Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

I posted this on another thread, but it’s worth repeating as it is an indication that our concerns are reaching those who are in charge of watching those who are in charge:

NDP Position on the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

US citizenship is denied to children who cannot prove that either their sperm and egg donors were US citizens.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-03-19/in-vitro-citizenship

As announced on another thread, there was a public meeting organized by Paul Dewar MP (NDP, Ottawa-Centre) to discuss FBAR and FATCA on the evening of March 26.  I attended that meeting, along with at least two other Brockers (Deckard and Pacifica).

I am attaching in PDF format my two-page summary and impressions of the meeting.  I delayed posting this until Deckard and Pacifica both had a chance to look at a draft and give me some comments on it.  However this is my summary, from my own notes and memory, and they certainly are free to exapnd on or disagree with anything in it.

Continue reading →

Check this out

http://www.haaretz.com/business/leumi-orders-american-clients-to-declare-u-s-knows-of-their-assets-1.421375

The Internal Revenue Service is pleased to announce that its highly successful campaign to bring non-resident United States persons into tax compliance has led to an unprecedented number of tax returns entering our processing center. However, due to recent budget cuts to our country’s tax collection service, and our inability to have predicted the current volume of returns, the IRS no longer has the available manpower needed to process US taxpayer’s returns in a timely fashion.

In our effort to maintain a consistent level of service for our customers, the IRS will now charge a processing fee to taxpayers whose tax returns originate in a foreign country. This fee will help defray the cost of the additional manpower needed in processing these returns.

Due to existing law, non-resident US tax persons currently yield little, if any, revenue for the US government. This fee shall remain in place until such time that Congress makes changes to our tax laws that currently allow non-residents to avoid paying into the US tax system.
– Tax Czar

Okay, not true, but doesn’t it seem like a natural progression in the current climate? It wouldn’t be much different from the US government’s decision to charge US citizens a $450 fee to cover the costs of their own renunciations. I am slowly starting to digest the reality of the situation: that if are not of benefit or value to the US, we are a liability by default.

I watched the videos that Tim posted (thank you, Tim, and thank you Euro2011Man who put the videos on YouTube). On the side, I noticed and watched the video that I am posting here. I so wonder how these women are facing their challenges with the US IRS, FBARs, FATCA. Did they know anything about all this when this video was made?

Once again, I thank all that is holy that my path took me to Canada. I do know, and this video brings it home, that if I had gone back to the US after my divorce in 1984, raising on my own one child with various expensive health problems and his sister, my story would be much different. With my son’s developmental disability, severe asthma and hereditary hemochromatosis and my own Crohn’s Disease, I am absolutely sure that I would have had to turn to social assistance to survive in the US — what are they but pre-existing conditions that would stigmatize and break us in the US. We have had nothing but the best medical care in Calgary, Alberta. It has not been a worry — the differences in how the two countries take care of its people is vast, a whole different mindset.

Instead, we are in Canada and I am thankful every day for that and will never take it for granted. I put in many long hours as an administrative assistant; I worked, scrimped and saved, paid taxes, was able to buy a house where my kids were raised and had a course of action for peace of mind that my son would, seamlessly, be looked after when I was gone. With the help of the Canadian Government and their innovative Registered Disability Savings Plan that my son, I slept well at night not worrying about my son’s future — I had it all figured out until I came to the realization of what is happening now. So, a glitch in the road.

I’ve survived many challenges and I will survive this — and I won’t leave this continuing administrative nightmare to the children I one day leave behind me. Thank you, Minister Flaherty and Canada, for taking the stand you have for protection of the rights of the persons from the US who chose Canada as their new home, as well as the “accidental Americans” who also make Canada their home.

I just told ‘outragec’ offline that I had always wanted to someday have a cleaning lady (person) seeing as it’s spring cleaning time. I should have used some of that savings for my wish — it would have been a drop in the bucket for what is now being spent to leave the US completely behind. Outragec’s reply — “oh, right I got confused! getting free of the US holds a much better return on your investment than a cleaning lady :)…..”

It is always good to take a moment to count our blessings, and I have many here in Canada (including the support and education I’ve gotten at the Isaac Brock site). So, I have just paused to do so.

I did benefit from the US economy and my parents paid taxes, served in the military, etc. during those years. I paid US taxes in my early working years there; my then-husband served four years in the Marines. It was my (our) right to choose where to live and that choice was Canada since 1969 — and I have no problem with the taxes I’ve paid here since then. Here, among other things, health care is a cherished right.

I don’t how these two things got attached together but I found an interesting letter from the Canadian Bankers Association to Flaherty AND a letter from the UK Ambassador to the US to Geithner. This is the first I have ever seen a foreign governments direct response to the US. Take a read.

http://www.clhia.ca/domino/html/submissions/Public_Submissions.nsf/3a76f4bf05a34de68525757e00638de1/8525758200701fa9852578490052b067/$FILE/Letter_from_FS_Council_reFATCA.pdf