Yes, it’s hard to believe. For a link to the U.N. resolution confirming this check out:
https://twitter.com/#!/FBAR_Compliant/status/164084862381334528
The above tweet has a link to the actual U.N. resolution. Here is some commentary that I received on this issue:
My place of birth has begun to bother me more than ever with the systematic rise in discrimination of those with US birth places, clearly obvious for all to see the moment that you open your passport, by banks and other financial institutions due to FATCA. Yes, that horrible component of your personal data that, along with your name and date of birth, allows you to be systematically categorised and cataloged. For many, where you were born also happens to be where you grew up and where you most identify with. Many are born, live and die in the same city their entire lives and come from families that go back generations in the same city as well. Some of my French friends have even told me that an unwritten rule in Paris is that you need to be no less than the 5th generation to be born and raised in the city to be a real “Parisian”.
Well, the primary issue they have is that they don’t live in the United States. This makes them particularly deserving of punishment. And of course, they have no say in the political process. Easy game and low hanging fruit.
https://twitter.com/#!/renounceus/status/164032677903745024
A recent article in the Boston Globe (a response to the Romney tax disclosures) notes that:
“In fact, nearly half of US taxpayers will probably pay no taxes at all for 2011, including 24,000 in the top 1 percent of incomes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a think tank in Washington. Some low-income families even get back more than they pay because of the Earned Income Tax Credit and other programs.” Continue reading
On this last Sunday of January 2012, here at Isaac Brock Society, multiple threads seem to have converged on at least faint hopes that the US behemoth might turn to the sanity of residence-based taxation. Or not.
Some appear to hope that such a sea change might still solve problems they currently founder in, while others look toward (or have already realized) the certain freedom of consigning US citizenship to jettison. What is realistic?
Two academic articles offer a long view of where the United States has come from.
Unfortunately, this only pertains to corporations and doesn’t help us one iota. However, Camp seems to understand the necessity and the logic of why the shift from international to territorial-based taxation is what the US needs in terms of business. Why not citizens as well?
My question is, what could we propose in order to be considered for the same system? What do we have to offer that they would consider seriously enough to switch? Are we of any value to the country or are we just something to tax and label as rich, lazy cheats?
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=266168
excerpts:
Petros provides a scenario which would suggest that the Human Rights Act does not protect U.S. Citizens living in Canada, as they do not have equal opportunity with other individuals, because under the Tax Treaty the CRA will collect taxes for the IRS.
A comment on Update on the IRS FS for U.S. and Dual Citizens Living Outside The United States
The Tax Advocate within the IRS has written a report critical of the IRS in its handling of OVDP and OVDI participants and US taxpayers abroad identifying it as a “Most Serious Problem”. For my own purposes I’ve distilled into a few critical paragraphs: Continue reading
In his article Tax Evaders Renounce U.S. Citizenship Noel Brinkhoff writes:
Rather than deal with the complexities of U.S. tax law, Americans living overseas are increasingly renouncing their citizenship in order to avoid paying their income taxes.
Fortunately, the rest of the short article is a little bit better, as he refers to the complexity of the tax filing requirements and the IRS’s bait and switch tactics. Still, I am disgusted by the assumption of guilt that if you renounce you are a tax evader.
It’s funny that you can be a foreigner like me (originally from India, now a Canadian citizen) and do most of your business in the US and not get taxed on it. I run an internet company incorporated in Canada and almost all my customers are American. I don’t file anything with the IRS because legally I don’t have to.
But if you happen to have been born in the US or have an American parent and don’t earn income from there they still want to tax you. It’s like a penalty for having any American association. On top of that no foreigners will want to form a partnership with you due to FATCA. Continue reading
