The Isaac Brock Society is a direct response to the Obama administration’s criminalization of innocent expat behaviour. Helen Burggraf has written a great article in International Investment, telling our story.
The Isaac Brock Society is a direct response to the Obama administration’s criminalization of innocent expat behaviour. Helen Burggraf has written a great article in International Investment, telling our story.
Terrific recognition for the great work of this site! Well deserved!
@ Petros
I can’t thank you enough for making this website happen. If I have even a shred of sanity left, it’s because I’ve been able to come daily to Brock to get grounded. I initially hoped I’d find a solution for my peculiar situation but I’ve come to accept that there is none. The only investment I’ve ever made in my life was in the ADCS fund drive and whether it’s win, lose or draw on our Charter Challenge I’ll never regret trying to help.
I’m very impressed by Helen Burggraf’s piece and obviously very grateful to see Brock getting such well-deserved attention. Thankfully I found the full-screen button on that eDocker Reader or I would have been searching for our old magnifying glass. Surgite, Petros! Surgite, everyone!
I second (third?) Jenny’s and EmBee’s comments. Great article with important recognition for the life-saving institution that is the Isaac Brock Society.
Thanks, Helen Burggraf, for the International Investment article and to Peter and Tricia for being interviewed and telling the Brock story. I am another who could not do without the support of Brock and will always be grateful to Petros providing the Canadian (.ca) site.
Thank you Peter for everything that you have done for Canadians, which is far more than our own government has done and appears will ever do. You have brought hope to everyone who was a victim of this despicable attack on their lives. Please, when you are interviewed, don’t forget that the Indigenous people of Canada are behind the efforts of the ADCS and this site 100% as we too, are victims without a voice. The Trudeau government stripped us of that right again and only provides more lies not only to us, but to you too. Thank you Peter.
Without Brock, there would be no ADCS.
Wow, finally the site gets a big mention – deservedly so.
Like Embee, and others who’ve commented, I could not have survived all this without you guys and all the work that keeps IBS going behind the scenes. As always, heartfelt thanks to you, to ADCS, Maple Sandbox, and all the other contributors, writers, readers and those at allied blogs!
Anyone writing to the author to thank her might mention that it was IBS participants and creators that originated, organized and crowd funded the subsequent Canadian lawsuit in progress against FATCA – via ADCS http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/02/17/adcs-adsc-litigation-updates-key-actions-milestones-and-timeline-estimates/ , as well as the human rights complaint submitted to the UN, with signatories from Canadians and from several other countries http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/07/28/human-rights-complaint-on-behalf-of-all-u-s-persons-abroad-is-ready-to-submit-you-and-i-can-be-part-of-this-effort-by-lending-our-signatures-to-the-document/ .
No small accomplishments!!!!
FATCAnatics and US extraterritorial CBT/FBAR and FATCApologists better get used to our existence and our resistance. It has been a long road, but we’re still here.
We aren’t going away.
I predict that 100 years the The Isaac Brock Society will occupy a special place in history. It will be seen as an example of an early organization that brought knowledge, power and hope to the masses. It will serve as a role model for online movements and will be seen as an apostle for freedom and democracy.
I also predict that 100 years Barack Obama and his administration will be nothing more than an irrelevant footnote in history.
I find it ironic that one anonymous US compliancer critiqued IBS saying that some of the info here is inaccurate, – but didn’t mention some of the incorrect and even damaging advice coming out of some of the US Tax Industrial Complex and the shoddy work some of them have peddled at a high price, and how little information and support existed for ordinary people caught up in all this.
And as for any anti-American flavour, then the US government should ask itself what it has done to well deserve our sustained opposition and opprobrium. It is the direct and willful actions of the US and its ass-kissing FATCA signatory governments like the one currently trampling our Charter and other rights by defending the Canadian IGA against its own people and best interests – and ab/using our own local taxes to do so, that have created and sustained our opposition for soon to be 5 years now.
“Surgite”!
I’ll add my thanks. After undergoing nearly a full year of OMG torment, rarely sleeping, drowning myself in booze, and stupidly seeking “expert advice” from condor firms around the world (who, of course, deliberately frightened me even more, to the point where I was ready to leap out a window), I discovered IBS. Little by little the dark clouds parted from my eyes and I was finally able to see my and my husband’s situation far more clearly. Now I’m merely angry all the time, sometimes despondent (we have no chance of second citizenship or renunciation), but at least I can lead a normal-ish life and my health isn’t in jeopardy. Thank you to the sincere and brilliant founders of this site, and the knowledgeable contributors who keep it focused.
I see IBS as a collective in the tradition of Thomas Paine’s patriotic muck-racking pamphleteering against a distant, sinister, and morally bankrupt government. My biggest prayer is that one day there will be no reason for this site to exist, but until then, let’s keep up the fight.
As a US emigre, I applaud and congratulate the IBS. Sir Isaac Brock is now my favorite Revolutionary War hero!
I agree with all the comments above — this site has been a beacon of light in a very dark place for so many of us. It has also been an inspiration. Thank you, Petros, Tricia, and the whole Brock “family”.
As a loyal reader, it is nice to see the site recognized. I have lost count of the amount of times I have referred people here knowing they could get good information.
What a joke. The vast majority (and I mean vast) of people officially in the “Tax Compliance Community” are hopelessly incompetent. In fact, I have come to see that the “Tax Compliance Community” is (in general) a much bigger problem than either the IRS, Congress or the upper echelons of Treasury. As I have suggested time after time:
There is a difference between having a tax problem and having a compliance problem. Your problems are mainly citizenship and compliance. Many lives have been ruined because of (many but not all) members of the compliance community.
Of course there are inaccuracies – we’re only human. Isaac Brock Society is where one goes to meet humanity in an inhumane system. Warts and all.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For what it is worth, there hasn’t been that many inaccuracies in the original posts, and we exercise very little control over the content of the the comments streams.
We have also given access to Brock for free and public access, and have only accepted a small amount of donations to keep this thing going–and none for the last two years as we have directed all funding to the lawsuits.
Our original impetus was to provide good information to people to fight a great injustice for which the media, US Congress, the Obama administration, and the compliance industry were responsible, and innocent people were the victims.
The online version is now available (html) and I have updated the links. http://www.internationalinvestment.net/products/tax/isaac-brock-society-blog-canadian-accidental-americans-becomes-global-info-resource/
I think Brock is pretty much self-correcting. On the rare occasion when someone has commented something inaccurate or fuzzy, one or more others pipe up pointing it out, often with source links to clarify the matter.
Collectively, the knowledge base here is huge and runs pretty deep, with different people focusing on different aspects of FATCA/CBT/citizenship issues. I think we don’t get many inaccuracies in the first place because people here are big on commenting based on their first-hand personal experiences and their research of source materials.
And we’re big on two very important concepts that the condors aren’t – educate yourself before you do anything and one size does not fit all.
The first aspect of how the Isaac Brock Society is more accurate than any other source is this: narrative.
We have seen the USA extraterritorial tax ambitions as an evil act of aggression. No other source has consistently done this.
In the early days of the Isaac Brock Society, I spoke with Globe and Mail reporter Barry McKenna on the phone at length, and we argued. I said that he had the narrative wrong. He said that the US citizens in Canada had to deal with this taxation and that they could not ignore it. I said that by presenting it in that manner he was making victims through his fear mongering. See http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/01/17/the-clock-is-ticking-on-filing-with-the-irs-by-barrie-mckenna/
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Thanks Petros and all for combatting the dominant narrative that we’re all tax cheats and we all must comply with US extraterritorial demands – and only in the manner prescribed.
Thanks for Brock and ADCS. Brock website has been a tremendous help in navigating through the mess created by FATCA.
There are some condors who claim what is available on the internet, particularly about immigration law (citizenship) is “bad information.” Of course, this comes from tax lawyers who rely on another lawyer for that and as far as I know, only one lawyer known to us is competent in this area.I’ve said it before but one of these tax lawyers said to me that a CLN had always been required. I said that was not true. His response then was, that he thought it was one of those laws that just hadn’t been enforced. A poor reference to FBAR etc. Of course, since these lawyers view 877A as retroactive, it is not to their advantage to advise clients that one may have lost citizenship decades ago. I also checked the INA at that point and at no time prior to 2008 is a CLN required as part of loss of citizenship.
I believe I just experienced another instance of wrong information on a lawyer’s blog. I commented on the fact that Canada would not collect taxes for the US for a dual US-CDN citizen (who had been CDN at the time the tax was incurred). My comment has been removed. CORRECTION: I do see the comment there now. I don’t know why I wouldn’t have seen it there earlier, unless there is some reason viewing it on my phone is different than the laptop. However, it would appear there is wrong information on the website……..as USCA stated, common ……
@Petros
“We have seen the USA extraterritorial tax ambitions as an evil act of aggression. No other source has consistently done this.”
That’s certainly how I see it. Makes you wonder when the rest of the world will take off the blinders and start acting in spite of their fear.
@ Patricia Moon,
Yes, all too many lawyers/accountants are deliberately (eg, condors) or through ignorance (still unacceptable and equally dangerous) propagating this and other erroneous beliefs. Even the US embassy here was doing the same thing in 2011-12.
The condors are a lost cause. But as for the non-condors, I have never seen an area of law where so many practitioners think, in good faith, they know something as fact that was completely wrong.
I bring up the topic whenever I have the opportunity, and I have seen some improvement in recent years with the latter group (non-condors), in that, upon meeting lawyers and accountants, I’m discovering that more of them are aware of the reality of the law in this matter and the possible choices people have, than was the case five years ago. I even know a couple who have referred clients to Brock.
Nevertheless, due to both condors and fairly rampant ignorance existing in this field, I believe that – unlike most areas of law and presumably accounting — if one chooses to use a professional, one must first build up one’s own knowledge to a certain point, so that one can be sure that the professional actually does know the subject and to avoid condors. (And, of course by doing so, many have discovered they don’t need a professional anyway.)
I found that anonymous “person in the expat world’s” statement that “information [on Brock] can lead to inaccuracies” very annoying, given the high occurrence of blatantly inaccurate information on many professionals’ websites.