Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

Strange new look? Actually we are doing maintenance

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I am currently doing maintenance on the blog: I have disabled some of the previous functionality by removing nearly all the plugins.  Hopefully this will solve the problems and I can rebuild the site with safer plugins.  Please be patient during the process.

Please Note:  Authors may of course continue to post new posts.  Commenters can comment as usual (with no ability to edit your comments or add rich text formatting unless you know html).  Carry on as normal.  The site will just look rather bloggish for the next few hours.

The heart of the debate: “What is a citizen”?

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Or to put it another way:

Is a citizen the property of the government or is the citizen a member in a voluntary member of a community?

The 14th amendment of the U.S. constitution was enacted for the purpose of ensuring that former slaves had equal citizenship, the U.S. Should that same 14th amendment be interpreted to create permanent slavery?

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

 

Note this interesting comment by Badger:

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Jack Townsend: “Article for Canadians with Unreported Canadian Retirement Plans and Accounts”

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Jack has posted this blog post which should be of special interest to Canadians.

Hale Sheppard has a new article that should be of interest to Canadians.  The article is introduced on  his firm’s Blog,  IRS Introduces Two Unique Remedies for U.S. Persons with Unreported Canadian Retirement Plans and Accounts, here.  The article can be linked to in that blog entry or can be linked here.  The summary of the article is:

Life isn’t fair.  Neither is the IRS’s most recent settlement initiative designed to entice taxpayers to proactively resolve their international tax non-compliance, such as failing to report foreign income, foreign accounts, foreign entities, etc.  In both instances, some people win and some people lose, often with little or no regard to what is equitable.  Among those basking in the benefits of favored status lately are certain Canadians, residing either in the United States or the homeland, who have neglected their tax-related obligations with Uncle Sam. Continue reading →

Congressional Progressive Caucus also taking aim at Foreign Earned Income Exclusion again

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Joining Dennis Ross (R-FL) and his recycled plan to raise taxes and pile paperwork on U.S. Persons abroad to pay for tax cuts for Homeland corporations, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has reintroduced their own plan from last year to raise taxes and pile paperwork on U.S. Persons abroad to pay for services for Homelanders that we can’t use. The Government Printing Office doesn’t have the full text of their bill yet (they didn’t even manage to get today’s edition of the Federal Register up on time), but the Washington Post has a copy of their press release.

Apparently, harassing and vilifying emigrants while posturing that you’re standing up to Big Oil is what passes for “progressivism” in the United States these days.

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Interruption of service

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The interruption of your regular programming here at the Isaac Brock Society was the result of web hosting problems or WordPress plugins.  The hosting service has informed me there may be some more intermittent problems in the next hour or so.

I hope that people took advantage of their free time from the site to take care of the other necessities of life.  Welcome back to the fun.

To our knowledge, it has nothing to do with a drone attack.  In the meantime, Charlottesville, Virginia, has declared itself a drone free zone.  Good luck with that.

Yet another attempt to kill the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion in the name of “territorial taxation”

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With the 113th Congress in full swing, Dennis Ross (R-FL) has introduced H.R. 243, the so-called “Bowles-Simpson Plan of Lowering America’s Debt Act”. This is basically the same as the bill he introduced last year, and features the same ridiculous proposal to raise taxes on U.S. persons abroad to pay for tax cuts for Homeland corporations. For more details, see this previous post of ours.

What’s mildly interesting here is that just days after Ross introduced his bill, the Joint Committee on Taxation published its “Estimate of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2012–2017” (hat tip: TaxProf Blog). Their estimate of the “cost” of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion has fallen significantly compared to last year: US$5.9 billion for 2012, down by more than 20% against their US$7.4 billion estimate for 2011. So where does that leave Ross’ bill and the revenue projections he used to justify all his tax goodies for Homelanders and their corporations?

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Jamaican FATCA costs math quiz

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Just noticed this article published last week by the Jamaica Gleaner:

Gov’t moving to reach FATCA agreement

A couple of interesting points:

“A senior manager with Ernst & Young quoted a price tag of US$30 million for each local financial institution to implement the requirements of FATCA.”

and

“The US, the law [sic] is expected to affect about 614 firms in Jamaica when it comes into effect. Those institutions include insurance companies, licensed securities dealers and collective investment schemes such as unit trusts and mutual funds.”

The Gleaner’s numbers ($30 million x 614 firms) seem to suggest that the implementation costs for FATCA compliance in Jamaica could reach as much as 18.42 billion dollars.  Using a 2011 population estimate of 2,889,187 means that every man, woman and child in Jamaica can theoretically expect to pony-up $6375 to pay for the FATCA Follies in their little corner of paradise where the per-capita GDP in 2011 was $9100.  Anyone care to check my math?

Especially for poorer nations, there can be little doubt that a FATCA IGA amounts to nothing less than a suicide pact.

 

 

The Task in Canada

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I would like to again thank Peter et al. for setting up this people’s social movement! I think that after one year, the task before us in Canada is clear:
1. Continue to lobby all the political parties as to these issues, reminding them that we are 1,000,000 strong in Canada and WE VOTE! AND WE ARE CANADIANS!
2, Continue to support the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. They are a tremendously influential organization that garners support from a wide swath of Canadian life.
3. And talk to all others you encounter, directing them to this site.

Should Your Decision to Renounce Your Citizenship Boil Down to a Coin Toss? A Freakonomics Experiment.

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Here is something different for those of you struggling with the tough decisions regarding U.S citizenship. Should you renounce or not?  Should you become tax compliance with FBAR and FATCA, or not?   It is a major decision in your life, and tonight, I am going to ask you to consider this:

Should it all boil down to a simple coin flip to decide?

Continue reading →