Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

NPR Article focuses on the “foreignness” of the individuals receiving the $1200 checks – Maybe it’s really a new Marshall Plan

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Rewarding nonresident aliens who filed a 1040 instead of a 1040NR …

As has been widely discussed on Brock, there has been much discussion of:

1. Nonresidents of the United States receiving the $1200 CARES Act payment; and

2. The fact that certain US citizens whose spouse does not have a Social Security number were disentitled by statute from receiving the payment.

It appears that the media has woken up this reality. The NPR article was referenced in a September 9, 2020 article in the Washington Post. The comments to the article are fascinating and I think worth the read. For example:

FWIW, I live in Germany and have still not received my stimulus check either. I spent hours on the phone with IRS to find out why. The representative I spoke with said they had not received my 2018 or 19 tax returns, both of which I had filed. I checked with my accountant, who informed me that when they tried to do an electronic filing, it had been rejected and they had to send a paper filing. We have followed up both by fax and by paper, again, and still nothing. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see a dime, don’t know if it’s the IRS or USPS holding things up, but am to the point that I wonder why I have to file every year if they aren’t going to bother to process my returns.

I know of at least one non-resident who received a check overseas. I assumed it was because he was receiving Social Security payments from 10+ years of working in the US. How many others are there?

Its been 5 months, told twice they mailed a check to us overseas. Never received it. I was told no International mail came from the US postal service, guess that was a lie too.

Checks to deceased U.S. citizens?

Checks to non-citizens?

And people wonder why the national debt is exploding under “Only I can fix it” Chump

Could it be that the United States is actually establishing a new “Marshall Plan” to assist the rest of the COVID-19 afflicted world?

July 2020: Heightened Canada Revenue Agency Enforcement of #FATCA IGAs Likely To Lead To More Renunciations of US Citizenship

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March 2020: From Elizabeth Thompson of CBC …

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IRS Webinar: “Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens”

Posted on by Posted in Ethics, Law & Morality, reductio ad absurdum, Relinquishment, Renunciation 3 Comments

IRS Webinar: “Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens”

Excerpts:

“PHILIP YAMALIS: Welcome to today’s webinar, Relief Procedures for Certain Former Citizens. We are certainly very glad you are joining us today. My name is Philip Yamalis and I am a Stakeholder Liaison with the Internal Revenue Service and I will be your moderator today’s webinar which is slated for 100 minutes. Before we begin, if there is anyone in the audience that is with the media…”

“Phil, how about stopping here first for a polling question. YAMALIS: That sounds like a great idea. Let’s do it. Our first polling question, folks. Here it is. What are some of the common tax responsibilities of United States citizens? Now is the correct response, A, annually file income tax returns reporting worldwide income if income is over a specified threshold. B, annually file all required information returns, C, annually file Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts or FBAR on FinCEN Form 114, or, D, all of the above? Please click on the radio button that you believe most closely answers this question. I’ll give you a few seconds to make your selection. OK, let’s stop the polling now and we’ll share the correct answer on the next slide. And the correct response is D, all of the above. OK. I see that 97 percent of our audience responded correctly. That’s an awesome response rate. Thanks for your attention, folks. So with that, let me turn it over to Lara…”

“Philip, why do[n’t] we stop here for our second polling question? YAMALIS: Lara, that sounds very good to me. So, audience, are you ready for the second polling question? Here it is. I’ve heard this enough, so I think we all got this, but here it is. On what IRS form must individuals who relinquished citizenship certify compliance for the five years before expatriation? Is the correct response Form 911, B, Form 5471, C, Form 8854, or D, Form 8939? You know how this goes. Click on the radio button that you believe most closely answers this question…I’m glad that 90 percent of you responded correctly, the Form 8854, Initial and Annual Expatriation Statement. Available where? Yes, on IRS.gov. That’s a great correct response rate, by the way, 90 percent. Thanks so much for paying attention, folks…”

“So, in Hypothetical 1, we have John, who was born in the U.S. and became a U.S. citizen at birth. He renounced his citizenship on October the 1st, 2019. In making a submission, he tallies up his total tax liability and it’s under the 25,000-dollar threshold. Now, here’s an important point. It was stated in the Hypothetical. John uses his best efforts in computing his total tax for each year. John computed the income from his foreign [?]mutual funds and reported them as ordinary income on the other income line of his Forms 1040. Anybody that’s familiar with foreign [?] mutual funds knows that they’re treated as special categories of investments. John should have used a Form 8621. The title of that form is Information Return by a Shareholder of a Passive Foreign Investment Company or Qualified Electing Fund. We often refer to these as PFICs. So, John should have reported his PFIC on a Form 8621 with some special computation, but he didn’t. He tried his very best…”

“The term, Accidental American, is not a term used by the government…”

“…Thanks again for your time and attendance. We wish you much success in your business or practice.”

The Association des Américains Accidentels (AAA) seeks Canadian Plaintiffs in U.S. Lawsuit Contesting High Cost of Citizenship Renunciation Fee: Please help

Posted on by Posted in Citizenship Issues, Freedom, Law & Morality 23 Comments

The United States engages in a human rights violation by making it difficult/impossible to renounce U.S. citizenship because of the high citizenship renunciation fee it imposes.

The Association des Américains Accidentels (AAA) seeks Canadian plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State that will contest the unreasonably high citizenship renunciation fee.

The lawsuit will be launched in early 2021.

It is expected that some plaintiffs, for example,will have already have paid the fee and have renounced, but others were not able to renounce because they could not afford the high fee.

You will have to provide your name, residence, facts surrounding your U.S. citizenship (e.g., you might have no meaningful relationship with the U.S. but had citizenship imposed) and your renunciation/desire to renounce details.

Assume that your name will be published in a public record and that you might have to sign a written declaration at some point in the future.

If you are interested in being a plaintiff your questions will be answered by emailing contact@americains-accidentals.fr with subject line “Plainte USA”

US citizen consular services begin to open up, appointments for visas or renunciation are not available until further notice

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August 13, 2020: On the one hand (at least in Toronto) U.S. Citizen Services are opening up …

U.S. DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO CANADA

Message to U.S. Citizens in Canada: U.S. Consulate General Toronto resumes most American citizen services

AUGUST 13, 2020

Location: Toronto

Event: U.S. Consulate General Toronto resumes public appointments for American citizen services

BEGIN Message for U.S. Citizens

The U.S. Consulate General Toronto is now accepting a limited number of appointments for most U.S. citizen services. You can request an appointment for routine and emergency passport services, Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) services, and adult citizenship claims by emailing us at TorontoPassport@state.gov. Please note that appointment numbers are limited to prevent crowding, and therefore wait times for appointments will be longer than normal. We appreciate your patience and support for our mutual efforts to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.

We are not offering routine visa services at this time.  For information on visa appointments, visit https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-ca/niv.

August 15, 2020: On the other hand renunciation appointments are closed down with no reopening in sight …

The health and safety of those who work at and visit the Embassy and Consulates is our highest priority. In response to the global pandemic COVID-19, and in line with the Canadian government’s call to increase social distancing, the CLN Processing Center has suspended Loss of Nationality services until further notice. We will resume routine services as soon as possible but are unable to provide a specific date at this time.

Please be advised that at this time, appointments through the end of July have already been canceled and we have yet to determine if further cancelations are to be made. Canceled appointments will be rescheduled prior to scheduling new appointments from the current queue when we eventually resume with this service. Please note that we have suspended scheduling and rescheduling for the foreseeable future and will resume when we have returned to normal routine operations. It will take several months to recover from the backlog, however your place in the queue remains unchanged.

We regret any inconvenience caused by the suspension of this service and appreciate your support for our efforts to safeguard U.S. facilities and prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in Canada.

The S. 6039G public disclosure of those renouncing US citizenship suggests the USA is not a safe place for the transmission of personal data

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Prologue: From Facebook To FATCA

The above tweet references a 2013 post suggesting that the rise of Social Media in the United States resulted in a diminishment in the value of privacy in the United States. At a bare minimum, FATCA is an assault on privacy rights.

Jenny’s UK FATCA Lawsuit Is Based On The FATCA IGAs Violating Privacy Rights
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The inability to prove US citizenship as a way of stripping US citizenship from those who want it and denying individuals the right to renounce if they have it

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Factoid 1: Constructively stripping people of citizenship by not issuing them passports or questioning their birth certificates

The above tweet references a fascinating discussion from Open Society Justice Initiative about the weaponization of citizenship.

From page 9 …

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American Citizens Abroad AKA @ACAVoice Deserves Credit For Keeping The Focus On Ending @CitizenshipTax

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Kudos to American Citizens Abroad for producing a superb article demonstrating:

1. The harm that citizenship-based taxation does to individual Americans abroad; and

2. Demonstrating that the only way to cease harming Americans abroad is to end citizenship-based taxation.

This is seriously good article that puts much of the harm in the TCJA into historical perspective. Although the article makes it clear that much of the damage can be fixed through Treasury regulations (including the two which have been recently been the topic of discussion), the article “Keeps The Faith”, by reminding us that citizenship-based taxation must end! ACA deserves credit for NOT wavering from that position. Given that the Democratic Party has failed to include ending citizenship-based taxation in their platform and the Republican Party appears to not have recently reconsidered the issue, it appears that proponents of ending US citizenship-based taxation are fewer than ever. From that perspective, ACA deserves a special thanks. (It is also significant and tragic that Representative George Holding who pioneered the ONLY serious attempt to fix CBT is retiring. There is no evidence that his 2018 Bill will be introduced again.)

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Milestone in FATCA abuse: International Adviser claims “Dutch Americans” could be branded as tax evaders under Netherlands law

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It’s hard to know whether the story referenced in the above tweet is true or not. But, assuming it’s true, this really would represent a milestone in the extra-territorial application of US law.

Think of this way …

So far, the United States of America – the great “citadel of freedom of justice” – has managed to:

1. Export FATCA to the rest of the world

2. Gotten the world to agree that, the United States, and the United States alone determines which of the residents of other countries are to be considered to be “US persons” for FATCA purposes.

3. Forced the non-US banks to pay for the witch hunt and general FATCA inquisition

4. Expand the US tax base into other countries (think of the OMG moment – am I really US taxpayer property?)

5. By expanding the US tax base into other countries manage to extract capital from other countries (think Exit Tax, Transition Tax, GILTI, etc.)

6. Solidify the status of the the United States of America as the world’s number one tax haven (remember since the USA hasn’t signed on to the CRS): “What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas” and “What goes on in Wyoming (and other states) stays in Wyoming.”

But the best has now finally arrived … Truly amazing.

Assuming that this article is true, apparently now, the Netherlands may be willing to deem Accidental Americans (the one’s who accidentally escaped from America) as tax evaders in the Netherlands!!!! This is amazing. Think of it, now the United States doesn’t even have to charge these criminal “accidental Americans”. All they need do is:

A. Decree that a violation of US law in the Netherlands is actually a violation of the law of the Netherlands; and

B. Get the Netherlands to deal with them under the Dutch justice system.

Fantastic! One more expense that the United States need not pay. In the event that the “accidentals” are incarcerated (for disobeying the Homeland), the Netherlands can pay that cost too.

Russia, China and all other totalitarian regimes should really take note. Nobody does this better than America!