I'm an American overseas. I file my taxes, yadda yadda, but I don't earn a cent of my money in the US and haven't for nearly a decade. I don't make much a year because I only work part time, enough to put me below the poverty line in the US. Every year when I file, it seems to me like the Tax forms want me to put in my husbands income to tax that too, and every year I decline to mention his income. He's not American, he shouldn't pay US taxes. Now they want to pop their noses in our joint bank account? They want to tax me on assets purchased with Non-US money made by a Non-US citizen in a non-US country just because my name is on the deed?

I'm not rich, I own a crappy little house and we are just scarping by. If I'm reading the the analysis of the law correctly, I too would consider renouncing. I can't afford to pay taxes twice on a house that has nothing to do with the USA. I do recall reading somewhere that even after you renounce, you have to pay US taxes for 10 more years.

EatsCrayons Add Favorite User


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Quote 2012-01-19 05:59:38 PM Ignore User
J B:
The problem some people in Canada are apparently having is that they thought they didn't have to file if they didn't owe anything...but now non-filers are supposedly being hit with massive fines.
(Thankfully not a problem I'm facing, but I can see how it could happen.)

There are a lot of Americans I know living in America who believe the same.

The Canadian government has also been very hard-lined about refusing to collect fines on behalf of the U.S. anyway. So if you have no intention of going back to the U.S. and have no assets (or future inheritance) there, the IRS won't be able to collect very effectively.

Not so fast there...

The CRA is incredibly cooperative with the IRS on collecting tax debts on Americans living in Canada. Thanks to the tax treaty, the CRA can garnish wages, levy accounts and attach property.

Let em go, don't let them back in, don't allow them to do business here.

hotlinked

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Quote 2012-01-19 07:10:00 PM Ignore User
que.guero: You sound like someone who's never lived outside the US.

Except I have lived in Germany for 5 years working for a German company and paying taxes in both Germany and the US.

So yeah, I re-iterate the fact that you were full of shiat.

But don't take my word for it - even the IRS says you are full of shiat:

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc856.html


Except that reg completely agrees with the fact that you do get to claim an exemption for income earned UNDER the exclusion amount, but you don't get to deduct the taxes paid to your tax home country from your worldwide income.

If you have been reporting your post-tax amount, you can expect a pretty nasty surprise from the IRS...

Also, lighten up Francis.

Ravengirl: They want to tax me on assets purchased with Non-US money made by a Non-US citizen in a non-US country just because my name is on the deed?

NO they don't. They want your to state that you own those assets. You are not being taxed on them.

You will be taxed on the capitail gains, if any, once you sell those assets, though.

EatsCrayons: sethstorm: corn-bread:

I got those with the other passport I carry. Can I opt out of the U.S. version and save on my taxes?


Yes! In fact you should start tomorrow without delay. It is unjust for you to live even one more day in tax oppression.

mr lawson: ecmoRandomNumbers: Let them.

No tourist visas, no business visas, and absolutely no consulate support. GTFO and stay out.

Jingoism (new window)
look it up.

Free men enslaved to artificial boundaries wrapped up in tiny flags.

WTF does that have to do with tax evasion? Did you miss the point, or are you deflecting?

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Quote 2012-01-19 07:23:52 PM Ignore User
que.guero: Except that reg completely agrees with the fact that you do get to claim an exemption for income earned UNDER the exclusion amount, but you don't get to deduct the taxes paid to your tax home country from your worldwide income.

Yes, you can either deduct your tax credits or choose the exclusion. Either way you are getting a tax credit for your foreign income, and most expats never pay any taxes to the US at all (although its shiattier in europe since the exchange rate was so uneven).


Glad we could finally come to violent agreement on that.

What most expats get hosed on is the not filing part...

shortymac: Actually, the IRS is starting to go after these people. The globe and mail (a toronto newspaper) did a feature on a couple. The wife moved to Canada when she was 13, never filed anything, was facing something like 200k+ in fines. It was on fark a while back.

Surpheon built an hypothetical scenario of a kid who got out of the US without any official papers, therefore the IRS doesn't know he exists, who would decide out-of-the-blue to start filing US taxes. The IRS would go "thanks, but who are you?".

This is clearly not the case of the woman who was in the papers a while back.

Surpheon: shortymac: Actually, the IRS is starting to go after these people. The globe and mail (a toronto newspaper) did a feature on a couple. The wife moved to Canada when she was 13, never filed anything, was facing something like 200k+ in fines. It was on fark a while back.

I'd be interested in the actual citation. Just in case it was something like 'was facing 200k+ in fines when she asserted her citizenship, moved back, and signed up for welfare - and a judge immediately waived the fine as a matter of course'. I'm not a Mitt Romney, but I'd put money on her never having to pay more than a token amount (under a grand).

IIRC, she (with her husband) had close to $750,000 in total assets (house, RRSPs, other savings, etc...) and would have had to pay the $10,000 penalty for non disclosure of those each of those assets.

I can't find the original article, but here's an update on the situation. You will not be penalized for non-disclosure unless the IRS finds that you willfully omitted to declare those assets.

SpaceMoose: What most of you mouthbreathers are not comprehending is that this law interferes with the sovereignty of other nations by demanding that their banks collect and turn over information to the IRS, making them de facto extensions of the US government.

Imagine if France declared that all US banks must implement a system to keep track of the nationalities of the owners of every bank account in the country and then turn over that information to France on demand, regardless of whether tracking that information and turning it over to a foreign government violates your 4th Ammendment rights.



If another country passed an act like that, American financial institutions would be free to decide whether or not they wished to do business within that country and thus subject themselves to that regulation. Financial institutions wishing to business in the U.S., likewise.

I don't necessarily agree with the law, but these banks all have a nexus in the U.S. For better or worse that makes them subject to U.S. banking regs. If they don't want to comply, they can leave.

SpaceMoose: According to the details of the law, it would be mandatory for foreign banks (in this case, Canadian) to collect the information from all American citizens (regardless of whether they've ever even lived or earned income in the US at any point in their lives) who have a bank account and provide it to the IRS. The law actual shifts the burden of collecting and reporting to FOREIGN banks.

I know that, and it doesn't SHIFT the burden to the banks. It ADDS an additional burden to the banks. The US Citizen still have to report their assets.

corn-bread: but these banks all have a nexus in the U.S.

No they don't necessarily do. Under the current law, a farmer's credit union in North Bumfark, Manitoba would have to report to the IRS the accounts of all its customers who happen to hold a US citizenship, even if said credit union has no point of presence in the US.

kayanlau: So what's so good about being an American again?

I was raised to believe that America was the finest country on Earth. Sure, she has flaws, but by comparison she's the embodiment of Freedon_tm and happiness, right?

I felt this way well through my 20s before things started to slip. I watched as an entire nation fell into the hypnosis of Freedom^tm and Liberty^tm, all the while willfully avoiding their own interests just to cheer on a flag. I watched as the middle and lower classes became food in a trough that feeds the very few - again while waving flags and muttering cheap rhetoric. I watched as nearly half the country went off the rails when the current president dared suggest that maybe sick people shouldn't have to go bankrupt or die just because they can't afford a $600 a month premium. I saw them call him a communist and a traitor, and it made me lose my lunch especially when you consider the actual content of the bill.

I watch America bury herself and her treasury in sand halfway around the world for specious reasons. I watch her vilify the helpful Planned Parenthood. I watch our citizens being duped nightly by a massive propaganda network that would claim "Obama can't swim!" if he were seen walking on water.

So no, there really isn't anything special about my country. I'm a spoke on a rich man's wheel, which would be fine if their voice in government wasn't exponentially louder each cycle than mine is.

Go fark yourself, America. You're my family so I'll stick it out like family does. But still, go fark yourself.

/awaits 101st Chairborne to tell me to leave and post wellbye.jpg
//you can also go fark yourselves

lilplatinum: que.guero: What most expats get hosed on is the not filing part...

Meh,, i know plenty of people who didn't do it for several years and then filed a bunch of retroactive ones later.. They don;t generally fark you if you didn't owe anything, and most of the expats who don't know better are the English teachers and other broke asses who don't make enough to owe anything anyway.


THIS!

This thread is loaded with $30,000 millionaires shaking in their boots yelling "they gonna take our shiatt!" Never you worry, Dollar Store All Stars, the odds are good this taxation won't affect you as you live the James Bond life overseas.

The exemption in the U.S. is $95,000 in USD. That's around 61,500 in UK Pounds. 61,500 pounds in a country with a median income of $25,000. "But ah", these up and coming Trumps say, "I live in London." Fine. Median there is 43,000 pounds (median of 900 pounds a week, you do the math). So you're *still* living well.

I don't have much sympathy for someone who is making that kind of money and won't break off a few bucks for some tax advice.