In trying to do my 2010 taxes I realize that it was absolutely the right choice for me to relinquish my United States citizenship.  A significant percentage of my income is “unearned” income.  I’ve tried to come up with a zero return based on my Canadian taxes paid (Foreign Tax Credit) but the Form 116 is hopelessly complicated and I cannot do it myself.  The year 2010 was perhaps my first really good year as an investor, and so I’ve never had to have a Form 116 done for me, since my US income tax was always zero based on the FEIE and the personal exemptions.  I have decided that it is actually impossible to be an investor of any kind as a United States person living in a foreign jurisdiction, even a high tax region like Canada.  Here are some of my reflexions in trying to do my 2010 taxes: Continue reading →

I suppose no one should be surprised but this story of the US Border Patrol is enough to infuriate. Harrassment, pure and simple.

In advance of the awarding of the annual $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, tonight at the Politics and the Pen Gala in Ottawa, Huffington Post Canada will be running excerpts from the five finalists.  Jacques Poitras‘ book is about “the first boundary between Canada and the U.S., [which] was drawn between Maine and New Brunswick and it has served as a microcosm for relations between the two nations ever since. For centuries, friends, lovers, and smugglers reached across the line to one another, but now, post 9/11, political and security concerns have begun to isolate friendly neighbours from one another. Colourful community eccentricities — driveways that straddle an international border — have been transformed by new restrictions.”

FOR A MILE and a half, Russell Road follows the border almost perfectly: the eastern shoulder of the road is in Canada and the western shoulder is in the United States. This did not pose particular challenges to the residents of the road until January of 2003. Marion Pedersen was driving to the large white farmhouse she had shared with her husband Nickolaj for 53 years, the only home on the Canadian side of the road, when she was stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol right in front of her driveway. Continue reading.

Author’s note:  While I was able to get TaxAct to work for me for the 2011 taxes, 2010 is another story.  I think Tax Act probably works fine as long as the taxpayer doesn’t have too much unearned income.

My new Canadian accountant has declined to help me create self-prepared tax return.  I found that if you go to this IRS site, there was a number of free software programs. I chose TaxAct, because it included the following features:

• Adjusted Gross Income: $57,000 or less, and
• Age: between 19 and 55, and
• Live in any state or U.S. Citizens and resident aliens with foreign addresses

Continue reading →

https://twitter.com/#!/GreenbackTax/status/195117530128465921

I request that you watch the  video described in the above tweet from Greenback Expat Tax Services. Makes me wonder if U.S. citizens abroad have more reason to fear the “cross border professionals” than the IRS. Would be very interested in your comments.

They have posted the same video on YouTube:

If you agree with me, the next question is: Continue reading →

 
USxCanada can vouch for the reliability of the following reporter, personally known for over three decades. This report of no-fee relinquishment in Hong Kong, authorized for release to Brock, is cut-and-pasted from a just-received email. This case provides further evidence that residents of Canada are suffering execrable treatment by the country from which they seek release.
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Numerous times  here on the Isaac Brock Society, one or another of us has talked about the physical size of the US Tax Code. The figure I remember is on the order of 73,000 pages. Today Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute responds to a critic of  his recent article  on the size and complexity of the US tax code. The critic calls Edwards a liar, informing us that the Tax Code is a featherweight 5500 pages and takes up a paltry 18 inches of bookshelf space, not the nine feet claimed by Edwards.  In response, Edwards defends his claim by distinguishing between the standard edition of the US Tax Code itself, which is the smaller version, versus the Standard Federal Tax Reporter published by CCH which includes the Tax Code, plus the tax regulations from the Treasury Department, plus rules and commentary from tax case law, and which is the document that tax practitioners must work from. This latter document is indeed over 73,000 pages.

The metric of shelf space, nine feet and counting, comes from the Taxpayer Advocate Service as a means of illustrating the burden of tax complexity for the taxpayer. CCH has a  nice historical visual of this burden.  In 1913, the 1040 form was one page, with two pages of instruction.   The 1040 is still only two pages , but this year the instruction book for the 1040 is 189 pages long. And anyone who’s filled one out lately is aware of how many other forms, with their own interminable instructions, can be spun off from this deceptively short document.

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Outside of the IBS I am a regular commenter at a blog called Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. I have always wanted this subject to come up there and it appears tonight my wish has been granted. If you go the link below you see my comments at the very end after someone else brought up the virtues of citizenship based taxation(The person in question is a self identified NDP supporter so I had to remind him the NDP OPPOSES citizenship based taxation)

http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2012/04/breakfast.html#comments

Feel free if interested to jump in if interested(Over my history of commentating at the site I am actually quite friendly with the commenter Determinant who made the comments in favor of citizenship based taxation). The people who run the blog are several influential professors who have a lot of ties to the Department of Finance so this is another way of getting are voices heard in Ottawa. Be respectful though.