Democrat Candidates have little to offer #Americansabroad there will still be #FATCA #FBAR #CBT taxes – Let Us Go! https://t.co/voSFLVhznq

— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) February 4, 2016

 
Over the past few years the sheet distributed by the Obama 2008 team has been discussed here with regard to Supporting Americans Abroad (or rather, how it did not support them). Yesterday, Democrats Abroad released a set of questions and answers put to their Presidential Candidates. I thought it might be interesting to review what Mr. Obama said/did while contemplating whether there would be any improvement in the situation for expats based upon the statements of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders.
 

Mr. Obama

What He Said: Strengthen Economic Security for Americans Abroad

…he will work with Americans abroad to identify and understand problems they may face as a result of U.S. government policies.

What He Delivered: Closure of Bank Accounts; Inability to obtain/renew mortgages

What He Said: Census of Americans Abroad

What He Delivered: Nada

What He Said: Concerns of Americans Living Abroad

As president, Obama will work to establish a direct dialogue with Americans abroad.

What He Delivered: we are “Tax Cheats” “Traitors” “Don’t Pay Our Fair Share” oh, and not to forget, we must report our everyday bank accounts to FINCEN and endure considerable terror tactics used to try and get us to enter “amnesty” programs designed for criminals

What He Said: Other Governmental Services and Benefits

…..ensure that U.S. State Department staff members have proper training to assist Americans abroad in determining their various rights and responsibilities as American citizens

What He Delivered: OVDP/OVDI FATCA Form 8938 Renunciation Fee Raised 422%

 
So with those thoughts in mind, here are the questions that Democrats Abroad prepared and presented to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sanders and a Mr.Rocky De La Fuente.

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John Richardson says at http://www.citizenshipsolutions.ca/2014/06/17/john-richardson-interviews-andrew-grossman-march-1614-montreal/

“On March 16, 2014, as part of my “Solving The Problems of U.S. Citizenship” seminars,  I participated, along with Professor Allison Christians and lawyer Andrew Grossman in a “FATCA – U.S. citizenship” seminar at McGill law school. A summary of Professor Christians’s FATCA presentation is here.

After the FATCA information session, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Grossman. The interview focused on many aspects of U.S. citizenship. Some topics discussed ranged from the very academic to the very practical.

The interview underscores the fact that the law of U.S. citizenship is very complicated. Those who were NOT born in the United States, should not presume that they are U.S. citizens. Further inquiry to determine whether you are  a U.S. citizen is advisable.

Every person who is concerned by the “whether and what of U.S. citizenship” (or is consideringrelinquishing U.S. citizenship) will find some aspect of this interview to be of interest.

Thanks to Mr. Grossman for allowing me to interview him.”

Thanks, Lynne Swanson.  Cross-posting from MapleSandbox.ca:

reposted from Accidental Americans Public Group Facebook page by Sora Fon

This is a superb piece of work!

In 2013 Eric at Isaac Brock Society analysed available USG statistics to suggest that an increasing proportion of babies born abroad to US citizens is not being registered with a US consular office. While a few argue that citizenship is dependent upon registration (or, in the alternative and after the age of 5, application for a US passport), the better view is that the child is an American citizen at birth regardless — but that quite apart from the fact that the USG will not know of his/her existence, US case law establishes a (rebuttable) presumption of alienage in the case of a foreign birth and codified State Department practice (9 FAM 202.1-2 and 7 FAM 080) allowing the issuance of nonimmigrant visas and the admission to the US under visa waiver for a person who “has a possible claim to U.S. citizenship but is unable or unwilling to obtain documents to establish that status”.

The IRS has no standing to bring a proceeding to determine citizenship: its purview is to enforce the tax laws against those who by birth in the USA are (with very few exceptions) prima facie US citizens (under the 14th Amendment or by statute) or if born abroad have availed themselves of an attribute of US citizenship.

With the advent of #‎FATCA‬ and more stringent enforcement of ‪#‎FBAR‬, foreign trust (Form #3520), foreign company (Form #5471) and foreign collective, entity-based investment (‪#‎PFIC)‬ law, lifetime income and, for the self-employed, Self-Employment Tax (in the absence of a Totalisation Agreement) residence abroad as a US citizen is seen as untenable. But with the advent of a $2,350 renunciation fee and expatriation tax (Form 8854) especially for “covered expatriates”, observance of US law can be a practical impossibility. Taxes (through unrelieved double taxation and “payroll” taxes) and penalties can exceed 100% of income and assets. Pensions and tax-sparing savings may be impossible. Non-American spouse and offspring can be impoverished. Banking facilities and jobs may be denied although it’s unclear how generalised this problem has been.

Congress enacted these oppressive laws on purpose:
Congress Knew About Diaspora Phantom Gains Problem and Refused Fix .

It is part and parcel of the curious US notions of its own Exceptionalism and of Permanent Allegiance of those who, in its own right, the USG claims as its citizens, that even if those citizens have never set foot on American soil their primary obligation is to the USA and not any other country or society. (That Islam argues that sovereignty is reserved to Allah, and that foreign sovereigns may have other ideas can be left for discussion another day.)

There are at least 5 bilateral tax treaties containing mutual collection provisions, although these may not be applicable for persons who held the citizenship of the treaty partner at the time an unpaid tax accrued, and they may not apply to penalties:

Section 6330 Appeals Conference Memo

Only the Canadian provision is commonly invoked. Extradition for “tax crimes” rarely happens and when it does it is most often in connection with VAT “carousel fraud” and fraudulent income tax refund scams.

U.S. Efforts to Extradite Persons for Tax Offenses

Writs ne exeat republica to prevent a noncompliant taxpayer departing the United States are occasionally issued, and noncompliant citizens may be questioned on arrival in the US if their names appear on the TECS database used by immigration officers.

DHS:Privacy Impact Assessment Update for the TECS System See also Internal Revenue Manual § 5.1.18).

The worse it gets, in some respects the better it may be for those affected. Either the law will become so notoriously defied and so unenforceable abroad (though maybe not for want of trying) that (insofar as it damages the family lives of poor and working-class “accidental Americans”) human rights norms are invoked. Or penalties may be found disproportionate or their incidence intolerable by other countries: Blocking statutes, such as those enacted by several countries in response to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, are possible.

Or notwithstanding that it is within the exclusive purview of each state to determined who are its nationals, other countries could refuse to give effect to US claims of “US Person” status to certain dual citizens and others resident on their territory. Resolution of cases of conflict of nationalities was more robust in the first half of the 20th Century:

Report on Nationality, Including Statelessness by Mr. Manley O. Hudson, Special Rapporteur

But that was before the Afroyim (1967) and Terrazas (1980) judgments of the US Supreme Court which seem to have assumed that possession of American citizenship is a precious commodity, not easily disposed of. For that reason the Ishikawa Kawakita (treason) and Yaser Esam Hamdi (terrorism) cases caused the USG so much grief.

So where does that leave us? Those who defy the USG are rarely going to advocate publicly for their position. It is useful, however, to take note of the raw statistics: In 2015 the State Department said “8.7 million AmCits … are overseas at any given time these days” and that “6.8 million reside overseas”. We have not seen these figures substantiated and they are probably estimates.

Passport issuance statistics are here. Citizen numbers are published from time to time in “Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Overseas Citizens Services”. As for tax returns filed from “other areas” than the 50 US states:

Historic Table 2 State Data Tax Year 2013 Sere the table under the map, very bottom of last column “Other”(695,000 for 2013, of which 257,000 were joint).

(This comment is a cooperative effort of my office)

watch the master cheats-lawyers (not required 2 report SARS) move $$ IRS should go after these folks https://t.co/JNswBNCyMi …

— U.S. Expat Canada (@USExpatCanada) February 1, 2016

US becoming the preferred place 4 tax evasion -airing now https://t.co/JNswBNCyMi

— U.S. Expat Canada (@USExpatCanada) February 1, 2016

60 Minutes aired a program this evening, Anonymous Inc which exposed some well-known and some less-well-known facts about “dirty money” and how easy it is to use the U.S. in laundering this money.

What interests me about this is not what they are doing nor how they are doing it. It is whether Homelanders would be able to discern how completely different this is than their perception of our “offshore” funds. While the two situations are not really similar, in the minds of those who claim we are “tax cheats” because we are “offshore” , the distinctions seem beyond their willingness to consider.

And while this notion would not be helpful for us, the behaviour of the lawyers immediately brings to mind the actions of the IRS/DOJ toward the Swiss banks. Will we see a similar move in this direction?
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cross-posted from ADCSovereignty blog

Photo highlights from Day 1 of the @OttawaForum. Tune in for Day 2 here: https://t.co/0CvbgvgH64 #Can2020 pic.twitter.com/PuMUfsPlEg

— Canada 2020 (@Canada2020) January 29, 2016

 
On January 28, 29/16 I attended the Canada 2020 “Building A Foreign Policy For Canada’s Future” forum. It was enormously interesting (apparently you will be able to view the sessions online – “Full Conference Video Coming Shortly”). I would recommend it.

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Error For those considering their US vote, @NoGo suggests this tweet on candidates as a post for Brock…

https://twitter.com/bracing/status/693567510856220672

Dear @BernieSanders Please–inform yourself of #FATCA‘s harmful effects on ALL US expats. It’s major for us.

cross-posted from ADCSovereignty

Regional reality: There are worse alternatives than the House of Saud https://t.co/AGYXguQL1B – tension between human rights and economics

— John Richardson – Counsellor for US persons abroad (@ExpatriationLaw) January 16, 2016

Many years ago I became familiar with the story of William Sampson who was a Canadian born engineer who, worked in Saudi Arabia, was tortured in a Saudi Arabian prison, eventually was released and died at very young age. I had the privilege of briefly meeting him. He was actually considering attending law school (and I know that he was accepted by at least one Canadian law school). I highly recommend his book – “Confessions Of An Innocent Man“. To learn more see this documentary.

At the very least …

you will appreciate the importance of rule of law (somehow I don’t think the ADCS Charter challenge would be an option in Saudi Arabia and many other countries.) By the way, I do know that FATCA and U.S. citizenship taxation are causing problems for many Saudi citizens (who by the way are allowed only one citizenship). Many Saudi citizens fear that the imposition of U.S. citizenship will cause problems with both the U.S. Government and the Saudi Government.

This morning I received an email linking me to this article which detailed some of the recent “Saudi human rights abuses”.

Okay, so …

The above references an interesting article that appeared in today’s Globe and Mail. The article was written by Michael Bell who is a Carleton Professor and apparently an adviser to the Trudeau Liberals.

For the record, I am in NO WAY equating the treatment of Canadian citizens  under FATCA with the human rights violations that are alleged to have been committed by the Saudi Government. What I found interesting was the willingness of the writer to tolerate those individual human rights abuses because it was in the common good to do so. What I find particularly interesting (and I hope that I am not being unfair to him) is that he seems to assume that “collective rights” (society) take precedence over “individual rights” (Charter rights). Interesting question. I had always understood that the whole point of a Charter of Rights was to give individually protected Charter rights a priority over group rights (within reason and that’s why S. 1 of the Charter exists).  As I think about the article I wonder whether Mr. Bell would apply the same reasoning to a a gross violation (and NO CANADIAN is subject to the kinds of violations that occur in some other parts of the world) to the rights of Canadian citizens in Canada.

As a reminder, Charter S. 1 provides the template for when the violation of individual rights should be justified. S. 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads as follows:

Rights and freedoms in Canada

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Those of you who are interested in what this is interpreted to mean should read the Oakes decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Wikipedia comes to the rescue (maybe) here.

I recommend Mr. Bell’s article (it is quite short) and urge you to read the comments.

I am referring specifically to the following excerpt from  his article:

If the Saudi royal family were to fall, it would result in a massive destabilization of the Arabian Peninsula. Does this mean we should write them off in a world when hardball is the only game, where no regional standards meet ours? Are we to write off the interest displayed by the smaller Gulf States – Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates – in acquiring LAVs because of their alleged human rights violations (which are less spectacularly evident in the international media)?

To do so would mean single-issue politics, in this case human rights, should invariably trump all other considerations, including international and regional stability, security and our own economic well-being. If so, we should immediately consider the future of our relationship with other noteworthy human rights violators, perhaps beginning with China.

Unfortunately, we live in a highly imperfect world where it is beyond our capacity to change the primordial behaviour of other states within their own borders, no matter the legitimacy of our concerns. As members of the international community we live in a web of immensely complicated contending interests where to be effective we must be realists.

We have to ask ourselves whether a rough balance of power in the Middle East, as shambolic as it is, better suits Canadian interests than the fall of the Saudi dynasty, which would further destabilize an entire region. These LAVs may just maintain a semblance of equilibrium. Nor can we ignore that this latest deal (we have been selling LAVs to the Saudis for decades) affects 3,000 jobs over 15 years, and is worth $15-billion to the Canadian economy. Hefty penalties would apply were we to renege.

What do you think? Should the Trudeau government sell arms to Saudi Arabia?

Thank you for your continued support. As Stephen continues to report – we do need generous funding to continue.

John Richardson

To give us all a badly-needed lift, Brockers have often quoted the lyrics to familiar songs or have even written their own to go with well-known tunes. I recall a couple of years ago turning up the volume on Trooper’s “Raise a Little Hell” when a Youtube video was posted here! Nobody knows how it works, but music really does do something incredibly wonderful to our hearts.

In tandem with the fellowship I’ve experienced and the support I’ve received from the people on this blog, music has been what has gotten me through the FATCA/CBT minefield without stepping on a bomb. A side-effect of my own “OMG moment” was the discovery of a previously untapped well of creativity that I had not ever explored before. Since 2012 I’ve managed to write a short album’s worth of songs inspired almost entirely by the situation in which we have all found ourselves. There are 11 songs so far with a twelfth in the works.

Most of them are unrecorded as yet. For several personal reasons I have not shared them before, but I would like to offer three of them to you today. They are not “Hi-Fi”. They are raw, un-produced, and unedited, recorded in my living room. They are what they are, including everything I wish could have been better.

“Pay the Piper” (2012) might be called a “blues autobiography”; Out of the Shadows (2013), from my pre-blogging days, is about what it’s like to be in hiding without a voice; Rosa (2014) tells the story of Rosa Parks, our heroine from the civil rights  movement. They can be found on the IBS Youtube link thanks to the hard work and generosity of Deckard. My sincere thanks to him and everyone else who made the upload possible! I hope you enjoy listening!

With thanks to badger, who found this and passed it on.

The NDP now pressures the Liberals on FATCA IGA information turnover.
Here is some info on MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault, Critic for National Revenue (this guy is doing his job!). Perhaps we should thank him, communicate with him on an ongoing basis, etc. Contact info at bottom of post.
 

@PLDusseault Bravo 4 all your questions about the CRA turnover of CDNs' private financial info 2 IRS-Every CDN caught up in this thanks you!

— Patricia Moon (@nobledreamer16) January 23, 2016

Q-352 – January 21, 2016 – Mr. Dusseault (Sherbrooke) –
 
 
With respect to the September 2015 announcement of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that it would effectuate a transfer of information to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS):
 

• (a) how many records has the CRA transferred to the IRS to date;

 

• (b) on what dates did information transfer occur and how many records were transferred on each date;

 

• (c) how many records of individuals have been transferred in total;

 

• (d) by what means were the records transferred;

 

• (e) how much did it cost the CRA to compile the records for transfer;

 

• (f) how much did it cost the CRA to complete the transfer;

 

• (g) how were the costs in

    (e) and (f) calculated and what is the breakdown of those costs;

 

• (h) who made the decision to transfer the records;

 

• (i) when was the decision made to transfer records;

 

• (j) when did the CRA become aware that the U.S. Treasury had extended the deadline for such transfer

 

• (k) how was the CRA made aware that the U.S. Treasury had extended the deadline;

 

• (l) what steps were taken to assess and respond to the notice of deadline extension in (j)

 

• (m) what was the policy reason for transferring records despite the deadline extension;

 

• (n) when is the next transfer of records scheduled to take place;

 

• (o) what analysis was conducted to assess whether the transfer of records during the   writ period for the 42nd General Election complied with the “Guidelines on the Conduct of   Ministers, Ministers of State, Exempt Staff and Public Servants During an Election”;

 

• (p) what records exist with respect to any analysis conducted in relation to (o);

 

• (q) was information concerning the transfer of records from the CRA to the IRS included in any  transition materials prepared for a potential change in government or the Ministers responsible for CRA and Foreign Affairs;

 

• (r) what documents exist in relation to (q) and what are their file numbers;

 

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