that an ordinary Homeland taxpayer might need are there. But quite a number of forms that ordinary overseas taxpayers might need are not: Form 8621 for your “foreign” ETFs, Forms 8858 or 8865 if you’re self-employed through a “foreign” sole proprietorship or partnership entity (for example, a blind husband running a business jointly with his sighted wife), and Form 926 if you form a “foreign” corporation and invest money or property into it so it can actually do business, for example.

Of course, even if you have 20/20 vision, it is not reasonably possible to properly fulfill all your reporting requirements as a U.S. Person abroad and still lead a normal financial life in your country of settlement. Whether or not you can see, more likely than not you’ll need professional assistance to properly comply with the punitive U.S. filing requirements. But the absence of Braille versions of those forms is just another small symptom of the same problem we all face: no one in the IRS even understands how many ordinary non-resident taxpayers are supposed to be filing these ridiculous forms, and no one involved in implementing the insane system is interested in making it easier to become compliant.

Some of you may be aware that I have been talking to John Weston re matters affecting US persons resident in Canada. He’s been designated the federal government’s go-to man on these issues and has used my circumstances as his exhibit in a letter he wrote to Minister Flaherty. I wrote to him yesterday complaining about the deafening silence from our government on FATCA (other than by the official opposition party), FATCA as it affects my children, updating him on our OVDI submission, and asking him if he can give me more information on his earlier suggestion that we may be able to have the capital gains tax on the sale of our home in Canada eliminated through Article 25 of the tax treaty. I received a response from his office today. It’s the usual short and sweet, but some of you may be interested in following up with Mr Weston because of the following: 

“Pls thank (Bubblebustin) for the letter; advise her we have passed her concerns to the Minister and sought a response; and that I have personally invited a top US tax attorney, the former Dep. Commissioner of the IRS to Ottawa”

I am watching the Public Broadcasting, NewsHour show, and they are going to have a segment on the U.S. lecturing China about what it says are its Human Rights violations. Now to me it seems most ironic that the U.S. on the one hand tells the other nations of the world that they do not have the right to tell the U.S. how to treat it’s citizens but yet the U.S. is always lecturing other nations on how to treat their citizens.

Those of you who, as I did, may have received a letter from Canada’s Minister of Finance, the Honorable J. Flaherty, will remember that inside the body of the letter that the minister’s way of distancing Canada from the IRS problem, was that Canada will not tell the U.S. how to tax its citizens. Well as far as I am concerned that hands off position is a bunch of crap. Canada has good legal grounds upon which to oppose the U.S. practise of citizenship based taxation. I believe that it has at least the law of “precedent” on its side because the U.S. has for so long ignored enforcement of this law and enforcement of FBAR filings. Certainly those who renounced before 1986 have a legitimate Human Rights complaint and Canada, as their representative, needs to take their case to the U.N. or the World Court.

Let the unjust U.S. laws see the light of day!