Source: http://citizenshiptaxation.ca/category/us-exceptionalism/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 09:50:01+00:00

Document:
JCPOA, (aka the Iran nuclear deal in which Iran promised to stop development of its nuclear program in return for a lessening of sanctions and increased trade relations). After the withdrawal, Trump issued harsh sanctions against Iran.
condensed version of this story. I was curious know more about it.
On August 21, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote an editorial for the German paper, the Handsblatt. He called for a “balanced partnership” as counterweight to the US actions regarding Iran.
At first, this might seem completely unrelated to our situation however, one aspect of this “Balanced Partnership” may include an option for trading outside of the U.S. SWIFT system.
Maas said Europe needs a to set up EU payment systems independent of the United States if it wants to save the nuclear deal.
One might wonder if anyone in the U.S. has bothered to realize what the effects of pulling out of the Iran deal are. For those who are not fortunate enough to have the Atlantic Ocean as a shield, the ramifications of uncontrolled Iranian development of a nuclear arsenal are dangerous and potentially life-threatening. Perhaps those who remember WWII or those engaged in recent Middle East conflicts can appreciate this. Doubtful for those in America, given the impenetrable shell of mind-numbing exceptionalism.
How refreshing! The development of a spine against what is nothing less than another massive example of U.S. economic imperialism.
The EU has created a new law to protect European companies from the punitive measures the U.S. will take against those who dare to defy its will.
costly and even the Commission acknowledged that there is no precedent in such cases.
sanctions against Cuba and Iran. Back then, the threat was enough to persuade the US to suspend secondary sanctions.
“The threat was enough to persuade….” reminds one of how the world responded to #FATCA, no?
Secondly, such a move might empower these governments, to support the requests of their own #Americansabroad citizens whether they be accidentals, dual citizens of other countries with residence in those countries as well as those who have yet to file I-407 for their greencards.
This would also encourage more effort from earlier efforts in various countries as well as the newer ones.
Here is a comparision for BRICs-US. Can you imagine the combined effect of the BRICs & the EU’s financial independence from the U.S.? Don’t you wish these countries could have thought of this BEFORE the U.S. stuffed #FATCA down the world’s throat?
I’ve been reading a book called “What We Say Goes – Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World,” by Noam Chomsky (2007). Chapter 6 – Invasions and Evasions – took place in Cambridge Massachusetts on February 2, 2007. In spite of the fact this Q & A predates FATCA and uses health reform and media reform as examples, I was struck by how well section this applies to what is happening to us now. So many are dissatisfied with R.O.’s TTFI proposal. People seem to expect a one-size-fits-all solution. At the beginning of our involvement with this, the phrase “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” was a sort of mantra. Part of that marathon is accepting that it will likely take a combination of a number of different solutions before it’s over.
What is needed is support from our entire population for each and every effort that will contribute to the end of this miserable situation. I cannot imagine any of us saying to the Accidentals – “I’m sorry, but since your proposal won’t solve my specific problem, I will not help.” Or an accidental being indifferent to specifics involving duals. There may need to be more lawsuits and stronger movements within individual countries. We all have to be on board as a solid, unified group adjusting and adapting as the process moves on.
The U.S.government is already a huge, disorganized, dysfunctional mess.
We cannot afford to be the same. We have to be better than that.
Ireland recently opened a museum honoring the achievements of Ireland’s diaspora.
The United States continues to control the lives of U.S. citizens living outside the United States. “When in Rome, Live As A Homelander“.
The United States continues to cause other nations to discriminate against U.S. citizens who leave the United States.
The United States continues to use U.S. citizens as instruments of foreign policy.
It’s no surprise that renunciations of U.S. citizenship are growing! They will continue!
22 U.S. Code § 212 – Persons entitled to passport https://t.co/sVDeQndIt7 via @LIICornell – allegiance to USA is a necessary condition!
No passport shall be granted or issued to or verified for any other persons than those owing allegiance, whether citizens or not, to the United States.
“U.S. citizen” vs. “U.S. Person” – What is the difference?
A U.S. citizen is a "U.S. Person". But, not all "U.S. persons are U.S. citizens".
– the term “U.S. Person” is a a broader term that “U.S. citizen”. It is defined differently in different pieces of legislation. The class of “U.S. Persons” is broader than the class of “U.S. citizens”. The class of “U.S. Persons” often includes “Green Card holders”, perhaps “U.S.
Nationals”, etc. For example, S. 7701(a)(30) of the Internal Revenue Code defines “U.S. Persons” as “citizens or residents”.
The term “U.S. Person” appears to be used in a context that imposes prohibitions and sanctions directly on the “U.S. Person” and/or is used to imply “U.S. ownership and control” over the person. Often this “ownership or control” is exercised in the context of U.S.
interaction with “foreign nations”. When used in the context of interaction with “foreign nations”, the “U.S. Person” is often used as an instrument of foreign policy.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) https://t.co/3EKQIbIYrJ – applies to "US Persons"
It has become clear that United States enforces its extra-territorial law by pressuring other governments, organizations and entities (under threats of sanction) to do “U.S. dirty work for the U.S.”.
The OECD employs “full-time lawyers” whose mission is to enforce the U.S. Corrupt Foreign Practices Act worldwide!
Who is a U. S. person ( or has U.S. indicia) according to the IRS | Maple Sandbox https://t.co/N2PeEtFyrf – mostly describing "residents"
U.S. citizenship-taxation, enforced by FATCA, does have an impact on the economies of other nations.
There is evidence that this will negatively affect the job and career prospects of Americans abroad. “Citizenship-taxation” is increasingly affecting the way that nations and the citizens of other nations interact with “U.S. citizens”. Because of the “immutable characteristic” of a “U.S place of birth”, many U.S. citizens living outside the United States (assuming they are allowed to have a bank account in a FATCA world) have become undesirable as business partners.
See the following two accounts of discrimination against U.S.
Good points that highlight, yet again, the absurdity and detachment of the U.S. political system from 9 million of their citizens now living in an ever globalized and ever more competitive world. The U.S. political class and presidential candidates disinterest in this ever-growing and important group of citizens only speaks to the total stupidity, general ignorance, global unawareness, profound provincialism and confirms a totally dysfunctional and archaic system that is today the United States. A country that attacks and harms its diaspora and through its laws has succeeded in turning its own citizens into international pariahs with international banks, in international business partnerships, in marriage and in the general perception outside of the U.S.
I recently met with three start-ups at a fair in Germany, two from the UK and one from Sweden. In my work as a headhunter they were hiring me to find them some talented people for their growing and successful startups. In all three cases, and each in separate meetings with me, the startups told me that they did not want any Americans or Europeans with U.S. Green cards or passports. They were all wisely warned by their banks and financial advisors not to bring any U.S. Persons into their business. Two of them knew the reasons and the risk that any American presence would bring to the business. The other one learned the hard way. They had an American investor who got them into his FATCA mess, reporting his holdings and his American tax consultant demanding the business’s bank details and the personal details of the owners. They returned his investment, threw him out and agreed never again to get involved with any U.S. persons in their business. This is now widely known and even if FATCA and all of the other reporting requirements for Americans would be eliminated, the damage is already done. The perception out there is to avoid hiring any Americans and also avoiding their investments. They are too much trouble and their government is an intrusive bully that thinks it can control the entire world. That spirit is so foreign to the young brilliant startup minds out there today. The U.S. has become a has-been and definitely not seen as a cool place anymore.
The world has moved on and the U.S. politicians and presidential candidates still haven’t realized that the world has changed since their anachronistic citizenship based tax system dating from the Civil War.
Truly, a nation of idiots.
As a former U.S. citizen, who renounced just in order to survive, as my four non-U.S. business partners gave me an ultimatum, either get rid of your U.S. citizenship, which was contaminating our totally German business and subjecting our company’s accounts to U.S.
involvement? Not to mention the personal impact on my mortgage, on my bank closing all of my investment accounts and everything else that every reader here knows all too well.
What amazes me most, and also amazes all of my personal and professional friends, all of them non U.S. persons, is how obedient and conforming the organizations supposedly representing the interests of U.S. citizens abroad are. With all that has happened, and especially now, subsequent to the Senate Finance Committee’s “report” on tax reform, paying nothing but contemptuous lip service to the plight of US citizens abroad, it should be more than obvious that U.S. Citizens abroad are of absolutely no relevance for lawmakers and legislators in Washington. Yet, the attitude of all of the organizations supposedly looking out for and fighting for the rights of US citizens abroad has been to follow a very respectful path of presenting the case for change, as if they were dealing with a fair democratic system, that respects equal representation and justice. They look ridiculous, all of them! When I read that Democrats Abroad have been trying to push the “bandage” fix of ‘Same Country Exception’ for more than four years, with no result, I say that this is absolutely pathetic. When I see American Citizens Abroad sending endless delegations to Washington, year after year, and even opening an office there, only to see the interests of overseas Americans relegated to a footnote, with no action proposed n the recent Senate Financial Committee report, I would think that they should be embarrassed and ashamed, as they should be. It has taken the group Republicans Overseas over one year to formulate an intended lawsuit, which has been postponed endless times, with a “promise” to file it next week, I say that they too have not approached this in the right way. Too much damage has been done in the interim.
What astonishes all of my “foreign” friends is how passive, obedient and fearful U.S. people are of their government, especially when confronted with such outright injustice, literal extortion and destruction of their financial wellbeing and that of their families and business partners.
Even the ever law abiding Germans wouldn’t put up with any of this and they would probably, en masse, as one lawyer friend told me, simply refuse to cooperate with any of this Byzantine filing of forms and endless intrusions into their privacy and that of their families and business partners. They would collectively refuse and file class action suits against the authorities behind these injustices worthy of a fascist totalitarian regime. Perhaps the Germans understand better than the Americans what this sort of thing leads to, when a society becomes so beaten down, so subservient, so fearful of authority that it complies with the most horrific and undemocratic “laws” and is unable to unite and simply say NO, collectively. Until Americans fight to recover some form of democracy and fairness, the ravages of FATCA will be but one in a coming litany of similar such abuses. To continue believing that they are dealing with democratic institutions and that reason and fairness will prevail is nothing but a naive attitude that will lead them nowhere, as we can now see with the recent Senate Finance Committee report.
How To Live Outside The United States In An FBAR And FATCA World https://t.co/hKdRyFqYAQ – "When in Rome, live as a Homelaner"
The above tweet references a post describing the difficulties. It includes the 10 Commandments imposed on U.S. citizens who attempt to live and outside the United States AND “commit personal finance abroad”.
Here are the ten commandments of “Living Clean” that apply to U.S.
3. Thou shalt ensure that your “alien” spouse agrees to be a U.S.
taxpayer. Failure to do so, will result in your having the punitive filing status of “married filing separately”. This will guarantee greater exposure to the Alternative Minimum Tax, the new 3.8% Obamacare surtax, higher tax brackets and lower thresholds for reporting (including FATCA Form 8938) requirements.
pension, “non-U.S.” assets, and assets that accumulated after you ceased to live in the United States. In addition, there are certain “Form People” who claim that you may be banished from the Homeland forever.
709 (up to a maximum of up to about 45 forms). Understand that this will cost you thousands of dollars.
And this ladies and gentlemen, is why your problem is NOT “coming into U.S. tax compliance”. Your problem is “living as a tax compliant U.S.
citizen abroad”. It really can’t be done (if you want any kind of life).
This post turned out to be longer and cover more topics than I originally intended. The problem with discussing the problems experienced by Americans abroad is that there are many “moving parts”. I have broken SOME of the “moving parts” into, well six parts and a “prologue”.
In addition, as the title suggests, the original intention of the post was to discuss how the U.S. Government uses its citizens as “instruments of foreign policy”. The obvious question is: how can they possibly do this? Doesn’t U.S. law end at U.S. borders? How can the United States impose law on the rest of the world. The answer to that question raises other issues (which are discussed in the other parts of this post).
I guess I need a new title for the post.
I would also like to say that I am hopeful that there will be change.
That said, change is possible ONLY (regardless of intention) if all of the issues are understood individually and how they interact.
While it appears that the petitioner removed his residence to France in the year 1924, it is undisputed that he was, and continued to be, a citizen of the United States. He continued to owe allegiance to the United States. By virtue of the obligations of citizenship, the United States retained its authority over him, and he was bound by its laws made applicable to him in a foreign country. Thus, although resident abroad, the petitioner remained subject to the taxing power of the United States. Cook v. Tait, 265 U.S. 47, 54 , 56 S., 44 S. Ct. 444.
45 S. Ct. 621. Nor can it be doubted that the United States possesses the power inherent in sovereignty to require the return to this country of a citizen, resident elsewhere, whenever the public interest requires it, and to penalize him in case of refusal. Compare Bartue and the Duchess of Suffolk’s Case, 2 Dyer’s Rep. 176b, 73 Eng. Rep. 388; Knowles v. Luce, Moore 109, 72 Eng. Rep. 473.4 What in England was the prerogative of the sov- [284 U.S. 421, 438] ereign in this respect pertains under our constitutional system to the national authority which may be exercised by the Congress by virtue of the legislative power to prescribe the duties of the citizens of the United States. It is also beyond controversy that one of the duties which the citizen owes to his government is to support the administration of justice by attending its courts and giving his testimony whenever he is properly summoned. Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273, 281 , 39 S. St. Ct. 468. And the Congress may provide for the performance of this duty and prescribe penalties for disobedience.
It’s that simple. If you are a U.S. citizen, some would argue that you are the property of the U.S.government.
On the other hand (and this will be the subject of another post), the Supreme Court decisions in Cook v. Tait and Blackmer v. The United States were decided in an era where there was no U.S. recognition of dual citizenship. It is reasonable to argue that these decisions have no applicability in the modern world.
There will be those who will say: Come on! Get real! The United States would never rely on these old court decisions. Well, they still do cite Cook v. Tait. Mr. FBAR lay dormant until it was resurrected by the Obama administration as the “FBAR Fundraiser“.

References: § 212
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