Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Yearly Archives: 2012

Power and Freedom

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The power of the individual in mass modern society mostly consists in the ability to say NO — and perhaps in being prepared to accept consequences.

Consequences may include lowered standard of living, curtailment of advancement, physical relocation, social ostracism, overt state repression, abandonment of citizenship, and torture and death.

People who say NO often discover the joy of exercising freedom, and the sometimes surprising lack of immediate direct proportional consequence for standing out and speaking up. This is especially true if resistance has foundation in genuine social relationships. [See The Power of Habit for an enthralling account of how and why Rosa Parks managed to spark a revolution.]
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Day One: Filing Previous Year Tax Returns

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I got a letter in the mail from the IRS stating that a request for transcript of tax return could not be processed because of my address across the sea.  So, I called to correct the address, corrected it and then later got another letter from the IRS stating that my non-US address still didn’t match their records, which is still the case today.

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Moderates, Extremists or those in between: A great line from the James Bond movie Thunderball and an old song

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[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB3RBxnn98g]

 

 

Emilio Largo: Stop it you fools! He’s got you shooting at each other – James Bond Thunderball

A long time ago, in the midst of another heated debates, that had it origins in the doctrine of political correctness, I suggested that:

What unite us is far greater than what divides us.

I think that might we worth remembering. Although we may not always agree, we are united in in opposition to: Continue reading →

The FATCA star: a design suggestion

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Some folks here, especially Steven J. Mopsick, our beloved former litigator for the IRS who has now turned advocate for fairness and justice for Americans abroad, have really wanted to stop the Isaac Brock Society from going off the deep tangent of drawing analogies between the United States and Nazi Germany.  Finally, as an editor and administrator here at Isaac Brock Society, I have to agree:  Everybody, please stop it! 

That felt good.  It is always good when you feel that you are in control and can order people around!

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Former U.S. Person to take charge of FATCA response in the Bahamas?

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The Bahamian debate about how to respond to FATCA is well underway. An article published yesterday in The Bahamas Tribune discusses some of the objections to the idea of an inter-governmental agreement. Former Attorney-General John Delaney points out that the implementation of such an agreement would fall to the already-overworked Ministry of Finance, requiring it to design and set up a completely new system for information collection. In contrast, Annie Chinafat of KPMG (who is also a member of the Bahamas Financial Services Board) is more optimistic, describing the IGA as “a starting point”.

But there’s one humourous aspect of this situation which the article doesn’t mention: Minister of Finance Ryan Pinder used to be a U.S. citizen. Continue reading →

Interesting video about pleading in front of the Supreme Court of Canada

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Given that some individuals here may some day be heading for the Supreme Court of Canada I thought it might be interesting to post a video showing what oral pleading in front of the court are like for an attorney doing it for the first time.(In all deference to lower courts in Canada I suspect “FATCA” related legal issues will only be decided in their finality by the SCOC). It might also take off some of the “heat” after the recent controversies we have had here on the site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKNKHJnpROU

Tax Justice II: No FBAR Penalties For Otherwise Compliant Recent Immigrants To The United States

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By popular request, I am making a separate post on the second of a two part effort by Stephen Mopsick to focus attention on tax justice for U.S. Persons.  His first related to American Citizens abroad, and was a posted  here.

On his blog, which he just posted yesterday, is his call for tax justice for immigrants as related to FBAR penalties.  I know that there are many immigrant who read here but do not comment, and would be interested in seeing this commentary.  They might not have been following the references to this post in other threads, so pulling it out for attention.  In it he writes:

The Plight of Recent Immigrants to the US: On top of all this, we are seeing an increasingly large number of a new class of people who are wondering how to be compliant with their taxes: recent immigrants to the United States who are otherwise squeaky clean tax compliant citizens who are only now learning that that bank account back home on which they have signing authority, may now be putting them at risk for confiscatory FBAR penalties.

Note:  I have not received Steven’s permission to post his commentary in its entirety, so will just provide the link here.  I highly recommend it contents for your attention.

Me, I’m a Moderate

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There has been some controversy lately on the Isaac Brock Society with some people posting and making comments that some others find just go too far. I’ve struggled with this myself, as I personally don’t agree with some of the parallels drawn, some of the wording used, and I am frankly uncomfortable with some of the thoughts expressed. 

From what I understand, the Isaac Brock Society was formed as place of support and resources for US persons affected by the United States government, particularly as it pertains to the travails of the US model of citizenship-based taxation. And that certainly seemed to be the focus when I first found this site back in February.   In the words of the founder, Petros,“The Isaac Brock Society started as an informal group of Canadians who began meeting in person and through email to discuss their US tax and citizenship problems.”  

Scrolling back through all of the posts, past or present, I find they do manage a tie-in to either the plight of US persons abroad, or the issue of citizenship-based taxation. Over the last couple of months, in my opinion, the focus has become fuzzy, with some of the later posts using what I consider pretty specious reasoning in linking back to the original issues.  

For several months, after I first found the site, I think I was almost addicted, visiting many, many times every day. Checking for updates was the first thing I did in the morning, and the last thing I did at night. Part of that was likely because I was still in shock and was in vacuum cleaner mode, hoovering up all the information I could find, and part of it was the relief in finding out that I wasn’t alone, and that there was a large group out there that understood, were empathetic and had much more information than I did. I will never forget what this site did for me in the first few months of finding out that the US probably still considers me a US citizen. 

I haven’t been quite so engaged the last couple of months.  

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