This is an open thread to talk about how you cope with generalized anxiety.  I’m one of those people who is anxious about everything all the time.  But when business is good (like before 2008!) I keep myself busy so the anxiety has an outlet and I’m able to cope.  These days business is slow as molasses and I obsess so much I think I’m going nuts.

Here’s what I’ve been doing but it doesn’t seem to work anymore:

– I take Ativan and Remeron every day.  It helps but not as much as it used to.

– I play games on my Playbook at bedtime.

– I watch taped TV shows (I’m now having nightmares about things I see in the shows!)

– I often watch Fox News hoping all the people responsible for FATCA get voted out of office (yes I live in a fantasy world).

Some people drink to relax but that’s not an option for me, I’d turn it into an olympic sport.

Little things can help some people to cope with anxiety.  What do you do that helps?

I have been looking for this for a long time but there was a series of meeting back in 2000 between official in then Canadian Finance Minister’s Paul Martin’s Office and US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers over US Canada cross border migration. I was led to believe there was a joint statement by both the US and Canada at the time but most of the statement is quoted from Paul Martin.  (The press release is rather interesting fodder as to whether the current government of Canada is any better on these issues than the previous).

Interesting Passage:

For individuals, the changes will ensure the appropriate tax treatment of an emigrant’s gains. Specifically, where one country’s tax rules treat an individual as having disposed of a property immediately before the individual emigrates to the other country, the individual will be able to choose to be treated under the other country’s rules as also having disposed of and reacquired the property at its fair market value.

In most cases, this will mean that no tax is payable in the destination country on any pre-emigration gain. Where tax is payable in the destination country – for example, where the property in question is real estate situated in that country – the new rule will ensure appropriate tax crediting.

What I understand this to be is there is no negative effects as a matter a Canadian tax policy for a someone resident in Canada who renounces there US citizenship and has to pay exit tax.(The US Treasury going all the way back to 1995 had been pushing the “HEART” style exit tax as a preferred policy). My biggest disappointment is there seems to be no remarks or specific commitments from anyone in the US government at the time.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071122060211/http://www.fin.gc.ca/news00/00-068e.html

Please note that I’ve begun the process of moving this blog to isaacbrocksociety.ca.  Therefore, I have shut off comments on every post before 1 June 2012.  My goal is that by Tuesday evening, the blog will be completely moved to it’s new site.

Background

The Isaac Brock Society started as an informal group of Canadians who began meeting in person and through email to discuss their US tax and citizenship problems. Some of these people were taking part in a discussion at the Expat Forum in the Fall of 2011. I was in contact with one of them because she had commented on my blog, and when I saw what she was involved in a lively discussion at Expat Forum, I joined in there.

Then, we started to see censorship at the Expat Forum, followed by censorship of attempts to discuss openly the censorship. A whole new genre was born: the Expat Forum moderator joke, but I digress.  I was horrified by the Expat Forum’s censorship of our important discussion. So I reached out to some of the people affected by it, and suggested that we begin a new site where we were in control. Then, I was brought into an e-mail conversation of five other Brockers. We decided to start this site at WordPress.com because I offered to administrate it and (1) WordPress.com was what I knew how to do; (2) WordPress blogs are great a product; (3) I didn’t know how to do a forum or run forum software; (4) it was cheap (our current hosting costs have been $25 total).

The Issues

For awhile now, some people have urged me to leave WordPress.com.  Here are some of the issues, which have recently converged into a major headache for me and I’ve had to take some steps to address them this week:

Continue reading →

This thread seeks to assemble a list of our jargon words, with definitions, examples, and links where appropriate.  I don’t have much time to write all of the terms and definitions, so I propose we collaborate on it. Continue reading →

May we please continue with the work in the Press Release Thread?  I suggest we finalize, please vote.

As if it’s not enough to have Schulman, Schumer and many others  telling us how we should have life-long financial servitude to the United States, now Winnipeg Free Press headline demands: U.S. Citizens Living Here:  Do Your Tax Duty

The author even reminds Canadian snowbirds of their obligation to dear old Uncle Sam:

“Just to be clear, this applies to Canadian citizens who are winter vacationers in the United States, including the vast majority who have never worked in the U.S. and do not earn any money there.”

And, then he goes on to give some insightful advice to Canadians earning a living in U.S.

“Speaking of Canadians working in America, I think it will be the L.A. Kings in five or six games.”

Hockey?!?  Not one word about the massive penalties Canadians and other immigrants to U.S. can face if they don’t report on their retirement or other savings in their home countries.

The author is a fee-for service financial planner.  I don’t think I’ll hire him anytime soon.