Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Tag Archives: FBAR

Civil Forfeiture: The new #OVDP confiscation program for those in U.S. borders

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Note: Further update September 15, 2014 introducing the idea of “Third Party Confiscation”. Updated September 12, 2014 – Reader comments of “indirect confiscation added” – if you can think of more, please add them to the comments and I will add them to the post. Thanks: NotAmused and Mark Twain.

Direct Confiscation – Let me count the ways

The above tweet references an article which appeared at CBC.ca and was written by Neil MacDonald who is the Senior CBC Correspondent in Washington. The article is about the increasing U.S. use of “civil forfeiture” to confiscate people’s assets. (There have been previous Isaac Brock posts on the use of civil forfeiture here, here and here.)

To put it simply:

Civil forfeiture is a process where the government simply comes in and directly takes your property and money. As the article in the above tweet notes, cash is particularly susceptible to arbitrary confiscation.

But, what about the confiscation of cash according to U.S. law? For example, what about the confiscation of cash pursuant to Title 31? This issue was recently explored as comments to a blog post about the backlog of renunciations in Toronto.

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Robert Wood posts on renunciations, #FATCA, #Americansabroad

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Robert Wood deserves credit for keeping issues surrounding Americans abroad in the Homeland news. This is a good article . But, more to the point it has generated over 100,000 views and some intelligent comments.

Again, an interesting article with lots of comments.

 

 

For those who doubt that #FATCA is a declaration of war … Welcome to the #FATCASanction

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The article referenced in the above tweet includes:

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Why it matters to the U.S. if #Americansabroad renounce U.S. citizenship

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This is an interesting article that includes:

Some may think that 3,000 people renouncing their citizenship is a drop in the bucket, nothing to sneeze at, and small potatoes. The number of renouncers doesn’t compare to the 1 million who are legally immigrating to the U.S. every year. “Goodbye and good riddance,” some have commented.

But the trend is more troubling than it may appear. By raw numbers, the U.S. may be averaging a 997,000 surplus in immigrants versus emigrants, but Uncle Sam’s tax roll will not reflect the same surplus. The people who are renouncing their citizenship tend to be on the wealthier side. Not all are Eduardo Saverins (the Facebook co-founder who emigrated to Singapore “for business reasons” i.e. to reduce his tax liability). But expatriates are undergoing the pains of renunciation because they have greater than average networths and they see the writing on the U.S. budget deficit’s wall (many surmise that FATCA is an attempt to curb the deficit). The people who are immigrating to the U.S. tend to be those who are looking for opportunity, education, etc. They are bringing wallets full of hope, not gold. And when you recognize that the top 1 percent of American earners pay about 37 percent of all the federal taxes, a few thousand on the wealthier side become statistically significant.

A very popular phrase bandied about by politicians is that you can tell the health of the nation by the number of people who want to come and stay. That immigration reform is an issue, to many, means we have a good thing going here in the U.S. that others want to be a part of. But when the nation’s wealthy start opting out of the American dream, when they start thinking our borders as made of kryptonite, it’s time to pause and reflect.

Revealing and informative post about America today from @Mopsicktaxlaw – Confirms one world #FATCA

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I am a fan of Mr. Mospick and his blog. Mr. Mopsick has done much to reveal the injustice of citizenship-based taxation. He has publicly stated his opposition to “citizenship-based taxation”. For this he deserves credit. His latest post, although ostensibly about FATCA, reveals much more. He confirms the erosion of privacy and the “one world” agenda of FATCA.

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#Americansabroad in Canada must warn @TOMayorFord of offer of U.S. citizenship – post warnings here!

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For those who don’t know Rob Ford is the Mayor of Toronto. Toronto is Canada’s largest city and (apparently the sixth largest city in North America). Some of you may know, that he has been having his problems with Toronto City Council. But, he has become an International Celebrity (giving him a priceless amount of free advertising in his bid for re-election). He is clearly a media sensation. He has been the subject of numerous articles including this interesting contribution by Conrad Black.

Whether he is loved or hated in Canada, Mayor Ford is loved in the U.S. In fact he is so loved that according to MSN Canadian News Quiz :

An online petition if acted upon by the U.S. Government would make Rob Ford an Honary Citizen of – you guessed it – The United States of America.

If I were Rob Ford, right now I might be thinking:

Well, there’s good news and bad news!

The good news is that I am so loved in the United States that they want to make me a citizen!

The bad news is that the U.S. government might deem me to be a United States citizen!

I thought it might be interesting for Brockers to comment on what it might mean for Mayor Ford to be a U.S. citizen living in Canada.

Let’s help the Mayor. He has helped many residents of Toronto.

Whether you support the Mayor or not, surely he deserves to know exactly how it might affect his life to be a U.S. citizen living outside the United States.

Please put aside your political differences, and offer Mayor Ford some advice …

(Oh, by the way, for the purposes of your comments, let’s make the reasonable assumption that Mayor Ford has a net worth that exceeds two million U.S. dollars.)

 

@HarvardIR article describes hardships of #Americansabroad suggests abolishing citizenship-based tax

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This article appeared on the RenounceUSCitizenship blog.

Interesting article by by Jessica Dorfmann in the Harvard International Review. On the whole it is a very good article. After describing many of the specific hardships of U.S. citizenship abroad, It closes by saying:

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More @CBCNews #FATCA report – @JLancasterCBC – Spineless @Cdnbankers think #FATCA like winter

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This is a nicely done clip that appeared (in all places) on Toronto news at 6.00 p.m. The news starts off with a continuation of the Mayor Ford Chronicles (as the mainstream media continues its desperate campaign to re-elect Rob Ford).

This video continues with a familiar cast of characters. But, the part that I found particularly interesting was a representative of  the Canadian Bankers suggesting that to protest FATCA is the same as protesting winter. Seriously, yes!

“Saying NO to FATCA is like saying no to winter, both will arrive.”

He then confirms his view that the only relevant issue is the well being of the banks and their customers.

“If we were to be non-compliant there is a great financial risk the banks would face and a great financial risk their customers would face.”

I used to think that @CdnBankers were unprincipled wimps.  I now think they are completely mindless wimps and are therefore incapable of any principle.

It’s important to remember that the Canadian Bankers Association is basically begging the Federal Government to sign an IGA to protect the Canadian banks!

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