Yearly Archives: 2012

A frequent contributor, Em, e-mailed her story to me.

I am Canadian (born in Canada).  My husband is American (born in the USA) and became a Permanent Resident of Canada in 1996. We lived in the USA for 12 years after we got married in 1982. I was issued a green card that year which I never used — did not earn any wages in the USA — did not access any USA benefits — did not pay into Social Security and will not therefore be claiming it for myself in retirement. We came to Canada to visit my parents in the spring of 1994. My mother was taken to the hospital just hours before we arrived. Several weeks later she passed away but my father was not able to take care of himself and his home so I stayed to help.
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Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship

https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/190234812341170177

https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/190232537283571712

https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/190469167219097600

https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/190575102419681281

An interesting  post appeared today on Phil Hodgen’s blog. It appears that expatriation is on the rise. (Who could have known?) Note that the reasons have nothing to do with the payment of tax. They have everything to do with the the inability to live a normal productive life as a U.S. person living outside the United States. Continue reading →

Steven J. Mopsick asked me to share this blog with our readers:

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Just Me invited us to respond to Jack Townsend’s invitation to comment on an Open Forum; here is my comment awaiting approval:

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http://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/3916656-la-justice-suisse-affaiblit-l-accord-d-entraide-fiscale-avec-les-etats-unis.html$

The court said that mere tax evasion (not fraud) was not a reason for Switzerland to provide information to the IRS.

“Et le tribunal maintient que le fait de ne pas déclarer un compte ne constitue pas une fraude.” (The court maintains that not declaring an account does not constitute a fraud).

This is excellent news, I just hope that parliament doesn’t screw it up.

Here is the New Zurich Newspaper article on the same decision.  It goes into more specific details.  I don’t have time to do a manual translation from German so you’ll have to try Mr. Google. http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/aktuell/amtshilfe-gestoppt_1.16381062.html

Also, here is the Bloomberg coverage for the same (in English): http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-11/swiss-court-rejects-disclosure-of-credit-suisse-client-s-data

http://www.thefloridanewsjournal.com/2012/04/10/miami-marlins-coach-ozzie-guillen-suspended-after-complementing-fidel-castro-and-saying-h

If this man or anyone in America loves Fidel Castro why isn’t he allowed to say so without there being an uproar? Doesn’t America believe in freedom of speech? Secondly why should anyone care about what is said about politics by a man whose life is coaching grown men to play a child’s game? What kind of an apology is it when it is given under duress? How is this any different then when a terrorist group forces a U.S. hostage to make a video denouncing America?

When you consider that America has diplomatic relations with many other governments that are ruled by more unsavory characters then it seems apparent that America’s obsession with destablizing Cuba is irrational and should be an embarrassment to the nation.

A couple of days ago in a reply to the thread about Shulman not accepting a second term as IRS Commissioner, Roger Conklin wrote this:

“Petros, Allow me to make one important clarification: I think you will find that the Expat community voted heavily in favor of Obama because during his campaign he comitted to “level the playling field” for US citizens living abroad. He was very clear in this. But once elected he promptly did nothing to keep this vote-getting commitment.  ACA leadership has made many attempts to follow him up on this commitment, but the response has been absolutey zero.  It is if this commitment had never been made.  His actions speak much louder than his words.  I suspect and sincerely hope that in this next election the vote will be very lopsided against him. To those of you who are expats, please keep this in mind.”

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