Since Arrow has been having fun at the Vancouver Sun, with his “What if” scenario of Kenya adopting the U.S. citizenship taxation regime, why stop there? Roger Conklin suggests that maybe we could get Romney’s campaign attention on a similar issue that may relate to him. Continue reading
Yearly Archives: 2012
Compliance counseling is like a box of chocolates – “You never know what your gonna get” – Circular 230 vs. the fiduciary duty to the client
Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship.
The Isaac Brock Society is becoming a interest place to “hang out”. At least this is true for many U.S. citizens living abroad who are desperately attempting to ensure that they are in U.S. tax compliance Many people are grappling with how to be compliant on a “going forward” basis. Others are trying to figure out to deal with “past compliance issues”. There are of course a number of ways to come into compliance. What all these people have in common is a desire to be U.S. tax compliant. Yet, the IRS seems hell bent on continuing on treating U.S. citizens living abroad as though they are tax cheats. For many U.S. citizens living abroad the emotional strain is such that they are driven to renounce U.S. citizenship. This is the price of a good nights sleep.
So, what’s a poor U.S. citizen living abroad to do? Well, they consult a “cross border professional” where they get advice that comes in all shapes, sizes and perspectives. The advice is so varied that it reminds me of the line in Forrest Gump:
“Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
When it comes to “compliance counseling” – You never know what you’re gonna get.” Continue reading
Renunciation rates in Europe: five Swedes renounced citizenship in 2010
Following up on my last post about renunciation rates in Asia, here’s some extracts from EuroStat’s loss of citizenship table, which I ran across recently. (Like last time, all diaspora population figures are taken from the Global Migrant Origins Database, and don’t include ethnic descendants with other citizenships). The EuroStat data is not very good for longitudinal comparisons, since it only shows one or two years, but there’s still some interesting things to be learned from it. One of many instructive cross-sectional comparisons:
United States
- Diaspora population: 2.2 million
- Homeland population: 310 million
- Latest renunciation figure: 1,781 (2011; including former green-card holders)
- Renunciations per 100k diaspora population: 81
- Renunciations per 100k homeland population: 0.53
Sweden
- Diaspora population: 300,000
- Homeland population: 9.3 million
- Latest renunciation figure: 5 (2010)
- Renunciations per 100k diaspora population: 1.66
- Renunciations per 100k homeland population: 0.032
TD Waterhouse FATCA Privacy Waiver Form
We have the smoking gun right here. I believe the fact that TD is now publishing this document is enough to now start making formal complaints to the Privacy Commissioner’s Office both in Ottawa and her provincial counterparts. If the Privacy Commisioners office won’t do anything then I believe the courts are now an available avenue. Lawyer up as they say. It might also be worthwhile to forward this form to the lawyer I recommended several months ago for his take.
http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/products-services/investing/documentation-index.jsp
http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/document/PDF/apply/forms/tdw-apply-forms-591856-di.pdf
I believe that by publishing the above linked form TD is now in VIOLATION of Canadian law and is now subject to whatever legal action IBS members want to throw at them. (Note: there is no definition at this point of who exactly even is a US citizen and I suspect many of us don’t even consider ourselves to be ones in our own minds).
Out of the fry pan: on playing musical trading accounts (UPDATED)
Update: I am happy and relieved to say that the rest of my US positions have been moved now to TD Waterhouse. It is now only a matter of getting them to transfer any remaining dividends will be paid on the 15th of June. Also, I’ve learned the reason for Penson Worldwide’s financial woes: a bad bet on a horse race track.
(NB: I’ve started to see my final positions show from Questrade show up in my TD Waterhouse US funds account after I published this post–so good news. I’ve got my fingers crossed for now.)
In the Spring of 2011, when I was in the process of getting out of the United States tax system, my lawyer advised that I move my accounts out of TD Waterhouse into a company that had no holdings in the United States, as he thought the US could hold TD’s US assets as leverage against me. So I took his advice, and moved my bank accounts to a credit union and my investment accounts to Questrade, a Canadian only company. Thus, if things got nasty with FATCA, I would create distance between me and the United States. I wonder how many US laws I broke doing this.
Almost no U.S. Persons abroad properly report their foreign retirement accounts on Form 3520
Through a recent post at TaxProf Blog, I learned about the IRS’ Statistics of Income Bulletin. This finally gave me the lead on a figure in which I’d been interested for a long time: the number of Form 3520 filers. Unfortunately, the statistics are only released once every few years, and the next set aren’t scheduled for publication until December 2012. But you can see the figures for 1998, 2002, and 2006 here on the IRS website. The latest number: U.S. Persons filed a grand total of 1,952 Form 3520s and 3,819 Form 3520-As in 2006.
Don Whiteley at Vancouver Sun: The Accidental Kenyan
Don Whiteley asks what would happen if Kenya emulated the citizenship and taxation policies of the United States:
Ron Paul condemns Ex-PATRIOT Act: “will ensnare many ordinary middle-class Americans”
Of course, it was already obvious that libertarians oppose the “Expatriation Prevention” Act, but it’s heartening to see at least one sitting politician take a public stance against the wave of demagoguery and jingoism on which Schumer is surfing. Transcript and my comments after the jump.
US Government Fundraising Event!
Yes, the United States of America wants YOU to donate!
As of May 24, 2012 the US total debt stood at $15,719,144,405,320.76 and we’ve belatedly realized that this actually is a serious load that must be addressed.
Over the past few years it’s come to our attention that we’ve been seriously neglecting many people who could be donating and reducing the overall debt, which would reduce the load on the US citizens who live in our great country. We’ve thought long and hard on this and have come up with a solution to make it very easy for you to donate.
United Nations’ human rights complaint procedure
I offered a commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, showing how the United States violates the letter and spirit of nearly every single right through its extra-territorial policiesof citizenship based taxation. For those who are sick of this, we probably have the basis of bringing a legitimate complaint against the United States at the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Now, if we were to succeed in bringing a legitimate complaint, we could create a lot of bad publicity for Schumer, Boehner, Casey, Reed, Geithner, Shulman and Obama. So I reproduce the complaint procedure here and I open up this question to discussion–What are the pros and cons? How should we go about doing this as a group?