Don’t know how many of you are familiar with Niall Ferguson – author of “The Ascent of Money” and “Civilization”. Anyway, his ideas are interesting and his books are quite readable. His latest book is called “Civilization” and it has been converted into a TV presentation. Continue reading
Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad
RCMP ‘to ease Canadians into the idea’ of U.S. agents in Canada
Amazing, have a look at this.
Note the following comment to another post:
Don Pomodoro
Whew…I really hope for you guys over there in Canada that the “North American Union” nightmare never comes to pass. I couldn’t see it happening now, but if the US were to fall apart in the next ten years it might view such a union as the only way to compete with the BRICs, Latin American Union, EU (if it still exists…:P), etc in 20 years’ time. They’re too full of themselves in the US currently to push it through or promote it at all.
NAFTA could be the back door to an NAU though. Remember, lots of eurosceptics (that is, mainly British politicians and the far right across Europe) point out that the EU was originally just an Economic Community – When the UK joined in the early 1970s, for example, they thought that they were just joining a free trade zone and not a political union.
Be on your guard over there!
Comparing renunciation rates around the world
Curtis Poe, a fellow U.S. Person abroad and occasional Isaac Brock Society commenter, has an interesting post over at his blog Overseas Exile comparing renunciation rates in New Zealand and the United States. He wrote to New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs to get their data, and he’s looking for renunciation-of-citizenship data from other countries as well. This was as good a kick-in-the-pants as I’m ever going to get to compile and summarise the data that I’ve been bookmarking over the past few months from various Asian countries, so I’ve written it all up below. I’ve also done a bit of my own back-of-the-envelope analysis: the U.S. renunciation rate may look small, but it’s actually rather high compared to other countries which allow dual citizenship. Since we have commenters from all over the world here, hopefully some of you can help Curtis out with data from your own countries as well.
What Schumer Can Learn From George Washington
Professor of law Richard Samuelson over at the Library of Liberty and Law points out a striking difference between Senator Chuck Schumer’s attitude toward the private property of dissidents and that of the “Father of our Country”. When some members of the population seemed to prefer the protection of the British rather than the freedom of the new country and were thinking of leaving:
“General Washington did not demand that such enemies of their native country, as he thought them, should pay an exit tax. The Americans were fighting to protect their property from arbitrary taxation. Loyalists were free to choose loyalty, and they were free to take their personal property with them. If there was, on principle, no exit tax demanded in the darkest days of the American revolution, it is hard to see how one could be justified now.”
Economist with popular blog tells young people to get out
Ex-PATRIOT Act full text released: you too could be a “specified expatriate”
The GPO has just published the full text of Schumer’s proposed Ex-PATRIOT Act (S. 3205). The act creates the new category of “specified expatriates” (a subset of 877A(g)(1)’s “covered expatriates”) and gives rules for determining who is a “specified expatriate”. It then imposes a tax of 30% on U.S. capital gains of “specified expatriates”, and makes them inadmissible to the United States. Continue reading
Guess when a Canadian TFSA is not really tax exempt?
Steve Mopsick – On the “coming into compliance dilemma”
Check this out. My question for all is this:
How on the basis of these facts, specifically not knowing about Mr. FBAR in the past, could this be construed to be “willful non-compliance”? Are you saying that the IRS might just make a decision to treat this as willful.? It doesn’t seem to me that in this letter you have:
“now admitted in writing that you are in willful non-compliance with your federal income tax and FBAR filing obligations for the past six years.”
Isn’t the test for willfulness: “The intentional disregard of a known legal duty?” If you don’t know of the duty, how can the disregard be intentional?
This would seem to me to be a very unlikely response from the IRS. If they do respond this way, the outcome is clear:
The word will get out and nobody will ever attempt to bring themselves into compliance again.
Love you hear all your thoughts on this.
Thank you Mr. Mopsick for a very thought provoking post!
https://twitter.com/#!/MopsickTaxLaw/status/204718333680033792
Did Obama “keep his word” to U.S. citizens living abroad? – keepinghisword.com
Check out the new “Keeping His Word” site from the Obama campaign. During his campaign Senator Obama made certain promises to U.S. citizens abroad.
In a recent comment Roger Conklin wrote: Continue reading
No Civilized Country Would Ever Banish Eduardo Saverin
This article appeared today in the American Thinker: No Civilized Country Would Ever Banish Eduardo Saverin, by Peter W. Dunn
The Ex-Patriot Act introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey is a bill of attainder which would result in cruel and unusual punishment.