Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 30 Comments

Here is a recent article what was brought to my attention this morning that provides some opportunities for feedback and comments.

I bet you didn’t know that there are 6,320,000 U.S. civilians living abroad. Of which 205,118 are military personnel deployed overseas, and 270,604 are Study abroad students. (That’s a lot of study abroad students. More on that later.)

If overseas Americans were a state, we would be the 18th largest in the nation. (Sorry, Missouri!)

Read and comment here

30 thoughts on “Huff Post: Expat Absentee Votes Are Going to Be Even More Important in 2012”

  5. Those of you who are still US citizens and intend to retain USC might want to consider dropping a line to Obama, suggesting that if he and his administration persist in pursuing honest taxpaying overseas duals under FATCA, FBAR and all that crap, he and his Congressional/Senatorial candidates stand to lose potentially 6 or 7 million (why not claim the whole number, go for it!) overseas votes in November.  If anything at all might get Obama and the Democrats to rethink their tax extortion schemes, that might …

    They’re threatening your life savings and your sanity, why ever would you want to vote for those turkies?  Even if you’re a lifelong Democrat?

    Don’t get mad or paranoid, get even, where it really will hurt them — in November and on the overseas ballots.  What’s the point of democracy if you can’t vote against people like them?

    It’s exactly what I’d do if I were still a US citizen.  And I always voted Democrat when I was a USC.  (Except in 1968 with Humphrey on the ticket, I sat that one out thanks very much.  No way would I have voted for Nixon or Wallace. That election wasn’t a choice, it was a travesty and one of the main reasons I left and ditched my USC.)

  6. @schubert1975

    You could help, by putting that very message on Huff Post.  I am pretty sure that this Caitlin Kraft Buchman the Democratic National Committeewoman, DNC Women”s Caucus Board sees the comments.  The more that hammer that message home, the more the chances the message will begin to trickle into the Obama Campaign awareness that they are alienating an important segment of their “taken for granted” constituency.  Thanks so much. 

  7. I left one of my usual “punish the dem” comments. However, this comes with a great sense of weariness toward the GOP. So long as grassley is there, there will be problems.

  8. Yea, it is bi-partisan.  The guy heading up the offshore jihad, the FATCA Enforcer is no other than Bush appointee and Republican Commissioner Shulman!  So, go figure.  

  9. @JustMe

    Sorry but I don’t post on US websites concerning US politics, because it’s not been my country for more than 40 years and I want nothing to do with it.  I’m just suggesting that anyone on this thread who is a USC and still wants to remain one, and is registered to vote, might want to borrow or edit my suggestion and go forward with it (and maybe encourage US-resident friends and family to do likewise and broadcast the fact you’re pushing that, too). 

    Obama got my US sister’s vote in 2008. She’s either not voting in November or she’s printing “none of the above” across the ballot. She won’t vote for Romney, but Obama’s long since lost her, partly thanks to what I’ve told her (I’m not lobbying anyone in the US other than my immediate family, because they have a right to know what this is doing to my wife). Mind you, in her particular part of the US the only Democrat who carried the state since the beginning of the 20th century, as far as I recall, was LBJ against Goldwater and even that was by a very narrow margin, so her vote or lack thereof won’t make any difference to Obama’s chances in the electoral college.

  10. @schubert1975.  Ok thnks anyway.  BTW, I am quite happy to post on .ca sites to help out Canadians, but never mind.  I respect your wishes.  

  11. *Every thing Obamas´s government is doing to Americans Abroad have its consequences. My son who is dual citizen and lives in the USA got a good job offer to work in New Zealand. He turned it down because he doesn´t want to be an American Abroad (that is, a criminal according to Obama-s IRS). My son in law who has a Green Card was ready to become an USA citizen, and be proud of it. No longer. He will remain with his Green Card and will drop it when and if he decides do leave the Country. Just two small examples of what is coming. Yes, I am a Democrat and would hate to see President Obama lose. But, perhaps without knowing he has made my life hell.

  12. I posted a comment under the article, but it was incomplete.  I asked the moderators to post the complete comment, but they have not responded.  I would like to post the entire comment here:

    Current tax policy and its effect on Americans Abroad is likely the single biggest issue for Americans resident outside of the US.

    I will vote. I am a registered Democrat, but sadly, President Obama has lost my vote. I am also a victim of the OVDI program, which due to poor design, imposes life altering financial penalties on US citizens overseas who were filing both foreign and US tax returns, but unintentionally made a paperwork footfault. In spite of repeated calls by tax practitioners, victims, journalists and others for a modification of the program to consider these benign actors (many Americans Abroad) who are caught in a net meant for big fish, President Obama has acted like the Emperor in the children’s fairy tale “The Emperor and his New Clothes” and ignored these cries. Instead his administration only touts the success of his crackdown on overseas tax cheats. It is clear that for President Obama policy is more important than people. Mitt Romney recognizes the value of territorial taxation for corporations which gives hope that he might recognize the relevance of this policy for “overseas” US persons.

    I will give my increasingly important absentee vote to the candidate who addresses the current tax concerns of this constituency of 6 million people. So far neither Obama nor Romney has done so.

  13. @Innocent Abroad

    I made a reply to yours, and it will probably be edited too.  So Huff Post not only moderates, it edits, and that is interesting.  Will keep in mind next time I post.  Humm..

  14. I just went back to Huff Post, and made another comment.  I assume it will be moderated / edited or something, so will publish here too…

    Re: your number 4. “I’m afraid of the I.R.S.”  Don’t be. Voting in federal elections does not affect the determination of tax liability or tax residence. You won’t get a call from the IRS just because you voted in a federal election.

    Now why would you put No. 4 as part of your reasons not to vote, unless you know what we know!  You SHOULD be afraid of the IRS, as the current offshore jihad is targeting US Citizens living abroad.  

    With ever passing day, Congress passes or proposes some new power for the IRS, like the ability to block passport renewals, a provision buried in the Surface Transportation bill. The Ex-Patriot Act to make the Exit tax more expensive. The Reed Amendment to prevent you from ever returning to visit your aging parents, FATCA buried in the Hire Act. FBAR in the 70s to prevent terrorist funding, now being used to collect draconian penalties for benign failures.

    There are a lot of reasons to fear the powers Congress bequeaths to the IRS. Fear is a reasoned response to real threat to your tranquility living abroad. 

    With FATCA, the IRS now has the power to require the entire world’s financial community to search you out and report on you. Who is to say, that tomorrow Carl Levin won’t add an amendment to some unrelated bill to give the IRS power to match voting records of Expats with FBARs or 1040 submissions?  

    Trust them?  Not me. 

  15. In all fairness to The Huffington Post, the reason the complete comment was not posted was a problem with my browser.  However, the moderators have ignored my requests that the complete post replace the partial one.  It is good that Isaac Brock is around so the full story can get out.

  16. Well, I for one will not be holding my breath any longer for the US to change, regardless of who is in power.  I just had my first renunciation appointment and am scheduled to have my second one at the end of this month.  Wait time for the CLN is apparently going to be 2-3 months.  Should be just in time for the election, where I sincerely hope that Obama, Levin, Schumer and friends get sorely beaten 🙂

  18. I don’t know if my comment will be approved, so here it is:

    This assists to clarify that Americans abroad are not represented by the State where they registered to vote, meaning that we are only represented by the US president who also does not represent our interests, meaning that taxation without representation is indeed the situation.  Americans fought a war against taxation without representation, and now many US politicians are heavy advocates of such.  At the going rate, this may give Americans abroad two choices: renounce and/or declare war like how our Founding Fathers did so before us, ironically as it is.

    Here’s another article to comment on:
    Ask Stacy: Do I Have to Pay Taxes If I’m Not in the US?
    http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2012/06/05/ask-stacy-do-i-have-to-pay-taxes-if-im-not-in-the-u-s/

  19. @swisspinoy;

    I note that the ‘Ask Stacy’ column, like so many others completely omits any mention of the FBAR, FATCA, 3520, and the myriad of other forms with draconian penalties for those ‘abroad’. The tone is so ‘don’t worry about it’ breezy, and like many other discussions of taxes for those ‘abroad’, dismisses the severity of the problem by noting that the FEIE and foreign tax credits would likely reduce the tax owed to zero. That’s the kind of advice that leads so many to think that since we didn’t owe the US any actual tax, that there was no other serious and worrisome jeopardy lurking. 

    If the US can continue to produce media like this, then it is certain that there is still no good and widespread understanding of the disproportionate and unjustified burden placed on us without consent or representation.

  20. @badger, I read it exactly the same way.  The way he puts it, sounds like a piece of cake and “don’t worry, be happy” because you can just back file and so on.  He does do a bit of CYA when he suggests consulting a professional.  Yep, with stories like this one no wonder we get bewildered homelanders looking at us like we are making a mountain out of a molehill…. 

  21. @victoria; would that it were only a molehill. Obviously the IRS ‘education’ piece is still criminally ineffectie, if even those in the ‘homeland’ don’t know about all the huge pitfalls for the innocent.

  23. @Just Me, I wouldn’t be surprise if they’re quietly trying to censure your tweets.  It’s wrong, wrong, wrong!!

    @Badger and @Victoria, I completely agree.

  24. *A couple of days ago, I read also how Obama jammed the birth control thing down the throats of the Catholic insurance companies (USA Today “We didn’t pick this fight”).  Whether I agree with their birth control insurance policies or not, or whether I agree with wearing a Burka or not is irrelevant.  Obama was shown to just push ahead not matter what the protest.  I took it as a lesson. 
    I think that there are a number of conservative Catholics with the same passion as expats, and I cannot see that the non-traditional Catholics (those favoring birth control) would applaud the method used by Obama. 
    I wish I had a reason to register in NY for the next Schumer vote and in MI for the next Levin vote.

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