The following post appeared on the RenounceUScitizenship blog.
Making Choice to Halt at Door of US Citizenship http://t.co/rdiolrkfqu – It's the identity stupid! But, mostly same tax rules apply.
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 26, 2013
The above tweet references an article published on August 25, 2013 at the New York Times. The article is popular and as of now has generated almost 600 comments. It’s a very interesting article because it dispels the myth that all Green Card holders want U.S. citizenship. The article highlights the fact that there are many Green Card holders who choose NOT to become U.S. citizens either because:
– they are indifferent to U.S. citizenship and don’t have a compelling reason to get it;
– they specifically do NOT want U.S. citizenship.
The article focused largely on the connection between citizenship and identity. Interestingly there is no mention of the FBAR fundraiser or other injustices to which immigrants have been subjected. It is full of interesting and instructive comments.
Excerpts that are relevant to the link between citizenship and identity include:
“I would feel that if I get the American citizenship, I would feel a little less Italian,” he explained. “I really don’t feel American.”
and
“Ultimately we’re European,” explained Mr. McLeod, an employment recruiter who lives with his family in Rhode Island. “If you were an American going to Europe and you weren’t an economic refugee or a political refugee, why would you suddenly say, ‘I’m going to become a Frenchman’?”
The obvious connection between citizenship and identity got me thinking about the plight of Americans abroad. Readers of this blog know how strongly many Americans abroad have been affected by the Obama/IRS assault on them. The assault is not abating. Many wait in terror of FATCA and hope that their retirement and pension accounts will not be confiscated under the guise of PFIC taxation.
Americans abroad are being forced to renounce their citizenship. I have argued that that the 14th amendment prohibits the forcible destruction of citizenship. Many of those forced to renounce their citizenship openly “mourn” the loss of their citizenship. For them it is a loss of part of their identity. After all, citizenship is part of who we are. But in the case of Americans abroad, the loss of identity is arguably deeper.
The loss of identity operates on two levels:
First, the loss of membership in the country of their birth, the country of their families, the country of their childhood memories. Imagine having to reinvent your sense of who you are, where you came from, and (in some cases) where you are going. How are people to move on?
… and someone needs to write a book on the “human” side of this, the collateral damage, especially for families like yours, Animal. And yours, monalisa.
If only others really, really understood, we could (or I could) leave the anger behind and live my remaining years without the nagging worry in the back of my mind that my son’s situation (and me as the trustee of his finances) will be “caught” / that I am / we are criminals.
I don’t have the worry of having to visit aging, ailing parents across the line. Mine are both gone — and in many ways (as awful as that sounds), I am glad for that fact. I hate the burden on my one sister who understands all this by my unrelenting discussion to her of me, her Canadian sister, and family’s US citizenship-based taxation issues. It is a maze and we are blindfolded and we don’t have a step-by-step best procedure that will work.
PS — I am one who would be most hesitant to again cross the US border with my Canadian passport and CLN, especially if my son were travelling with me. That he would be safer to cross the US border with his Canadian passport that shows his Canadian birthplace with someone else rather than with his mother who has a Canadian passport with a US birthplace makes me sick to my stomach. But that’s my perception — I would not feel safe in doing that with him and some nice border guard asking if I was his mother, then putting two and two together.
I’m so glad both of you — and I wish so many others — were tuned in to Isaac Brock. And, I’m so glad it’s here for me and my unresolvable anger.
My whole life has changed because of this. I’ve felt immense grief that the only way to deal with and move on is to renounce. I always assumed if you were born some place you were entitled to that citizenship without any other need of proof. As long as you didn’t commit treason or some serious crime you were a citizen. I had never, once heard of an FBAR! I called the IRS many times over the years to make sure I still was within their rules and nobody every mentioned such a thing. Nobody mentioned when after 9/11 we were required to get a U.S. passport either. Some have said that it’s written on page 4 of the passport. Well, my vision is VERY bad even with glasses and I never even attempted to read those pages. I assumed if it was anything important I would have been told about it and barely glanced at the tiny,tiny print on those pages. Couldn’t someone have informed us when we landed here? In fact up until I had to get a U.S. passport I wasn’t too sure I was even a citizen there anymore sometimes since the person I spoke with when I landed at Buffalo insisted over and over that “You may lose your U.S. citizenship over this” So when I went for that passport in the back of my mind I was worried they might not give me one. When they did I mentioned the fact I’d been told I might lose my citizenship and the person there did say “No, you were misinformed.” I came here in 1980 so maybe the rules were different or something back then but, I only landed and had not taken citizenship.
Second, the loss of their cherished belief that American was a just nation, a free nation, a democratic nation. America has demonstrated that is is the opposite. Americans abroad live with the pain of betrayal. Imagine spending years defending the United States against anti-Americanism, only to learn that the critics were right.
As some here have said it’s not the America we grew up in for those of us that did grow up there. Or maybe it is and we’re just now seeing how they operate with those that don’t live there. At any rate the feeling of betrayal and back stabbing runs deep. Like many of you I have spent decades here feeling I had to defend the U.S. at times and stand up for Americans because I felt many times they were all negatively portrayed and not all Americans are bad people. I had to deal with this daily since my mother in law was staunchly anti American. Coming to a new country and having to deal with her hurtful remarks was hard but, I DID win her over. Her and most people who got to know me well. I feel the U.S. is losing something they cannot get back. They can never make us back into good will ambassadors ever again. There was little justification for us to do that in many cases to begin with and now there will be none.
The U.S. has shown no inclination whatsoever to stop it’s attack on its citizens abroad. For many the experience is captured in the following comment at the Isaac Brock Society.
@ That Is Me,
I also got high blood pressure too, for the first time in my life, after I learnt about this “US mess” in August 2011. (It actually went back down to 118 when I checked it about two weeks after I made my CLN application at Toronto in May 2012). But between Aug 2011-Feb 2012, with my blood pressure spiking, I lost 30 pounds in six months. Which seemed kind of odd as I’d heard high blood pressure had a connection to overweight, and I was downright skinny having lost 30 pounds. I had insomnia, too, and depression for the first time in my life. I’d always rolled with the punches, but I’d never met anything like this.
18 months ago, on another thread, I posted,
“…. The worst thing that ever happened to me before this [being an alleged US person in 2011] was a fire 30 years ago. When this US mess started, I felt that it was “fifty or a hundred times worse” than the fire. As it drags on, I now feel that being trapped in a burning building was “a picnic in the park” compared to this US mess. And another thing, the US gov knows there’s a problem and they could help straighten out this mess, unlike the arsonist who was insane. I actually bore the arsonist no ill will, which turned out to be the best way to get on with my life. I would like to move on from this crisis the same way, but the US isn’t making it easy. ….”
At the time I wrote that post in February 2012, although I had not posted about it I had been to been to my local US consulate, which tried to convince me I could not have possibly ended my US citizenship in 1979. Whilst I remained quiet, rather like a little mouse, I did not give in (it was too important – I can’t exactly re-live 33 years of my life). But then after failing to convince me of this for about 20 minutes, suddenly, to my surprise, about-face, I was told maybe it was possible I had ceased to be a US citizen in 1979 and I could come back 7 months later for 2 to 3 hours of intensive questioning for them determine if I had. The person who interviewed me in Jan 2012 was quite interested in taxes. There was no Consulate Report Directory then – this sure made me realise the need for one – I’d been collecting the few expatriation stories I could find on the internet simply to prepare efficiently for my meeting (not expecting trouble). But because of these few stories, I knew that harassment was not proper procedure for sure, and it also seemed pretty clear that Dept of State was not the least bit interested in taxes.
Anyway, typical tax dodger, I was making minimum wage when I relinquished my US citizenship in 1979 and I made under $20,000 in 2011. I have no family in the US because I sponsored them into Canada years ago. It was clear from my 4079 and affidavit that I had had no connection of any sort whatsoever to the US for most of my life. That consulate tried so hard to hang on to me, it was sick. It made the US look pretty sick, too.
I was a little mouse at that consulate, but I knew I needed a CLN (because reality is reality, these 33 years had happened, I could not rewrite them). And this 2 to 3 hour interrogation, which is what intensive questioning is, that they wanted me to come back for, I knew was not proper because of those few accounts I’d read about expatriation meetings – clearly that was not something anyone was required to put up with and this little mouse wasn’t going to. I just went home — looking, my husband said, 20 years older than when I’d entered the consulate — and I typed out three pages of everything I could remember of my meeting, complete with verbatim quotes whilst they were fresh in my mind. Of course, had I known this consulate had an attitude problem, I never would have gone there. It was only after my bizarre experience that I asked around town and found out that their odd procedures and hostile attitude towards former or soon-to-be-former Americans, was apparently standard operating procedure there.
It took me a couple of months to figure out what to do. I went to Toronto in May 2012.
The personnel at Toronto Consulate were like the personnel at the US consulate I’d visited in 1972. I walked out of Toronto Consulate feeling good about the United States. As far as I’m concerned, if I could feel that way after living through 8 months of hell, people at the Toronto Consulate should get a medal. I actually said that to someone fairly high up in the State Dept – State Dept, btw, is absolutely not trying to keep people in US citizenship against their will and consulate number 1 has cleaned up its act.But overall, the loss of respect I have for that country … not just what happened to me at consulate number 1, which appears to have gone on for at least 1 and 1/2 years — but this whole crass equating citizenship with money (which I sure never learnt in a US school) and demonising people who have chosen to move and commit themself to another country (ironically how the US itself was built) and government officials knowing they’re destroying people and families, but preferring to do that because they can gain political points by so doing with a very gullible and inward-focused electorate (in the 60s and 70s, there was a healthy scepticism in the US, something which Canada and, to my knowledge, most democratic countries had then and still do)… argh .. the loss of respect I have for the US since 2011, I really don’t have words.
Well, some words did come to me the day I got my CLN in the mail in Nov 2012. I posted,
…. Funny thing, back when I actually relinquished my citizenship in 1979, leading up to it my thinking basically was, “You have two good countries. Choose one.” The day I actually became a Canadian and relinquished 34 years ago was not emotional for me, it was a logical progression of my life. I was neither happy nor sad to lose my US citizenship. But times have changed, specifically the US’ attitude has changed – and so getting that CLN was emotional and joyful! If was a sense of relief that I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams when I chose between “two good countries” many years ago. ….
Back in the 70s, in my early 20s, I just felt that I wanted to have 100% participation and commitment in one country, ironically a concept I picked up growing up in the US. I did, and do, believe that is how the US became the strong country it was in the 20th century.
And back in the 70s, knowing that so many people in the world are stuck in pretty bad countries, I actually felt privileged that I got to choose between two really good ones. A few years later I began working in refugee law and that just confirmed it. Prior to 2011, I had no idea the US had any problem with people choosing to leave it. I realise now that of course a confident country doesn`t, and the country south of here today is a scared and flailing one.
Myself and my family suffered severe financial, physical and emotional health problems since August 2011 because I was born in the USA. There is only one country in the world that has ever hurt me and unbelievably it is the USA. Not the USA I grew up in or left, both physically and legally, before most Americans alive today were born.
Ironically in trying to defend myself against this New US, I ended up helping to start Brock and now spend more time focused on the US politics in one week than I did in the past forty years. Which feels odd because though I’ve been mega-active in Canadian politics for 34 years, I’d only been a vacationer in the US. Then came 2011. Whilst I have had, legally and morally, no commitment or allegiance to the US for most of my life, I did think the US was a pretty good country, second best in the world, and felt fondly toward it. But then it turned on me. And why? Because I was born there.
You can tell a country by the company it keeps. Only the United States and Eritrea stalk its citizens around the world. But, Eritrea demands only 2 percent. Therefore to compare Ertitrea to the United States (which wants far more) is an insult to Eritrea.
Relevant study: Canada is seeing rising naturalisation rates among immigrants in recent decades even as the U.S. sees falling naturalisation rates
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11f0019m/2011338/part-partie1-eng.htm
On the other hand, very few immigrants move back to the “old country” either, and even fewer make their return permanent by giving up their PR/citizenship. I’ll post full stats later, but from South Korean data that I’ve dug up, about 5% of Korean Americans, 8% of Korean Australians, and 11% of Korean Canadians (including PR holders in those definitions) live in South Korea, and fewer than 3% of of the ones living in South Korea give up PR/citizenship each year.
Another minor tangent: the article says there’s “13.3 million green card holders living in the United States at the beginning of 2012”. So I wonder how many green card holders there are abroad. In 2011 there were about 464,000 South Koreans living in the U.S. with green card status, and 34,000 (not included in the first number) who were living in South Korea. If those same numbers generalised to green card holders from other countries (though I have my doubts that they do), that would imply one million green card holders living abroad.
I’d love to walk out of the Embassy still feeling “good about the United States” but, after this my mis trust is so deep I don’t know if I will ever feel the same way again. I’ve just shoved my feelings on that matter either to the back of my mind or wrote about them sometimes online. The year I found out about this, a little over a year and a half ago now, there were six deaths in my family within 9 short months. That was over whelming and I’m not sure I’ve even processed all of that yet. How could I? On top of losing close family members in such a short duration, I’m now losing my citizenship at the age of 55. 2011 was my “Annus Horribilis”
There is a sort of shock that goes on. Disbelief, thinking you can bargain with them, thinking this must be a mistake …”Surely, they don’t mean people like me?” The run up to relinquishing/renouncing is just one foot in front of the other. I’m not even going to talk about how I’ll feel about this two years forward but, it’s put well in the article. I can’t see anything except “unresolvable anger” After all, what’s the appropriate response to something like this? There’s something called “righteous anger” I think that about sums it up.
an interesting article in Pacific Standard, the origin of modern citizenship and the treaty of Westphalia
” The war ended three decades later with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and the birth of the concept of the nation state. From then on people “belonged” to nations.”
http://www.psmag.com/politics/citizenship-matter-barack-obama-president-ted-cruz-politics-65009/
It would be a little difficult for me to “mourn” the loss of an identity and a citizenship I willingly relinquished nearly 30 years ago. What I truly mourn is my lost freedom, peace and privacy. I resent having to explain it all to an American government that has, until FATCA came along, never cared or made any effort to reach out to me. Their loyalty and interest in me shall be rewarded in kind: at best with indifference, at worst with contempt.
I came across similar information a couple of years ago in Peter J. Spiro, “Beyond Citizenship: American Identity after Globalization” (Oxford U. Press, 2008). I don’t have the book at hand, but he makes the point that the green card gives the immigrant most of what he/she needs: the right to live and work in the US, protection under the law, and access to most benefits available to citizens. The principal thing missing is the right to vote, but what value to Americans place on this? Voter turnout for the 2012 presidential election was 57% (up from 49% in 1996). Turnout for other offices can be much lower, and for municipal or local…
Maybe it would help to take a more clinical approach, as in viewing the process of losing our US citizenship the same as any other loss and how the 5 Stages of Loss and Grief come into play:
Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and finally (if lucky) acceptance.
http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/000617
I’m clearly at the bargaining stage hoping for RBT, whereas those who’ve renounced have already accepted their loss.
I’m going to admit my total ignorance of 30 years ago when I picked up my green card. I did not know it was the first step to naturalization. I thought it just gave me permission to live and work in the USA. It actually didn’t dawn on me until later that it was that green card thingy that I had heard about because the card wasn’t very green and it said in big bold letters that I was a Resident Alien — never heard that term before. All I knew is that the Resident Alien card made it legal for me to be in the USA and it resulted in me being assigned an SS number which I only used to fill in the blank on our joint tax returns. My interview with the USCIS agent was 99% a cross examination trying to determine if my new husband and I were “truly” married, not just on the paper of our marriage certificate. Then there was a perfunctory “Welcome to the USA” and it was over. There was no attempt to see if I understood the consequences of having a green card other than to tell me I could not vote in US elections which I would not even have thought of doing anyway. There was no handout to explain FBARs and such or the proper procedure to return the card should I decide to return home to Canada to live. One thing was always certain in my mind — I did NOT want to become an American. Even though politically I was at odds with the Canadian government over many matters there still was no ship for me but the HMCS Canada. I wasn’t about to jump that ship for the USS America. Now I guess I can claim the prize for being the least informed green card holder ever.
The 5 Stages of Grief for me mean that I am in total Acceptance for myself — and had been at that point in 1975 when I became a Canadian citizen.
I moved back into Denial when I learned of all this, answering my daughter when she returned from the US and asked who did my US taxes: “I don’t do US taxes; I am a Canadian.” How could that be? I was warned I would be relinquishing my US citizenship when I became a Canadian. I took that as gospel; I did not know anything, nor was I advised, about the need for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.
I certainly made mistakes in allowing myself to be put in the position where I could no longer claim my 1975 relinquishment. Is there a step for “Fool”?
I am pretty much in Isolation, except for my family and what I post on Isaac Brock and I am stuck in Anger regarding my son’s entrapment into supposed US citizenship. There is nothing I can do — I’ve lost control (am I a control freak?); by his birth to me, I put him, and by extension me as his parent/trustee, into an unresolvable situation.
The Anger stage would resolve if I knew that my country, Canada, really will protect my Canadian-born son and all others like him from the US required cost and hassle of year-after-year tax and reporting compliance for no actual taxes owed to the US. If I learn that Canada will uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and not allow discrimination against my son because of his accidental ‘US nationality,’ ensuring his banking and RDSP needs are his rights the same as for any other Canadian citizen, I’m won’t go into Bargaining and can skip Depression . I will, thus, go straight to Acceptance and regain the joy of life (with a few battle scars as reminders never again to take anything for granted).
Atticus, is righteous indignation the same as righteous anger?
Thank you, USCitizenAbroad, for keeping this important subject relevant. It’s not that we want to dwell on our situations in self-pity; it is because we do probably suffer varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder and do not have another avenue for conversation. Who would understand but others who really understand — not US government; not our own countries’ governments; not really even our own friends and, often, relatives? If there was understanding, wouldn’t this all be resolved with simple common sense?
Em
Have you requested your complete alien file from a G-639 freedom of information file?
@Calgary411
You’ve managed to illustrate that for many of us it’s more like coping with a zombie than an actual death.
@Calgary, Yes I am sure it’s the same thing and that goes double for the situation you and your son are in!
The resentment at even little things. Last week my son needed to fill out forms to get a new birth certificate. On the form it asked for “mother’s place of birth” I didn’t want him to even write that in. I told him to leave it blank. It didn’t think he should and put it in there anyway. But honestly, the resentment I feel at having to even think about it…you know “hide” my place of birth to benefit him would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago. I don’t want him to have to worry about renouncing or getting so called “compliant” and truthfully he’d be lost at times even having to handle that situation. But Calgary? Your situation where they won’t LET you renounce your child? How many more ways can this injustice be shown to others and the U.S. do NOTHING to address or fix it?
@ money
No. I have decided to let sleeping dogs lie. The G-639 did not seem appropriate for someone who made an I-407 application, had it ignored by USCIS and now doesn’t care anymore. I am Canadian. I have no assets in the USA for them to seize and I will never go there again so for now at least I will leave well enough alone. My husband will eventually get a CLN and depart the US tax system properly or as close to properly as we can figure out. Then we’ll think about what to do about our banking arrangements after that.
Em
Get the alien file it may show that the USA left 30 years ago.
I think that ICE knew I left 30 years ago because I did not file taxes for 30 years ago and never updated my Social security status. They may have administratively removed my status.
@ money
Read My Story below under “Profiles on some participants”. I returned to Canada and kept filing joint US returns because it seemed to be the honest thing to do (our accounts were all jointly held at that time so any interest income was jointly earned). Besides, the result was always zero tax owed so it didn’t matter all that much to us. Right now I don’t even know what a file on me might say. It creeps me out just to think there probably is a file of some sort. I don’t think they administratively remove any status without you doing the paperwork for them. They just expect people to know about CLNs and I-407s which I had not heard of until I stumbled upon IBS. My American husband didn’t even know about CLNs until then either. When we brought our last load of belongings up to Canada we didn’t have to stop on the US side of the border and on the Canadian side they just said welcome back to me and gave us a permit for our vehicle. (Luckily it was built in Canada so it didn’t need odometer and speedometer alterations done.) I think it was about 2 years later that I heard or read that I had to take some action to keep my green card from being null and void or expired or whatever. I foolishly thought oh that’s it then, I am formerly a resident alien (non-resident alien in US official speak). Like I said, least informed green card holder ever but back then without the internet getting information or even getting a phone number to attempt to get information was definitely not as easy.
@Patricia, thank you for the link to the article in the Pacific Standard and its explanation of the effect that the Treaty of Westphalia had in changing the concept of citizenship among Europeans..
The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, between Catholic and Protestant Christian rulers in Europe has echoes in the wars between Sunni and Shia Muslim rulers in the Middle East now. In both cases, civilians were and are mostly innocent victims of violent power struggles between rulers who claim(ed) to belong to the same “peaceful” religion. The people gassed in Syria this week are, sadly, only the latest sacrifices to someone else’s idea of what to believe and how to organize power in human affairs.
@USC
Thanks for picking up on that Story at NYTs. I too read the comments with lots of interest. It is the bookend to the story of those that are renouncing. My Aussie wife was once going to get her citizenship, but the offshore jihad stopped her dead it its tracks.
I haven’t been able to pull up this NYT story / comments, yesterday or today although it comes up when I “google” the title, trying three different internet browsers. Perhaps it is something local, my computer.
NY Times site was down. Hacked by ???Syria!!!
Forget that mourning crap. That’s so American.
Joy in newfound freedom. That’s so American.
Anger? Through obsession, becoming what you hate. That’s so American.
Pingback: Citizenship, identity, mourning loss of identity and moving on … | The Freedom Watch
calgary411, I think you’ve skipped righteous indignation and gone straight to righteously enraged! Because I have too. As a Canadian wondering if my wife will ever be able to slip her chains without triggering some sort of financially devastating penalty that will destroy us completely; I’ve had sleepless nights. Considering the fact that she’s going to university trying to get a degree to better herself; I’m wondering if the US will try to claim that as unearned income. It’s all just pissing me off to the n’th degree. I’m enraged and frankly at the point where a) because of my autistic son (in the same position as you, I want clarification that the Merkins have released their bloody claws from my son) and b) because of my other three children – who will be able to renounce their US citizenship by that time that they are 18 – and won’t be able to take even part-time jobs without having to declare their income to the United States.
Because of the stress induced by this overreaching tax legislation, my blood pressure has been at an all-time high…and I’m eagerly awaiting the day that the US economy implodes and the US homelanders get their comeuppance. Need I say: I’d like to see the US be absolutely destroyed.
Animal, that those like your family can be so affected by the US, even more so than mine, should be condemned by our Canadian government.
I won’t go so far as to say that I want to see the US absolutely destroyed — I still have siblings and their families there. There are many good (but deluded) Americans that have their day-to-day struggles. The US activism of the 60’s and 70’s has gone by the wayside, spiraled into ever-increasing apathy, likely just as intended by their government.
Canadians, as a whole, need to be awakened that so blindly following the US weakens our country. We cannot discount the fact that what happens to the US will greatly affect our own Canada.
My comment here relates: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/08/28/where-do-we-go-from-here-is-it-time-for-an-organization/comment-page-4/#comment-511066
Be careful of what you wish for, the Animal. Your wife and children are still USC’s and a drowning man has a far reach.
I don’t wish any ill will to the U.S. as I still have family there. I just wish they didn’t wish us any. At any rate the better off they are the less they feel the need to pull actions such at this at our expense. If they keep going down more punitive laws will be to come. Maybe they want to retroactively impose a penalty of ex citizens within certain time frames. Wouldn’t put it past them to try it!
@Calgary, they can’t have any activism, see what happened at Occupy when they were NOT doing anything wrong. All over the country they were rounded up, kettled, tear gassed and beaten. That happened in the 60’s too but, now they have it down to a fine art. That poor Iraq War veteran in Oakland who was hit with a tear gas canister is brain damaged for life and NOBODY is being charged for doing it. They use police to infiltrate protesters,start up something like breaking windows then use that as a reason to shut everything down. THAT is how corrupted things are so they no longer really have a right to protest.
When you think how much protest actually changed in the past it’s a scary thought how controlled everything is now.
I haven’t had my appointment to relinquish yet, it’s later this month but, I’m TIRED of being made to feel afraid to say something about this when we are doing nothing wrong. The disgusting manner in which they have tried to make people fearful to speak up is something I can’t stomach much more. That’s why I have already used my real name. WE are not doing anything wrong here! We are within our rights to renounce or relinquish and within our rights to protest and fight back against this injustice being done to us and our families. They probably already know who everyone is anyway. *HI NSA, I’m not doing anything wrong!* An organization is a great idea, I truly believe there are a lot of expats who have no clue in the world yet about FATCA.
@Attics, I doubt if they’ll go after most renunciants.though could see them hitting on people they see as outspoken tax protestors….it’s why I am inclined to keep my head down though admire your activism! 🙂