Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

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Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

Words to Avoid in Posting?

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The Daily Mail in the UK has published a list of words monitored by department of Homeland Security.  Many of them are used on this site quite regularly (and innocently). People have often wondered if the IRS is monitoring the site, perhaps it’s not just the IRS but the DHS, as well.

“The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.”

Words include Mexico, disaster, jihad, law enforcement, collapse, plot, closure.

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The conscience of a lawyer and “The FBAR Fundraiser”

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Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship.

Having a license to practise law (bar admission) does not a lawyer make.

Admission to the Bar, gives an individual the legal right to conduct oneself as  a lawyer. A lawyer operates within a specific construct of ethics and morality. The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct make it clear that

A lawyer has an obligation to the client that is more important than loyalty to any other person or entity. This principle is made clear in Rule 1.7 of  The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  Rule 1.7 clarifies that a lawyer should not act for a client if there exists any conflict of interest. It reads as follows: Continue reading →

Roger Conklin asks, “Is Romney an accidental Mexican Citizen as reported?”

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Since Arrow has been having fun at the Vancouver Sun, with his “What if” scenario of Kenya adopting the U.S. citizenship taxation regime, why stop there?  Roger Conklin suggests that maybe we could get Romney’s campaign attention on a similar issue that may relate to him.   Continue reading →

Compliance counseling is like a box of chocolates – “You never know what your gonna get” – Circular 230 vs. the fiduciary duty to the client

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Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship.

The Isaac Brock Society is becoming a interest place to “hang out”. At least this is true for many U.S. citizens living abroad who are desperately attempting to ensure that they are in U.S. tax compliance Many people are grappling with how to be compliant on a “going forward” basis. Others are trying to figure out to deal with “past compliance issues”. There are of course a number of ways to come into compliance. What all these people have in common is a desire to be U.S. tax compliant. Yet, the IRS seems hell bent on continuing on treating U.S. citizens living abroad as though they are tax cheats. For many U.S. citizens living abroad the emotional strain is such that they are driven to renounce U.S. citizenship. This is the price of a good nights sleep.

So, what’s a poor U.S. citizen living abroad to do? Well, they consult a “cross border professional” where they get advice that comes in all shapes, sizes and perspectives. The advice is so varied that it reminds me of the line in Forrest Gump:

“Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

When it comes to “compliance counseling” – You never know what you’re gonna get.” Continue reading →

Renunciation rates in Europe: five Swedes renounced citizenship in 2010

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Following up on my last post about renunciation rates in Asia, here’s some extracts from EuroStat’s loss of citizenship table, which I ran across recently. (Like last time, all diaspora population figures are taken from the Global Migrant Origins Database, and don’t include ethnic descendants with other citizenships). The EuroStat data is not very good for longitudinal comparisons, since it only shows one or two years, but there’s still some interesting things to be learned from it. One of many instructive cross-sectional comparisons:

United States

  • Diaspora population: 2.2 million
  • Homeland population: 310 million
  • Latest renunciation figure: 1,781 (2011; including former green-card holders)
  • Renunciations per 100k diaspora population: 81
  • Renunciations per 100k homeland population: 0.53

Sweden

  • Diaspora population: 300,000
  • Homeland population: 9.3 million
  • Latest renunciation figure: 5 (2010)
  • Renunciations per 100k diaspora population: 1.66
  • Renunciations per 100k homeland population: 0.032

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TD Waterhouse FATCA Privacy Waiver Form

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We have the smoking gun right here. I believe the fact that TD is now publishing this document is enough to now start making formal complaints to the Privacy Commissioner’s Office both in Ottawa and her provincial counterparts. If the Privacy Commisioners office won’t do anything then I believe the courts are now an available avenue. Lawyer up as they say. It might also be worthwhile to forward this form to the lawyer I recommended several months ago for his take.

http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/products-services/investing/documentation-index.jsp

http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/document/PDF/apply/forms/tdw-apply-forms-591856-di.pdf

I believe that by publishing the above linked form TD is now in VIOLATION of Canadian law and is now subject to whatever legal action IBS members want to throw at them. (Note: there is no definition at this point of who exactly even is a US citizen and I suspect many of us don’t even consider ourselves to be ones in our own minds).

Out of the fry pan: on playing musical trading accounts (UPDATED)

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Update:  I am happy and relieved to say that the rest of my US positions have been moved now to TD Waterhouse.  It is now only a matter of getting them to transfer any remaining dividends will be paid on the 15th of June.  Also, I’ve learned the reason for Penson Worldwide’s financial woes: a bad bet on a horse race track.

(NB: I’ve started to see my final positions show from Questrade show up in my TD Waterhouse US funds account after I published this post–so good news.  I’ve got my fingers crossed for now.)

In the Spring of 2011, when I was in the process of getting out of the United States tax system, my lawyer advised that I move my accounts out of TD Waterhouse into a company that had no holdings in the United States, as he thought the US could hold TD’s US assets as leverage against me.  So I took his advice, and moved my bank accounts to a credit union and my investment accounts to Questrade, a Canadian only company.  Thus, if things got nasty with FATCA, I would create distance between me and the United States.  I wonder how many US laws I broke doing this.

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Almost no U.S. Persons abroad properly report their foreign retirement accounts on Form 3520

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Through a recent post at TaxProf Blog, I learned about the IRS’ Statistics of Income Bulletin. This finally gave me the lead on a figure in which I’d been interested for a long time: the number of Form 3520 filers. Unfortunately, the statistics are only released once every few years, and the next set aren’t scheduled for publication until December 2012. But you can see the figures for 1998, 2002, and 2006 here on the IRS website. The latest number: U.S. Persons filed a grand total of 1,952 Form 3520s and 3,819 Form 3520-As in 2006.

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Ron Paul condemns Ex-PATRIOT Act: “will ensnare many ordinary middle-class Americans”

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Of course, it was already obvious that libertarians oppose the “Expatriation Prevention” Act, but it’s heartening to see at least one sitting politician take a public stance against the wave of demagoguery and jingoism on which Schumer is surfing. Transcript and my comments after the jump.

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