I have been thinking about the IRS concept of Horizontal Equity and it has occurred to me that Horizontal Equity actually attempts to do something that the U.S. tax code has never claimed as one of its goals, and that is to “equalize outcomes” for all taxpayers. The U.S. income tax system has always publicly been portrayed by the politicians as being a “progressive” tax system. A progressive tax system places the burden of income taxation on those citizens who have increasingly higher outcomes while putting little to no tax burden on those with lower incomes. Having a tax system that varies the amount of income tax charged by using income as the guide for collecting tax is much different from having a tax principle that attempts to guarantee equality of outcome or assure that everyone strictly has access to only the same taxation rules without regards to differing circumstances.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Some thoughts for immigrants caught in the IRS Jihad – This is for you!
Cross posted from RenouceUScitizenship
https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/200946182908948480
The OVDI Winners and Losers
The Winners: OVDI and OVDP have been fantastic deals for: big time tax cheats resident in the United States and the “cross border professionals” who have will continue to profit from them for years to come. The big time tax cheats have settled with the IRS for pennies on the dollar. They will retain enough of their wealth to live happily for the rest of their lives. The “cross border professionals” (if they really are “professionals”) have generated enough business to fund their retirements.
The Losers: OVDI and OVDP have been vicious assaults on: Immigrants to the U.S., Green Card Holders and U.S. citizens living outside the United States. For them OVDI is a guarantee that their years of saving, investing, hard work, financial responsibility and attempts to comply with the law as they understood will lead to their financial ruin. Why did they enter OVDI? Why would they enter OVDI? More on that in a moment.
The Biggest Loser: Surprise! It’s the IRS and the U.S. government. By allowing U.S. citizens abroad, immigrants and green card holders to be part of the OVDI shakedown, and changing the rules of OVDP mid-stream, they have so eroded their credibility, that honest people are afraid to comply with laws that they are just learning about. It’s in the long term interest of the U.S. government to encourage tax compliance. Instead, citizens are renouncing, immigrants are leaving, and Green Card holders are turning in those cards. The word is out. People who would have immigrated to the U.S. will now go elsewhere. The United States of America has depreciated its most valuable assets – “credibility” and “moral capital”. Both educated people and real estate investors (and others) may be reluctant to immigrate to the U.S. But, this is a subject for a separate post.
This post is for immigrants – Those who currently reside in “Form Nation“ Continue reading
James George Jatras on FATCA: marketwatch.com article
Wondering posted this on the How to Join thread where it doesn’t seem to be getting the attention it deserves:
James George Jatras is a Principal of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, a Washington-based government relations firm. He previously served as a policy analyst at U.S. Senate and as an American diplomat. He can be reached at james.jatras@squiresanders.com.” His article: FATCA’s “Vulnerabilities Evident,” Washington Expert Claims, Calls for Repeal WASHINGTON,
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Today's New York Times article re the very innocent and appropriately named "Accidental Americans"
Many Americans Abroad Surprised by Tax Code's Nasty Bite
Here is a well-researched and presented article by Brian Knowlton of the New York Times. It is journalism like this that tells our real story and the often tragic consequences for children born to US parents living in another country or those born in the US to parents from another country. None of these accidental Americans asked to be US citizens and somehow are not given a choice in the matter. Being born by this accident of birth, wouldn’t it be fair if there were a choice for them to accept or not that US citizenship at some point? A choice should be theirs, not that of the US!
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Michelle Bachmann:
I came across the following remark from Don at hodgen.com :
Don says: May 9, 2012 at 8:32 pm
… Other interesting news, Michelle Backmann has become a Swiss Citizen, strange but true.
I wonder what her stance on FATCA is?
Oddly enough, Wikipedia has been updated to show that she is “American-Swiss” (born April 6, 1956) “is an American–Swiss Republican member of the United States House of Representatives … “
Very interesting.
Going beyond blogging….
Global Hang Outs on air is a new offering from Google that caught my attention tonight. It got me thinking about the possibilities of reaching a global audience in other ways then just waiting for the MSM. Continue reading
Tax justice and tax compliance
After Bill McGurn’s WSJ article last month about American citizens becoming “economic lepers” (and the associated video — thanks Joe Expat), a number of prominent bloggers and journalists have been popping up to say that U.S. tax laws aren’t a problem except that they’re not restrictive enough. In particular, a post by the Tax Justice Network, riffing off of Bruce Bartlett’s New York Times piece, claims that there is no evidence for the fact that Americans are becoming “economic lepers” — because rich people are not moving out of the U.S., and because lots of people are moving into the U.S. Both of those latter facts may be true, but they are non sequiturs. The real question that McGurn was addressing is summed up in these paragraphs: Continue reading
American Citizenship: a Cost Benefit Analysis
Crossposted from the Flophouse. Okay, folks, am feeling perkier and so I thought I’d bring this one over. This is a very modest attempt to explain some of the thinking behind a decision to renounce (or not) American citizenship. I know there was another thread about this some time ago here at Isaac Brock so I’m sure there is nothing new here. But given all the recent media attention about this issue, I thought it was timely to bring it up again. This represents the state of my “internal committee” at this time. Your mileage may vary. 🙂
The U.S. has a new export that is really taking off: Americans. In 2010 a record number of U.S. citizens decided to renounce their citizenship. A mere drop in the bucket (under 2000) but a trend that has some people worried and others horrified and angry. This topic has finally hit the mainstream media with articles in the New York Times and the Huffington Post. Any discussion of why this is so tends to degrade very quickly into an emotional argument with lots of exclamation points, capital letters and a “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” mentality. It’s a subject that hits all of us (homelanders and expatriates) right where we live.
Last Call: Prohibition in American
I have started reading a book called Last Call which is about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s which I find similar to the current situation people face themselves here at IBS today. I did find an interesting review of the book by Macleans magazine about the impact and perhaps one might say benefits that accrued to Canada during prohibition.
Spam messages linking to irsmedic.com
The Isaac Brock Society has received numerous spam messages of this variety in our comment stream:
Rita Jaffey: By June 30th I have to make a decision about the FBAR. Still trying to figure out what the best choice is.
Jeneva Benafield: I’m waiting until June 30th to come up with an FBAR decision. Maybe I’ll just stay an ex-pat.
Priscilla Outhouse: I’m waiting until June 30th to make an FBAR decision. Maybe I’ll just stay an ex-pat.
The website for these messages is www.irsmedic.com. We invite the owner of this domain to come here and explain, if possible, why these “people” (eight different messages by eight different names, but only five unique IP addresses), who have sent these messages, would do this. I suspect it is an attempt to drum up business here at the Isaac Brock Society. Caveat emptor.