Month: June 2016

My Wound is Geography

 
This morning, I received a note bringing my attention to a comment left on the post that appears below. It is one of those comments that is so good, it really deserves its own post. So I am introducing this post with that comment. But I also want to introduce all of you, to the blog renounceuscitizenship in case you are not familiar with it. It was started in 2011, the year many of us found ourselves literally, under attack, from the U.S. government. I remember at the time, twinging just a bit, imagining how other people would react to the title “renounce U.S. citizenship.” Such an unthinkable action to take. And one I did take, just a few months later in January 2012. Yet the idea is commonplace now, discussed everyday online on Facebook, Twitter, individual blogs, in compliance journals, on TV news programs, in newspapers, etc.

Since that time, the renounceuscitizenship blog has been a very good place to go to for information, for identifying with others and seeing how they solve some of their problems, etc. IOW, it is a very, very good resource for anyone in our shoes and I hope many of you will take the time to go over and explore it. I do not know how I would ever have gotten through the early years without it as well as the Isaac Brock Society. So the actual post will follow the comment…….and please do take a look at the other interesting 32 comments to the post.

Lynn Milburn
May 31, 2016 at 4:44 am

I renounce June 8. I have not lived in the US at all since 1992. I did know about the ludicrous requirement to keep filing taxes annually and did so. Last year when I moved to France (from Australia), my “non-US person” husband and I opened a joint bank account. I did consider leaving my name off (to stop having to file fbars), but why should the one fact that I happen to be a US citizen dictate simple, everyday, choices like that? So we opened a joint acount. About a week later, the bank called us in–we didn’t know why. Our account representative (yes, a REAL person – in France people are still treated as humans – not as consumers with numbers and no faces) explained that because I had indicated on my application that I had been born in the US, I had to sign a form required by the US. This was the first I had ever heard of FBAR. Being called in and having to sign the form made me feel as if I had been raped by Uncle Sam! Only me–my husband was not a “US person” so no problem with him. That’s when I started really looking into it. And really thinking. Since 1992, when I started filing, things have just gotten so ridiculousy complex, and I can no longer suffer the intrusion on my time, health and freedom. Yes, I am forced to renounce because I happen to live overseas. For me, I had always seen the hypocrisy of the US–I remember in the 70s when I was in high school in the US reading things in the newspaper that the US did, and recognizing that what ‘we’ were doing was so often the exact things that ‘we’ criticized the Soviets for. doing, I could go on. I find that it is the US citizens who are worldly, can think deeply and widely to see various sides of issues (not just “You’re either with us or you’re against us!”) and are HONEST (i.e, file US taxes once they find out it is a responsibility to do so) who are the ones to renounce. Sadly for the US, we are exactly the type of people needed to make a country great in this globalizing world.

reposted with permission from renounceuscitizenship wordpress blog

My Wound is Geography

This is the “Home Page” of a blog with more than 600 posts about the plight of U.S. citizens abroad in the world of FATCA and “The FBAR Fundraiser”. If you are interested:

The blog begins here.

An archive of the posts is here.

Feel free to contact me here.

princeoftides“My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage and port of call.”

So begins one of my favorite books – “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy.

There are many ways in which I can relate to the novel on a biographical level. The first time I read the book: the words “My wound is geography” had little meaning. They have now defined what is left of my life.

I was born in the United States during a different time and during a different era. I left the U.S. before I became a teenager and never returned. Although I was very young I did spend a few years in the public schools. I remember starting the day with the National Anthem. I remember being taught a certain version of history. That version of history depicted the United States of America as a land of opportunity, as a land of freedom and of justice. The American Revolution was necessary and heroic. The British were evil. The Colonists were oppressed but good people. Were it not for people like Paul Revere, we would have been slaves to the British and North America would have been a concentration camp. I learned that the Russians and Chinese were evil. I learned that the Europeans were primitive. To give you an approximate indication of my age, I remember the day that Kennedy was shot. I also remember my classmates crying. (I thought the tears were a bit much.) But, I did understand that Kennedy represented a period of idealism in America that ended with his death and probably never returned. Of course nobody could measure up to President Kennedy (including President Kennedy). After Kennedy died, President Johnson continued the escalation into Viet Nam. I lived in the U.S. during this period. Interestingly it was NOT until I left the United States that it was clear to me that the U.S. really was at war. (But I was young. What did I know?)

I learned that the United States was the center of the universe, the greatest country in the world, the most modern country in the world (did Canada have electricity?), the greatest and perhaps the only true democracy in the world. It was true then and it is true now that U.S. “Homelanders” have very little capacity for objective analysis and that U.S. Patriotism depends on that lack of capacity.

Sometimes you have to leave a place to really understand it. For me, this occurred years later while standing in the War Museum in Beijing, China. Like most countries/people of the world, the Chinese hate the United States. (Message to Homelanders: “Hatred” for the U.S. is NOT based on any kind of resentment of U.S. success. It is based on resentment of the U.S. involving itself in the affairs of others and infringing the sovereignty of other nations.) But what China and the United States have in common is the tremendous ability to mobilize their residents into a force of “blind patriotism”.

As a good “homelander” I believed all of this. I worked hard, studied hard (well not really but I managed to get good grades), was upwardly mobile in Scouts and played many sports. My life revolved around swimming, basketball and baseball. I was ambitious. I had a paper route. I was the “All American” person.

We all go through “rites of passage” in life. My first “rite of passage” was when I moved from the United States.

It was not my choice to be born in the U.S. It was also not my choice to leave the U.S. at a young age (who wants to move, much less move from the “greatest country in the history of the world”). Basically, I had no choice. I was thrown into a moving van and that was that. I was part of what I would call the third group to leave the United States for Canada. Interestingly, I have come to see that most people who are born in the United States and leave the United States (in one way or another) become exiled from the United States. There are four identifiable groups of U.S. citizens who have been exiled from the U.S. In all cases they were forced to leave. I was part of the “third group” to leave physically and part of the “fourth group” to leave mentally.

The first group were the Loyalists in the American Revolution. As Maya Jasonoff documents in her book “Liberty’s Exiles”, those who were not loyal to “The Patriots” could no longer live in post-revolutionary America. In fact there are many parts of Canada (particularly Ontario and Nova Scotia) that welcomed large numbers of Loyalists. This group was exiled from the United States. Like many things, this was both good news and bad news.

The bad news was that they were exiled from the United States.

The good news was that they were exiled from the United States.

History has proven that many countries are at least as free and (in many cases) much more free than the United States.

The second group was the slaves. The U.S. is full of hypocrisy. But, one of the most hypocritical examples was how the U.S. tolerated institutionalized slavery as long as it did. It is amazing that it took a war to free the slaves from their physical bondage. It is said that “Habit is the prison of the mind”. It would take many more years to free the slaves from the prison of their minds. Interestingly, Canada was a beacon of liberty for U.S. slaves wanting to escape. The freedom crossing in Lewiston, New York is a monument to the second group of Americans who escaped U.S. slavery by moving to Canada.

The third group was largely composed of the “draft dodgers” – those who did not want to participate in the Vietnam (it wasn’t a war, but young men were drafted and sent to their deaths).

Although this is a bit of an “aside” I have visited Viet Nam. I have seen the holes and tunnels that were used to attack American soldiers. I have seen the “Hanoi Hilton” which was home to John McCain. I have seen what is left of the prisons in Viet Ham that were used to house American soldiers. The prisons exhibit a level of brutality that is beyond what a U.S. homelander can imagine. They were (for the most part) built by the French and not by the Vietnamese. The point of the Viet Nam conflict is completely beyond me. Basically what happened was that the French tried to occupy Viet Nam and got their asses kicked. For completely inexplicable reasons the U.S. replaced the French and the result was the same – they got their asses kicked. If you want to see why – just visit Viet Nam.

Compulsory military duty is a form of slavery – perhaps a more socially accepted form of slavery – but slavery nonetheless. By accepting U.S. draft dodgers, Canada was once again providing “freedom” for U.S. slaves. After arriving in Canada, many of these newly freed slaves became Canadian citizens. By so doing they lost their U.S. citizenship (this was the law of citizenship of the time). I doubt that many of them cared. In fact, for many, obtaining Canadian citizenship was the last step in their journey to freedom.

I moved to Canada, not as a “draft dodger” but as a young kid who just happened to be part of a family that moved to Canada. My move was during the same time period that the “draft dodgers” sought their freedom.

The fourth group are U.S. citizens living abroad who have been and are being forced to renounce their citizenship. The “Obama Witch Hunt” has made it impossible for them to live a normal life abroad. Their treatment at the hands of the U.S. government has resulted in their having to renounce their citizenship in order to protect themselves from threats of fines, penalties, imprisonment and more.

During most of my life I have had to endure a tremendous amount of “anti-Americanism”. As a patriotic American I resented the resentment that non-Americans have for America. The more I experienced anti-Americanism the more Patriotic I became. In 2011 my life (like the lives of many U.S. citizens abroad) was turned “upside down”. I began to experience the United States the way the rest of the world does. The most painful realization for me is the realization that those who were “anti-American” were/are right. The United States of America is not – as Margaret Thatcher would say – “that great citadel of freedom and justice”. It is the opposite. Maybe it never was the nation we were taught (as school children) that it was. Maybe, it has evolved into the narcissistic nation that it is.

Regardless of the reason I am a U.S. person no more.

These thoughts are really my reflections on one year of blogging and healing. I hope that it will assist others who are sure to endure what is coming. The fastest growing source of anti-Americanism is being nurtured by “U.S. Citizens Abroad”.

It’s unbelievable and unconscionable, in 2013, how much of your life is determined not by who you are, but by where you are born!

I was born in the United States of America. Therefore:

“My Wound Is Geography”.

I hope you find this blog, in some small way, helpful. It is now close to 250600 posts. I am certain that there is something here to help you come to terms with the practical and emotional decisions that lie before you!

Is an American a Piece of Property?

 
 
I originally wrote this piece over a year ago. It comes to mind when considering the hideous practice of citizenship-based taxation. No other country on earth practices this archaic concept and without a doubt, the enforcement of #CBT since 2008 and onward, most definitely has resulted in the new movement of renunciation of American citizenship.

Recent discussions with a friend have me wondering whether Americans abroad are indeed the “property” of the US government. At first I considered this a bit exaggerated but am coming to appreciate that there is a great deal of truth in it. Perhaps reflecting a bit on the past might provide valuable insight on how we might approach this ongoing, changing situation. The idea that a human being could be considered “property” is initially strange to me. The only obvious parallel would be that of being a slave. In spite of growing up in a somewhat racially-tense city, I was largely unaware that the very foundation of the U.S. included slavery. I was 10 years old in 1965 when the riots in Watts occurred. Two years later, there were 159 riots during the “Long Hot Summer of 1967. The next year, following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, more riots. By then I was 13 and able to understand some of the reasons: poor schools, lack of employment, overcrowding in filthy ghettos, pollution, discrimination by police, etc. MLK described it as “humiliation for decades, for centuries.” Along with the other assassinations, Vietnam, etc, it did not yet occur to me that the problem was rooted in a very underlying hypocrisy. In spite of the U.S. being the “Land of the Free and the “American Dream” supposedly available to all, the fact was the U.S. was a place where gross abuse of human “rights” was visible in daily life as long as I had been alive.

There are some interesting CBC Radio “Massey Lectures” given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr that John Richardson wrote about recently on the ADCS wordpress site. As I listened, I was struck by the fact that intellectually, it was obvious enough that “rights” had been violated in a perverse way for so long. But I was more horrified by the immorality of it. I was much too young to really appreciate what he was and am overwhelmed by his intelligence, clarity and devotion to non-violence. The issue of race in America is clearly an ethical issue, no doubt about it. One could go on and on about social, economic and other mitigating factors but at its root, the problem truly is that one group of human beings is denied the basic respect, dignity and consideration others receive due to discrimination of what they are from birth. The recent incidents in Ferguson, Cleveland and other cities show not much has changed in the last 50 years.

I was taught that America was born due to the brave actions of those who left England because of persecution due to religious beliefs; later attempts to tax the colonists who had no representation in the parliament etc. In recent years, having learned my ancestral roots, I have been proud of the fact that my family has played an integral role in that beginning. Yet at the same time, for the last three years, experience of the treatment at the hands of the US government definitely casts a different light on it. Americans abroad (and even people who are not truly “American”) are not given the same respect as those who live in the Homeland. What’s at the root of this? Does the U.S. view us as if they “own” us? Are we their property and are we not free to leave the country? We may be able to buy our way out but fundamentally, what difference is there between that and a slave from the past doing the same? In the modern world there is a tendency to minimalize emotional or mental suffering as if it is not valid since it is not as severe as say, physical torture. That may be true to a certain degree yet I fail to see how that removes the immoral forces that can be responsible for both. In fact, the only way to see it may be to draw parallels between them.
Continue reading “Is an American a Piece of Property?”

The Psychic, Financial & Life Costs of Complying with the Internal Revenue Code

reposted from renounceuscitizenship blog

The Onerous Compliance Cost of the Internal Revenue Code

The tax system is a complicated nightmare that forces taxpayers to devote ever-larger amounts of time, money, energy, and other resources in hopes of complying with the internal revenue code and avoiding IRS persecution. This CF&P Foundation video shows that this corrupt mess is the result of 97 years of social engineering and industrial policy that began almost immediately after that dark day in 1913 that the income tax was created. www.freedomandprosperity.org

Click here to read comments about this video.

This video suggests that the compliance cost of filing taxes is $1000 per person per year. As an expat, you need to file all of the other forms. Your financial cost will be much more. But, don’t forget the stress and anxiety. What about the problem of even finding a tax professional who can do this?

In the beginning, the U.S.A. was a nation of laws. Now it is a nation of forms!

The question is simple: do you want to spend your time paying people to help you fill out forms or do you want a life?

U.S. Citizenship – It’s time for it to go!

“Tax Cheats by Birth” – Submission to Global Forum

 

A submission to the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax has been made on behalf of The Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation (ADCT) by Mary Blackhill.

Tax Cheats by Birth reports on CBT’s “extensive mismatch with the tax regimes practiced in the rest of the world, the impact on “U.S. Persons,” and how CBT drains money from other economies throughout the world.

The paper demonstrates how CBT is inconsistent with global norms, is inconsistent with human rights (and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) and why other countries should not be expected to assist the United States enforce U.S. tax demands.

The submission was forwarded to the Forum by ADCT with the following e-mail from John Richardson:
To Whom This May Concern:

The last five years have seen significant interest in taxation in general, international taxation, offshore accounts and the identification of all income that is properly subject to taxation.This interest has resulted in voluntary disclosure programs throughout the world, FATCA and the OECD Common Report Standard. The recent disclosure of the “Panama Papers” appears to have reinforced interest in collaboration in the fight against tax evasion.

All of this has resulted in a world that is working together, promoting automatic information exchange and a worldwide standard for what is “fair taxation”. A common goal presupposes agreement on the fundamentals of what is fair and just taxation.

Fair and just taxation requires that people pay taxes to the countries where they reside. This principle is reflected in the OECD common reporting standard. Fair and just taxation is undermined when the residents of a country are also required to pay taxes to other countries for reasons that are unrelated to the source of the income.

There are few countries that confer citizenship based on place of birth in that country. There are only two countries that impose taxation based on citizenship. The United States of America is the only country that does both. This means that the the United States, imposes taxation on individuals based on the immutable characteristic of a U.S. “place of birth”.

What this means is that the United States expects that every person in the world who was born in the United States (the primary way of obtaining U.S. citizenship”), is required to pay taxes to the United States on their worldwide income. The requirement to pay taxes includes the requirement to file massive information returns on their activities and income in their one’s country of residence. Furthermore, the complexity of the U.S. anti-deferral regime results in the imposition of punitive taxation and reporting on the pensions and retirement planning vehicles of other nations.

Many people who were born in the United States are citizens and residents of other nations (in many cases having no connection to the United States and not even speaking English). This is an incredibly unfair and unjust situation. Furthermore, while the United States has not signed the OECD Common Reporting Standard (which has a definition of residence for tax purposes) it is attempting to impose FATCA on the world (which allows the United States in its sole discretion to define who is a U.S. citizen).

To be clear, U.S. “place of birth taxation” impacts both individuals and the economies of sovereign nations (resulting in the extraction of capital from those nations).

Attached for your perusal is a research paper. I invite you to read this research paper which is an attempt to explain some of these issues.

We strongly urge you to consider the adoption of a standard of fairness in worldwide taxation. We urge you to clarify that this standard should be in opposition to taxation based on solely on having having U.S. citizenship conferred on somebody at birth. In other words: fairness in worldwide taxation means that individuals should be subject to taxation based on where they live and NOT where they were born.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with you further. 

John Richardson
Toronto, Canada
The Alliance For The Defeat Of Citizenship Taxation

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