This is cross posted from the Renounceuscitizenship site.

Last week, I came across the 2008 edition of the following book:

The American in Canada by Canada by T. Ritchie of  Transition Financial. As you can see it is available from Amazon.com and from the author’s site. Since the summer 0f 2011 I have been learning more and more about the problems of being a U.S. citizen and living outside the United States. This book focuses on the experience of being an American in Canada. As a result not all the information will be applicable to those of you living in the rest of the world. Continue reading →

This is cross posted from the RenounceUScitizenship blog.

“Trust is like a vase.. once it’s broken, though you can fix it the vase will never be the same again.”

This post should  be read with a previous post: “The taxpayer, the IRS and the “professionals” – where to go from here“.  This post will suggest why,  given the IRS shift in policy on March 1, 2011 lawyers had difficulty advising clients  whether to enter OVDI (2011). With the exception of the most extreme cases (clear tax evasion at one end vs. Ambassador Jacobson’s 70 year old Gramma at the other), lawyers neither trusted nor understood the IRS. They could not. This post will suggest why. At the outset, it is important to recognize that “hindsight is always twenty twenty” and during the desperate summer of 2011, nobody had the benefit of hindsight.

The facts and issues are summarized by the conclusion of Taxpayer Advocates directive to the IRS on August 16, 2011: Continue reading →

As I was reading Peter Spiro’s excellent article this morning (many thanks to Just Me for this one) and after I had written my own post on recent Dutch efforts to restrict dual citizenship, I had a new (for me anyway) insight into this debate we are having with the home country.

Continue reading →

In case any of you would like to join this effort and haven’t come across this …

http://www.signon.org/sign/repeal-fatca?source=c.em.cp&r_by=188650

Repeal FATCA

  By Rami Schandall   (Contact)

To be delivered to:  The United States House of Representatives and President Barack Obama

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Some Americans in the home country have expressed a commitment to forcing American expatriates to file and pay taxes not only in their host countries but taxes at home as well. Without going too deeply into the basic fairness issue which others here have talked about so eloquently, I would like to talk about services.

Continue reading →