Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

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Category Archives: Issues regarding US persons abroad

Reply from the Finance Minister, the Honourable Bill Morneau…

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Duke of Devon says,

Mr. Morneau’s letter deserves its’ own post so it won’t get lost. He seems to get it. It will be interesting to keep on his case about the lack of reciprocity. He is the first Lib. to confirm they won’t help collect anything the IRS claims against a Canadian and I think his distinction that CRA-IRS transfer of information cannot legally be used by the IRS to impose FBAR fines is a new commitment. Not so sure the IRS would respect the distinction.

 

Here is the first reply that any of have gotten from the Finance Minister.  Thanks for sharing it, Cheryl.

April 26, 2016 Reply from The Honourable Bill Morneau, P.C., M.P.

 

 

US tax lawyer, blogger and #FATCA researcher inducted into “Hall Of Fame”

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cross-posted from citizenshipsolutions dot ca

So much publicity! So little relevance!

The New York primary was this week. Both Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton extended their leads and moved one step closer to their respective party’s nominations. (Mrs. Clinton with the approval of the Democratic Party and Mr. Trump with the disapproval of the Republican Party.) Interestingly both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton have higher disapproval ratings than approval ratings. Yet each of them appears likely to represent their respective parties in the upcoming Presidential election. One of them will win the election (this is not the same as having been elected). Will the eventual winner make a positive difference in the life of any individual? Doubtful. Watching the political process contributes to a sense of negativity about human nature.

But, wait! The World Is Full Of Good People!

Starting at the age of 7 or 8, I participated in four seasons of organized sports. To be truly effective, organized sports are highly dependent on adult volunteers. I well remember a guy named “Bob D.” Although I thought of him as old, he was probably somewhere between the age of 20 and 25. Anyway, “Bob D” was helping with baseball. “Bob D.” was helping with basketball. “Bob D.” was helping with football. “Bob D.” was always volunteering his time and coaching. I have a memory of my father noticing “Bob D.” and commenting “There are a lot of good people in this world”. So true. I don’t believe that “Bob D.” received a lot of recognition or a lot of gratitude. Yet year after year, season after season, week after week, day after day. “Bob D.” showed up. He clearly made a positive difference in the lives of others.

The Unsung Heroes of Life

You will find people like “Bob D.” in every facet of life. They do things for people, just because they want to. They contribute to their communities, just because they want to. They provide mentorship for people, just because they want to. They put their kids through university because they want to. They are the true “Unsung Heroes of Life”. I once thought of writing a little book about these “Unsung Heroes of Life”.

Although, I can’t do a book. I can offer this “Bedtime Story” …

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Comments invited for Draft 2016 Democrats Abroad Platform

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DRAFT 2016 DEMOCRATS ABROAD PLATFORM

Democrats Abroad has released its draft 2016 platform and readers of this new election year manifesto are invited to “JOIN OR LOGIN to leave a comment” until April 27th, by completing an online survey.

As usual, there are plenty of widely divergent, even contradictory, statements and goals contained within the platform’s pages. For example, DA favours

…restoring U.S. citizenship to persons born abroad who lost it by failing to meet residency requirements in a section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that was repealed in 1978…

while calling for

…an amnesty program for foreign nationals who are citizens of the United States in name only, with no nexus to the United States other than their birth on U.S. soil or birth abroad to a U.S. parent, to allow them to shed their unwanted U.S. citizenship on a no fees, no penalty and no tax filing or reporting basis.

This thread is intended for those who would like to comment on this latest DA dispatch without potentially outing themselves in the process. We would encourage Democrats Abroad to carefully read and consider the thoughts and opinions of our commenters here, as well as those who choose to take the survey and comment on DA’s web site.

April 14, 2016 Canadian Parliament ETHI – Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy & Ethics

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VIDEO: April 14, 2016 — Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier at Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy & Ethics re Transfer of Information to the United States IRS

MINUTES of Proceedings: Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI) 42nd Parliament, 1st Session Meeting No. 8, Thursday, April 14, 2016, 8:45 a.m. to 10:49 a.m.

TRANSCRIPT: House of Commons, Canada – Standing Committee ETHI 8 Meeting on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, Thursday, April 14, 2016

and

Appearance before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on the Transfer of Information to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) April 14, 2016 Opening Statement by Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada

There has been comment on the Revenue Minister’s qualifications for her post.  Here, as well,  is some discussion (brought forward by EmBee) on Daniel Therrien’s qualifications for Privacy Commissioner:
From *The Privacy Advisor* – May 29, 2014 *Harper Pick for Privacy Commissioner “May Not Be the Best Fit*

News that the Harper government has nominated a new federal privacy commissioner is sending shock waves through the Canadian privacy community. But the buzz isn’t over the fact that former Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart’s replacement has been found; rather, it’s over the fact that no one in the privacy world has ever heard of the newly nominated-for-appointment Daniel Therrien—and what they have heard doesn’t sound good if the end-goal is the protection of Canadians’ privacy rights.

What is known about Therrien is that he’s been a lawyer at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for more than 20 years. His current title is assistant deputy attorney general, public safety, defence and immigration portfolio. And in the midst of an increasing push by the government for surveillance powers and law enforcement access to Canadians’ data—a la bills like thehighly controversial C-13 and now-dead-in-the-water C-30—a lawyer who’s worked on helping the DOJ achieve those aims isn’t exactly who privacy advocates had in mind as the chief defender of privacy rights.

In fact, NDP Leader Thomas Mulclair has outright told the Harper government that Therrien has “neither the neutrality nor the necessary detachment to hold this position,” CBCreports, and has asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reconsider the nomination, which, by mandate of the Privacy Act, the House of Commons and the Senate must approve.

Tax Haven or Tax Heaven: Introduction – Were the “Panama Papers” about #offshore “tax evasion” or “tax avoidance”?

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cross-posted from citizenshipsolutions dot ca


The above tweet references an article written by Tony Burman, which appeared in the Toronto Star (and other papers) on April 9, 2016.

The article included:

The global aftershocks of the so-called Panama Papers are only beginning to be felt. More revelations are expected in the weeks ahead, and this will only add to the uproar.

The prime minister of Iceland has already been dumped. Other government leaders have been embarrassed. Several countries have announced inquiries into the secretive world of offshore tax evasion. And public anxiety about the corrupt coddling of the world’s superwealthy “1%” is showing signs of turning into red-hot anger.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not as if we didn’t already know that the world’s political and business elites frequently cheat and steal, that our governments are swindled out of trillions of dollars of revenue and, as a consequence of this greed, the vast majority of people suffer from a painful culture of austerity so these freeloaders can get richer. We already knew that.

However, it is the disgusting detail contained in this week’s revelation of leaked documents that is so revolting — and, of course, the appalling fact that so much of this is technically “legal.”
With their own interests in mind, politicians and business leaders in many countries have worked quietly in the dead of night to make this so. The result is that, more than ever, taxes now appear to be primarily for the little people.
The documents come from an influential Panama-based law firm. They include 11.5 million internal records disclosing the financial secrets of heads of state, billionaires, drug lords, celebrities and others.

While expressing outrage at the part of the “Panama Papers” that represents tax evasion, Mr. Burman identifies that much of the revelations of the “Panama Papers” was the result of clear and deliberate government policies and laws. In other words, the story of the “Panama Papers” is mostly about “legal tax avoidance” and ” NOT illegal “tax evasion”. Therefore, it is entirely unreasonable and counterproductive to focus on “tax evasion” and exclude “tax avoidance” from the discussion.
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PMJT Enjoys Yoga – Makes Sense That He Enjoys Flip-Flops, Too…

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Mark my words, this year’s most fashionable footwear in Ottawa is the #FATCA flip-flop. (Sorry, I’ve noticed that a lot of people who practice Yoga also wear flip-flops. Set me straight if you need to.)

Bad for your feet – but perfect for your posturing.

For the record, you can buy custom-printed flip flops online (printed with the image of your choice). If anyone, with the appropriate disposable income, wants to generate some news media about our plight, ordering a pair of these and letting the media know you’ve sent them to PMJT might get some very well-deserved attention. I’ll even write the press release.

Otherwise, feel free to steal the image below and share the crap out of it whenever+wherever you see fit: Twitter, Facebook, et al.

PMJT-fatca-flip-flop

 

 

 

Baby Elle’s FATCA Letter (Lynne Swanson’s good work)…

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Cross-posting while listening to viewing / listening to: http://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/XRender/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20160414/-1/24805?useragent=Mozilla/5.0%20(Windows%20NT%2010.0;%20WOW64)%20AppleWebKit/537.36%20(KHTML,%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome/49.0.2623.112%20Safari/537.36

http://maplesandbox.ca/2016/baby-elles-fatca-letter/

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama:

Why do you think I am a tax cheat?

I am eight months old. I live with my Mommy and Daddy in Canada.

I can’t walk or talk yet. So my Nana’s friend Lynne is helping me write to you.

At Christmas time Mommy and Daddy opened a small savings account for me in Canada. When I was six months old in February, TD Bank sent me a letter and other stuff.

I can’t read. So Nana read it for me.

I don’t know what the gibberish in the letter means. Nana says it’s crazy. I believe my Nana.

The letter says TD will squeal on me to Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Then the CRA will tattle on me to U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for FATCA. What’s a FATCA?

I don’t know what a citizen is. But I’m a double one.

I was born in the United States. My Mommy and Daddy are Canadian citizens. The Canadian government sent me a letter saying I am too. But I have a blue book that says I’m a U.S. citizen too.

TD says because they know I was born in the United States, I have to complete, sign and mail forms to them.

How can I? I can’t even print yet.

President Obama: Why do you want my information? What will you do with it?

Prime Minster Trudeau: Why are you giving your friend Mr. Obama information about me? Why are you helping him? Why aren’t you helping me?

Please help me. I can’t afford an accountant or lawyer from my allowance.

Bye Bye.

Baby Elle
Vancouver Canada

Baby-Elle-TD1

referencing also today’s: http://ipolitics.ca/2016/04/14/baby-girl-drawn-into-cra-irs-information-sharing-controversy/

AND

http://ipolitics.ca/2016/04/14/so-now-the-cra-is-going-after-infants/

…to be continued

Almost no U.S. citizenship renunciation appointments left during 2016 in Dublin; other U.S. embassies also putting up various roadblocks

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The website of the U.S. Embassy in Dublin (archive.org — archive.is) is stating that they have “no Renunciation [Sic] appointments available at the U.S. Embassy Dublin from 6th April 2016 until 5th December 2016″. Hat tip: @DavidSShaw13 on Twitter.

DublinRenunciationAppointments

So I decided to see whether other embassies & consulates had any similar revelations on their websites, and made tables of the results. These tables cover 175 locations — at least one post in every country where the U.S. State Department has (or had) a permanent physical presence, though not all posts in each country are covered. According to the State Department, the U.S. has “more than 270 diplomatic locations around the world”, though some of these are missions to international organisations or otherwise don’t handle renunciations. These are divided into two groups:

1. A table of links to the renunciation information pages of U.S. embassies & consulates, along with any notable comments on those websites about their procedures (51 entries)
2. A second table of embassies/consulates whose webpages don’t contain any detailed information on renouncing U.S. citizenship nor any mention of how to make an appointment (124 entries, or more than 70% — including twelve embassies to European Union member states).

From my examination so far, Dublin is the only post whose website confesses to a renunciation backlog. However, others reveal they are restricting the supply of appointments to an hour a week or one half-day each month. The rest won’t openly admit their backlogs or scheduling restrictions at all (though we know thanks to Patrick Cain that Toronto has a similar 10-month backlog). And some are deliberately making things even more difficult & time-consuming by demanding a two-appointment process with a two-week wait or longer in between, or telling you to fill out unnecessary forms in quintuplicate, or other such absurdities. (And very few are clear about their procedures for non-renunciant relinquishers, or even mention the word “relinquishment” at all.).

The majority of posts instruct you to email or call for renunciation appointments, and state or imply that they don’t accept online bookings; I find it quite likely that these posts are also silently restricting the supply of appointments. Only a few (for example, Brussels and Seoul) explicitly indicate that online booking (under the “notarial or other services” category) is acceptable. It might actually be easier to get an initial appointment at one of the posts whose websites don’t mention renunciation: since they don’t mention any restrictions on appointments, they can’t object if you just go ahead and book under “notarial or other services”. These posts also probably perform so few renunciations that their staff will have to ask you to come back again for a second appointment so that they can read up on the procedures in the interim & check with their superiors, but at least they might feel too embarrassed to make you wait the better part of a year for the second appointment.

Also see the Isaac Brock Society Consulate Report Directory for first-person accounts of what actually happens during renunciation & other relinquishment interviews.

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U.S. State Department tax reimbursement budget for U.S. citizen employees of international organisations up 56% in past decade

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TaxReimbursements In February, the U.S. State Department published budget requests for the next fiscal year. They estimate that in the current FY 2016 (which ends in September), they will spend US$27.4 million on reimbursing international organisations for those organisations’ reimbursements to their U.S. citizen employees for the U.S. taxes paid by those employees — $9.8 million (56%) more than they did ten years ago.

This is a fast-growing budget item in an area where Congresscritters have been trying to cut back after period of high spending growth in the late 2000s: State officials estimate that their total spending on “Contributions to International Organizations” (CIO) will be only about 12% higher in 2016 than in 2007, and have only requested 7.5% more than 2007 in the 2017 budget.

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