Jennifer Hollett is running again Linda McQuaig (FATCA supporter) for the NDP federal nomination. You can reach her about FATCA at her website:
http://jenniferhollett.com/
Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad
Five more Korean celebrities who gave up U.S. passports or green cards (none showed up in the Federal Register)
After the jump I’ve translated an old article from Money Today that I came across recently. It was written in 2009, right around the time that MC the Max bassist Yoon Jae-woong renounced his U.S. citizenship, and mentioned a number of other South Korean celebrities — comprising both native-born U.S. citizens as well as naturalised and unnaturalised immigrants — who decided to stop being U.S. Persons.
With the release of the latest Federal Register “published expatriates” list, the demagogues in the U.S. media are coming out in force to spread their typical lies about how we U.S. Persons abroad are all mink-swathed Benedict Arnolds skipping out on our tax bills after enjoying the benefits of U.S. citizenship. So once again I repeat the simple truth which is illustrated by every non-U.S. media story about renunciants: those of us who give up U.S. citizenship have been contributing members of society in other countries for years. We are not fugitives from the U.S. who snuck out on the night of 14 April. Even before the recent U.S. crackdown on non-U.S. bank accounts, celebrities and ordinary people living ordinary lives outside of the U.S. were happy to give up a U.S. passport from which they derived little or no concrete benefit, so that they could step forward to further success in the countries where they actually lived.
Laura Saunders @WSJ writes on increasing number of #americansabroad renouncing citizenship
Number of Americans who #RenounceCitizenship Surged in 2nd Quarter http://t.co/I84MIgTFbN – Will encourage #americansabroad to renounce!
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 10, 2013
This is a rather disappointing article from an author who has written on this issue before. Why disappointing? The general tone seems to equate Americans Abroad with tax evaders and terrorists (whatever those are). That said, it’s one more article reporting the increasing numbers renouncing U.S. citizenship.
For example:
The U.S. launched the tax crackdown after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and ratcheted up its efforts after 2009, amid evidence that UBS AG UBSN.VX 0.00% and other foreign institutions helped U.S. taxpayers hide assets.
Some taxpayers have applied for IRS limited-amnesty programs, in which they pay stiff penalties for past noncompliance but avoid prosecution.
Tax lawyers say the crackdown has ensnared smaller violators who weren’t intentionally evading U.S. taxes.
In addition, a law enacted in 2010, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, requires foreign financial institutions to certify they aren’t hiding U.S. taxpayer assets, which lawyers say is leading some to reject U.S. customers.
Taxpayer penalties for failing to report assets can be severe, including up to 50% of an account balance for each year.
Roger Conklin: A territorial tax system would help U.S. exports, jobs and prosperity. via @WSJ
Roger Conklin, a frequent contributor at Isaac Brock, has just had a letter published in the Wall Street Journal. I have been off the grid for a few days, so maybe it has been posted somewhere. If I missed it, I apologize, but thought I would pull out out for headline attention.
Territorial Tax: Whose Money Is It?
Nicole Tichon’s July 30 letter says that in many countries, with territorial tax systems that don’t tax corporate earnings when remitted back home, “unemployment is at record levels.”
Meet Liberty’s Exiles – The Loyalists in the Revolution
This post appeared on the RenounceUScitizenship blog. This is another book that I would highly recommend. Given the recent reference to books, perhaps the Isaac Brock Society should create a page of recommended books/readings?
Meet "Liberty's Exiles" – Were they the Loyalists or Patriots in the American Revolution? http://t.co/KijqEeRQca
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 9, 2013
History is always written by the victors. The American Patriots were a little like George W. Bush. When it comes to the British:
“You are either with the Patriots or you are with the British”
In an earlier post I noted that not all the residents of the colonies wanted to break ties with Britain. Those who wanted to keep ties with Britain were called Loyalists. Given the persecution and/or punishment of American Citizens abroad, I have become interested in the lives of the Loyalists during the American Revolution.
Lavabit shut-down justifies Isaac Brock Society’s decision to move to servers in Canada
On June 1, 2012, I announced that we would move our blog off wordpress.com, an American blog service, to a Canadian host, with its servers located within the borders of Canada. We hoped at the time that this would lessen somewhat the ability of the United States government to shut down our website. Recent events confirm the wisdom of this decision.
Zerohedge reports that Lavabit, which is apparently the email service of Edward Snowden, is in the middle of harassment by the US Federal government. See also: Snowden’s Super Secret Email Service Closes, Summing Up Why Tech Is Losing Billions Overseas.
Here is Lavabit’s farewell letter:
Massive jump in people renouncing US citizenship
MASSIVE jump in people who renounced US citizenship last quarter http://t.co/jDzLCCxN0y via @thesovereignman
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 8, 2013
Includes:
While still embryonic, it’s difficult to ignore this trend– more and more people are starting to renounce their US citizenship.
After all, the number of people who renounced citizenship this past quarter is roughly the same as the number of people who renounced for the previous four quarters COMBINED.
This movement shouldn’t be that surprising for a species that began as nomadic hunter gatherers, or for a society that was founded by foreigner settlers in search of a better life.
Yet, in a rather anomalous twist, the emotional ties we have for our passports are incredibly strong.
This Simon Black post dovetails rather well with the James Dale Davidson discussion we have been having.
Of course the Homelanders will say: But there are numerically more people immigrating to the U.S. than renouncing. Maybe. But the percentage increase in those renouncing is far greater and is in a growth mode.
In 1968, Benjamin Braddock (of the The Graduate Fame) was advised to invest in plastics. Today, I would advise people to invest in expatriations. Remember the letter written by the Canadian businessman to his son.
Sarah Stillman, “The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture”, New Yorker 13 Aug 2013
The contemporary model of civil forfeiture in the US was introduced as part of the “war on drugs”. Under terms of this law, which varies across US jurisdictions, law enforcement officers can seize property involved in unlawful, or suspected unlawful activity, such as drug dealing. In some jurisdictions, law enforcement organisations are allowed to keep some or all of the assets seized. This has led to some notable abuse, notoriously in Tenaha, Texas, but in other jurisdictions too.
See
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
Why post this to IBS? Just an interesting aside on the “culture” of confiscation in the US.
“In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.
“One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. (Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson’s forfeiture was slugged State of Texas v. $6,037. [their story earlier in the article – Northernshrike]) “The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window,” Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There’s no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve.”
…..
“…But civil-forfeiture statutes continued to proliferate, and at the state and local level controls have often been lax. Many states, facing fiscal crises, have expanded the reach of their forfeiture statutes, and made it easier for law enforcement to use the revenue however they see fit. In some Texas counties, nearly forty per cent of police budgets comes from forfeiture.”
The typical victims are poor, often black or Hispanic, i.e. individuals without the means to contest what’s been done to them.
Huge jump in number of “published expatriates” in Federal Register — but the list still isn’t complete
The Department of the Treasury has finally placed the latest Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who have Chosen to Expatriate on public inspection for printing in tomorrow’s Federal Register, ten days late. Congratulations to Innocente for being the first to post the news at 9 AM right on the dot. There’s about 1,130 names of people who have permanently cut off their legal ties to the U.S. government, making this a record-breaking quarter; more names have appeared in the first half of this year than in all of the previous record high year of 2011.
The number of names in Treasury’s list roughly matches the 1,106 entries the FBI added to NICS in the same quarter. However, this still doesn’t mean their list is complete: the FBI only records people who renounced U.S. citizenship under 8 USC § 1481(a)(5), whereas Treasury is supposed to record renunciants, relinquishers (8 USC § 1481(a)(1)–(4)), and theoretically even some of the nearly twenty thousand people who give up green cards each year (though in fact there’s evidence that they do not include the latter). Projecting from the FBI’s data, the total number of people who gave up U.S. citizenship last quarter in one way or another is probably two thousand; I’d guess during the same period there’s a similar number of people giving up green cards they’ve held for at least eight of the past fifteen years (the alleged standard for inclusion in Treasury’s list), though this is harder to estimate. And while some famous ex-citizens appear in Treasury’s list, others do not.
Will the next US IRS Commissioner have expertise in US Citizenship-Based Taxation as it affects US Persons Abroad? Will he heed Nina Olson’s suggestions?
Bloomberg: Obama Chooses John Koskinen as Next US IRS Commissioner
President Barack Obama said he will nominate John Koskinen, former chairman of Freddie Mac (FMCC), as the next Internal Revenue Service commissioner.
Koskinen will be tasked with revamping the U.S. tax agency, which has come under intense criticism for giving extra scrutiny to small-government advocacy groups as they applied for tax-exempt status.
“John is an expert at turning around institutions in need of reform,” Obama said in a statement today. “With decades of experience, in both the private and public sectors, John knows how to lead in difficult times, whether that means ensuring new management or implementing new checks and balances.” …
Also:
Forbes: Obama Picks John Koskinen To Revamp IRS As Next Commissioner
Related, including documentation from Nina Olson:
Examining the Skyrocketing Problem of Identity Theft Related Tax Fraud at the IRS