If you haven’t seen it yet, you will want to read the recent opinion piece at the Huffington Post. Another application for the Isaac Brock Hall of Shame. 🙂
Rebooting Our Definition of “Patriotism”
In this piece, the author, David Macaray, cites a June New York Post article as his sole basis to rail against the “Ultra Rich” that are renouncing their citizenship. You almost wonder if it is worth trying to educate this guy about the issues via comments like we did successfully with Al Lewis and Peter Dunn. They too went down the unpatriotic renunication rabbit hole on a misdirected invective against those that give up citizenship. However, came around to a more nuanced understanding when presented with new information. Here are links to their original misguided perceptions. Al Lewis, Peter Dunn
I see David is responding to some well written comments, so he is paying attention, although I am sure he is somewhat surprised by what he is reading. You are welcome to join in.
The article is a real testament to the sorry state of journalism. Writer seems a bit thick.
*I constructed a silly post, but it is too long, so I’ll just post it here. It doesn’t matter and won’t make a difference anyways, so no worries. 🙂
*swisspinoy
Couldn’t have said it any better!
By how much is it too long? Make 2 post out of it 🙂
I looked back in the article to see where he got it wrong, since he keeps commenting that he just quoted the other article. Very interesting to see how things get twisted. I posted the following comment. It will be interesting to see if he responds. In case it doesn’t here it is
David, I looked back at the article you quoted. Please look at it carefully.
He quotes the state department “As many as 8,000 US citizens are projected by immigration officials to renounce in 2012, or about 154 a week, versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week.” One can argue about whether the numbers are accurate, but there is NOTHING in that statistic about wealth, income or any other financial information. In fact know that lots (almost certainly most) of those are not wealthy.
Next to that statement he says “High-net-worth individuals are making decisions that having a US passport just isn’t worth the cost anymore,” said Jim Duggan, a lawyer at Duggan Bertsch, which specializes in protecting assets of the wealthy.” Possibly true for some, but how many? He doesn’t say. Two, maybe, or ten, or a hundred. Doesn’t really say Certainly no where near 8000. Although I’m sure someone has an agenda and they would like us to make that connection
But he has put those two statements together in the same article, and you have drawn the assumption that all of those 8000 are ultra rich. Now how is that assumption supported by looking at the actual statements?
I think the rest of the 8000 would like an apology. And let this be a lesson in the power of suggestion to mislead.
@swisspinoy
Yes, break it up into a couple posts. I had to do that, and shorten my sentences. Good editing discipline. He needs to hear back more from folks like you.
@CanuckDoc
Good comment, I will a have to check to see if it showed up. I just took my own advice to SwissPony and did another response to LongArmAbroad. 🙂
Poor little Hannah Frame from Kalamazoo is just a young co-ed. It’s hardly her fault that she’s so dumb, given the current state of the media and the education system in the United States. But what is David Macaray’s excuse for being an idiot? He’s a grown man. At some point, people run out of excuses for why they think like immature children.
@Petros,
If I am going to be kind, I think it is just something that is so foreign (pun intended) to them, that it is outside their sphere of knowledge. Of course, that doesn’t prevent them from writing and posting opinions on something they know not about. Not an excuse, just an explanation, perhaps.
@Just me: thanks for this post, and yes, thanks for the moderate approach that you take which I’ve always been fond of. But I’ve lost patience with demagoguery. This man lashes out at me and all the other renunciants as people who don’t want to pay our taxes. He should have done his research before he spouted off like that. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction. What if I told him that I really didn’t want any of his ilk around me? It’s just childish. He wrote, “Good riddance to them.” So his country threatens me (and thus my Canadian wife) with 300% fines and jail, and he has the audacity to say good riddance to me? He should just grow up. Is that asking too much. Apparently so.
I just tried to add a comment to this sad excuse for journalism and received this:
“An error (503 Service Unavailable) has occured in response to this request.”
Looks like the storm has taken the entire Huffington Post site off-line, along with their illiterate ISP (“occurred” is spelled wrong – lol).
Poetic justice.
@Deckard1138
God’s wrath on the illiterate! Yes justice! I just did a refresh and it is still working for me, so hang in there, you may still get your chance. It doesn’t appear to have gone down. Please do try again, as you add a lot of good perspective.
@Petros,
You know mate, I really do understand how you feel. When I first read that article, it really pissed me off, and then I settled down and started replying. What else can you do? There is always going to be folks that have a platform without creditably on many subjects, and this is just one. It is the way of the internet these days.
I wanted to call him an idiot in the comments, but I tamed it down to see if I could get him to consider another view, as obviously he was not feel educated on the subject. When he came back to Victoria saying he had never heard of FATCA, I said, but of course not. Why would he be any different than 98% of Americans and probably 75% of Expats.
So it goes, and you do what you can do to fight stupidity. A comment here, a comment there, probably but just raindrops in an ocean of ignorance, but I have the means to respond, and the time, and so I do. 🙂
Now, here is someone David could have consulted about the Consequences of Renunciation before he wrote his story. When comments come back up on Huffington Post, I might just give him this link to read..
That deVere group blog really hits the nail on the head. Further down in the text from what Just Me quoted above reads:
“The majority of these US expats are being prompted to consider expatriation due to the complexity of the reporting process to the IRS, threats of heavy penalties, including for previous, inadvertent non-compliance and the fact that a growing number of financial firms are deeming FATCA too burdensome, meaning many are refusing to deal with US citizens or green cardholders!”
The deVere group writer obviously understands what American ex-pats are facing.
I just posted his in response to David’s reply to Victoria… in which he wrote…
David.
I wonder if we are failing to reach you?
I appreciate your honesty in admitting that you know nothing about FATCA, but this is core to understanding why people are renouncing their citizenship. You really have to study up on this, if you are going to write about renunciations of citizenship.
If you are still open to considering the causes, and what is actually going on, you might want to consider this posting I just read tonight by the CEO of Deveres Group. It is not all encompassing, but does add some back ground you may not be aware of.
Title: Consequences of US renunciation
“The US presidential race meets its final conclusion shortly and while there have been many debates on numerous subjects, the anger of US citizens living abroad over FATCA has been ignored, resulting in a growing number of Americans who have chosen to renounce their citizenship in favour of countries with a less burdensome tax code.”
You can read the entire posting here.
http://www.devere-group.com/blog/?p=55
FATCA is core to your understanding of actions Americans are being forced to take.
It is the Tax complexity stupid, as they say. 🙂
I posted my view in 4 posts. 🙂
@Swisspony…
Good for you. I am going to read them now for bed time pleasure! 🙂
mvh
Has Mr. Macaray taken down comments because he was not getting what he expected? The site says “Comments are down for scheduled maintenance and will be back shortly.” It doesn’t matter. One can write him directly.
Here is my comment, which I will post if comments are allowed again:
You meant well. You made your point. I used to think like you until I became a victim of legislation that was based on thinking like yours. For the last two years, because I reside overseas and therefore have foreign assets, I have been embroiled in an IRS program that has cost me my retirement savings for legal and accounting fees because laws and penalties that are designed to ferret out high net worth Americans who might be hiding assets offshore are being applied unrelentingly to law abiding, tax paying Americans resident abroad. Many expats have been caught by President Obama’s crackdown on offshore accounts that did not distinguish between criminals and law abiding Americans residing abroad. You may say yes, but I was referring to 8000 ultra wealthy Americans who are renouncing citizenship. I am willing to concede that there may be 8000 Americans renouncing citizesnship, but I would argue that many of them are middle class Americans.
It has become so bad for middle class Americans that mass renunciations are taking place. See the following article in the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, which I believe has less of a sensationalistic focus than the NY Post.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americans-in-canada-driven-to-divorce-from-their-country/article4179937/
Americans abroad are facing some serious problems. The true story that needs to be told is of the disenfranchisement of 6-7 million Americans overseas which may be pushing up renunciation numbers.
@Lisa
No, I do not think David controls that. They have been up and down a couple times tonight, but I just posted a reply to David that is in moderation, so it should still be working fine. If you check back, you should be able to post. I just clicked on it right now, and all was working fine. There are 71 comments and 3 pending.
Thanks Just Me. I posted and emailed him. In my email, I also told him to check articles by Willima McGurn in the WSJ, Brian Knowlton in the NY Times and Robert Wood in Forbes. As Bubblebustin noted, it is a shoddy piece of journalism. To me, it appears to be a patriotic knee jerk reaction to certain statements with no investigation into the data.
The site is down due to the power outage caused by Superstorm Sandy
Unbelievable that such a big site like Huffpost has no backup data centre. Or that their servers aren’t in Denver where it’s closer to the West Coast is lower and you don’t have to worry about hurricanes.
Anyway my company’s North America machines are located in … Vancouver. Great ping times to Silicon Valley, and neither wind nor water nor DHS seizures nor rogue DMCA complaints will take us offline! Definitely worth the higher bandwidth charges.
The site is back up, but the article is gone. The link just takes me to today’s stories. Does anyone how to see older stories? Although it hardly matters, I suppose because nobody will see my comment (or his response, if any) I was just curious if he had anything to say about it.
*CanuckDoc, the “today’s stories” is just a redirection so that one doesn’t get the infamous “404 page not found” error. The article will probably be back when the power is running again.
@all…
Article still there. I just clicked on it, and it worked. So probably just some temporary problems.
Many excellent and convincing arguments have been posted! Yet, will this change the views of some self-declared “patriots”? Unlikely. Sometimes, some self-declared “patriots” are unknowingly so eager to destroy their nation that they don’t notice the damage they are causing to it until it is already way to late. Yet, at least we pointed at the light shining into the dark tunnel, showing them the way out and thus cannot be blamed if they fall further into the darkness.
I wrote Mr. Macaray at his email address with what I posted above and he responded. He said:
“Sorry to hear about your difficulties. I had no idea of the tax problems expats were facing.”
So it seems that our message may be getting through. I encouraged him to use his journalistic skills to make the plight of Americans abroad known when it comes to FATCA, taxes in general and OVDI. I gave him a list of references that he can contact if he wishes to explore more in depth.
Now the question is if he will be a real patriot and help fellow Americans who are in distress by making others aware of our situations and issues.