Category Archives: Americans abroad

How U.S. Citizenship Tax, The Treaty “Saving Clause” and FATCA Create A Fiscal Prison For Dual Tax Residents

Introduction – The Problem Of Dual Tax Residency For U.S. Citizens

A “Hell greater than the sum of the parts”

There are people in the world who really don’t understand (or say they don’t) what exactly is the problem with U.S. citizenship based taxation. They claim to not understand why defining “tax residency” based on the “circumstances of birth” rather than the “circumstances of life” is a problem. They fail to consider how taxation based on “circumstances of birth”, interacts with U.S. tax treaties and FATCA to create a “hell that is greater than the sum of the parts”.

This is the third post in a series designed to explore and facilitate the understanding of the U.S. “citizenship based” extra-territorial tax regime. The first post explored the practical meaning of U.S. citizenship-based taxation (it’s primary effects are on people who live outside the U.S.). The second post explored the fact that tax residency based on “citizenship” is tax residency based on the “circumstances of one’s birth” rather than the “circumstances of one’s life” (its effects are primarily based on the circumstance of birth in the U.S.). The conclusion drawn from these first two posts was that the U.S. citizenship based extra-territorial tax regime is one in which:

The circumstance of a U.S. birthplace is used as a justification to regulate the lives of people with no connection to the United States and impose U.S. taxation on income that has no connection to the United States and is received by someone who does not live in the United States.

Citizenship taxation has practical and contextual meaning only its application to tax residents of non-US countries. The U.S. uses the circumstance of a “U.S. birthplace” to reach out and “claim” the tax residents of other countries as U.S. “tax residents”.

The purpose of this post is to explain how the interaction of U.S. citizenship taxation (claiming those with a U.S. birth place as U.S. tax residents when they are tax residents of other countries), the “saving clause” (not allowing U.S. citizens with dual tax residency to assign tax residency to the country where they actually live) and FATCA (the tool to hunt, find and enforce the extraterritorial U.S. tax and regulatory regime on the residents of other countries) creates a whole hell greater than the sum of the parts.

Many people understand the three components of “citizenship taxation”, the “saving clause” and “FATCA” as separate entities. Few appear to understand how those three components interact together to destroy the lives of U.S. citizens with dual tax residency. The U.S. has created a “fiscal prison” for its citizens. Seven video accounts of the impact of the U.S. citizenship tax regime are available here.

This problem can be solved ONLY by the United States redefining its rules for “tax residency” so that “citizenship” (the circumstances of one’s birth”) is not relevant to “tax residency” (the circumstances of one’s life).

This post is to identify the component “Part”(s) of the problem. It is organized in “Sections” and “Parts” as follows:

Section I – How The Problem Was Created

Part A – Tax, Residency and Tax Residency
Part B – The general problem of dual tax residency
Part C – Introducing the treaty tie break and how it can be used to end “dual tax residency” under a relevant Canadian tax treaty”
Part D – The general principles of the U.S. Canada “tax treaty tie break – How “circumstances of life” are used to assign tax residency
Part E – Food for thought – Citizenship the least important factor for the treaty tie break
Part F – Two possible examples of assigning residence to one country by using the “treaty tie break” – Green Card Edition
Part G – U.S. Citizens CANNOT Benefit From The “Tax Treaty Tie Break” – Hello “Saving Clause”
Part H – The “Saving Clause” And The Inability For U.S. Citizens To Use The “Treaty Tie Break” Is How The United States Captures The Residents Of The Treaty Partner Country And Claims Them As U.S. Tax Residents
Part I – The Tax Treaty Tie Break And Implications For U.S. Tax Compliance And For FATCA And The CRS Reporting

Section II – How Dual Tax Residents Experience The Extraterritorial Tax Regime

Part J – The U.S. exports a more punitive from of taxation to tax residents of other countries
Part K – The Problem Of Investing, Retirement planning and Retirement Planning – The Punitive Taxation And Reporting Requirements of PFICs and Foreign Trusts
Part L – The Problem Of Non-U.S. Pensions – How Are They Treated Under The Internal Revenue Code? – Different Rules For Different Countries
Part M – Discouraging U.S. Small Business Abroad – The Treatment Of Small Business Corporations Generally And On A Country By Country Basis
Part N – The “FBAR Marriage”: How Marriage To An Alien Results In Higher Taxation, More Reporting, Difficulties With Asset Transfers, Higher Divorce Costs And Possibly A Requirement To File A Tax Return With As Little As $5 Of Income

Section III – How The U.S. Extraterritorial Tax Regime Attacks The Sovereignty Of Other Countries

Part O – The U.S. taxation of residents of other countries attacks and erodes the tax base of those other countries

Section IV – Solving The Problem: Regulatory And Legislative Solutions

Part P – Regulatory Solution: “A Regulatory Fix For Citizenship Taxation
Part Q – Regulatory Solution: Amending The “Saving Clause” In U.S. Tax Treaties
Part R – Territorial Taxation For U.S. Citizen Individuals
Part S – Redefining U.S. Tax Residency To Move To Residence-based Taxation”

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Should tax residency Be Based On The “Circumstances Of Your Birth” Or The “Circumstances Of Your Life”?

Panel session – US Expat Tax Conference from Deborah Hicks on Vimeo.

Should taxation be based on the “circumstances of your birth” or the “circumstances of your life”? President Obama doesn’t think (apparently) that the “circumstances of your birth” birth should determine the “outcome of your life”. Should the “circumstances of your birth” determine your tax residency?

This is a second post exploring what is the true meaning of U.S. citizenship-based taxation. In an earlier post – “Toward A Definition Of Citizenship Taxation” – I explored the contextual meaning and effect of U.S. “citizenship taxation”. The only “contextual effect” and “practical meaning” of U.S. citizenship taxation may be described as:

Therefore, the practical meaning of “citizenship taxation” is the United States imposing taxation on the non-US source income earned by people who live in other countries. To be clear: citizenship taxation means that the United States is claiming the residents of OTHER countries as US residents for tax purposes!

That’s amazing stuff! Most countries believe that they are sovereign and that includes sovereignty over matters of taxation. Yet, any country that is a party to a U.S. tax treaty has actually agreed that a subset of the treaty partner’s tax residents are ALSO U.S. tax residents! Although nobody questions the right of the United States to prescribe its own definition of tax residency, few would agree that the United States has the right to claim the residents of other countries as U.S. tax residents. Yet, this is what the U.S. citizenship taxation regime means. This U.S. extraterritorial claim of taxation is at the root of the FATCA administration problems and at the root of the the events that led to Treasury Notice 2023-11 (released on December 30, 2022).

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Afroyim v. Rusk – A New Perspective: Do The Specific Rules Of US Citizenship Taxation Result In The Forcible Destruction Of US citizenship?

Prologue

The United States of America is the ONLY country in the world that both:

1. Confers citizenship by birth inside the country; AND

2. Imposes worldwide taxation and regulation based on citizenship.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that:

US citizenship is the world’s only true “taxation-based citizenship”.

Afroyim – Should extending constitutional status to US citizenship be understood as a new gift or exacerbating an old curse?

US Citizenship Stripping Before 1967 – The Significance Of Afroyim

The US government was stripping US citizens of their citizenship if they committed various “expatriating” acts. This was codified in statutes that mandated that certain kinds of conduct would result in the loss of US citizenship. At various times the expatriating conduct included (but was not limited to): naturalizing as a citizen of another country, voting in a foreign election, serving in the armed forces of a foreign country and even marrying a non-citizen.

US Citizenship Stripping After 1967 – Afroyim

The 1967 US Supreme Court decision in Afroyim clarified that Congress lacked the power to strip US citizens (who were born or naturalized in the United States) of their citizenship. The Afroyim ruling clarified that:

1. US citizenship belonged to the citizen and could be lost by the citizen only if the citizen voluntarily relinquished US citizenship by voluntarily committing an expatriating act with the intention of relinquishing US citizenship; and

2. Congress cannot enact laws or engage in practices that result in the forcible destruction of citizenship.

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How US Tax Treaties And The “Saving Clause” Prevent Countries From Establishing Retirement Programs For US Citizen Residents

Prologue – The Circumstances Of Your Birth Should Not Determine The Outcome Of Your Life …

The above tweet references a “human interest” story where US citizen children are denied benefits in their country of residence that are available to all people who are NOT US citizens.

The description includes:

New Zealand children born to parents’ who are citizens of the United States face a difficult KiwiSaver choice: Give up your US citizenship, or face a KiwiSaver tax compliance bill of $750​ or more a year courtesy of the US taxman.

A petition has been started at Parliament asking MPs to change the KiwiSaver Act to allow people with KiwiSaver accounts facing the unreasonable demands from US tax authorities to close their KiwiSaver accounts.

The issue surfaced as a result of the plight of Auckland dual national Kira Bacal and her four New Zealand-born children, Harper, 13, Rowan, 10 and twins Malachi and Elias, 8.

It appears that the poor (New Zealand born) Bacal children are finding that the US (or at least US tax preparers in New Zealand) consider their KiwiSaver to be a possible vehicle for US tax evasion! Not only is the KiwiSaver a “trust”, but it’s a “foreign trust” which comes with all kinds of penalty laden reporting obligations and no tax advantages. An excellent analysis of the US tax implications of the New Zealand KiwiSaver is here. The story is somewhat comical in that one gets the feeling that the blame should be placed on New Zealand (and not the United States) for New Zealand’s failure to legislate special exceptions for US citizens living in New Zealand.

So what! They’re Americans and therefore they deserve it (you say)!

A previous post explained that for Americans abroad, changes in the laws of their country of residence can change their tax relationship with the United States. The purpose of this post is to expand on that theme by demonstrating that:

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Extradition Is One Way That Changes In Another Country’s Tax Laws May Change Your Tax Relationship With The US

Prologue

As long as the US continues to employ citizenship taxation any changes in US tax law will continue to have unintended consequences on Americans abroad. In March of 2022 I outlined how some of the tax changes proposed in the 2023 Biden Green book would impact US citizens who live outside the United States. As important as US tax changes are, Americans abroad must be aware of how changes in the laws of their country of residence may also impact their “tax relationship” with the United States.

The purpose of this post is provide five simple examples. Some of the examples are based on Canada’s tax laws and others are of a more general nature.

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New Location: John Richardson – Information Session – London, UK – Thursday Oct. 13/22 – 19:30 – 21:30

John Richardson – Information Session – London, UK – Thursday Oct. 13/22 – 19:30 – 21:30

What: John Richardson informal information and discussion session for those impacted by US extraterritorial overreach

When: Thursday October 13, 2022 – 19:30 – 21:30

Where: Sutton Arms – Wine Room
6 Carthusian Street, London, EC1M 6EB

Cost: No charge for the session. You may wish to purchase a beverage at the location.

How to get there: There is a map at the bottom of the home page of the Sutton Arms Site:

https://www.sutton-arms.co.uk/

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John Richardson – Information Session – London, UK – Thursday Oct. 13/22 – 19:00 – 21:00

Attention!! Date, time and location updated!! – Thursday Oct. 13/22 – 19:30 – 21:30 – New location! See here.

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John Richardson – Information Session – London, UK – Thursday Oct. 13/22 – 19:00

What: John Richardson informal information and discussion session for those impacted by US extraterritorial overreach

When: Thursday October 13, 2022 – 19:00 – 21:00

Where: Pret A Manger – Directly Across From Russell Square Tube (careful to choose the correct Pret)
40 Bernard Street, London, WC1N 1LE
https://www.pret.co.uk/en-GB/shop-finder/l/london/40-bernard-street/284

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Buying Their Freedom: Toward A More Efficient Process Of US Citizenship Renunciation

Buying Their Freedom – A More Efficient Renunciation Process – The “Readers Digest” Version Of This Post …

The effects of US citizenship taxation enforced by FATCA are causing great distress to the US citizens who reside in and are tax residents of other countries. They are being constructively forced to renounce US citizenship because of (1) the out of pocket costs of US tax compliance (2) the possibility of double taxation (3) the US taxation of things that are not taxable in their country of residence (4) the “opportunity cost” of their inability to engage in financial and retirement planning and in some cases (5) the threat or reality of bank/financial account closures. In addition, these circumstances are unfair to their countries of residence who are forced to deal with a group of people who are more likely to require “social assistance” in their retirement years. US citizenship is a problem for US citizens who attempt to live outside the United States and for the countries where they live.

Although many people are constructively forced to renounce US citizenship, the US has made renunciation very difficult from both a cost and availability perspective.

The purpose of this post is to suggest that the process of renouncing US citizenship should be facilitated in the US citizen’s country of residence by that government. Renunciation could be achieved more quickly, at lower cost and (under my proposal) partially subsidized by the government of residence (which would justify this as “buying back their citizens” from any US claim of taxation or other regulatory burdens). I believe that this proposal would benefit the individual US citizen, the US citizen’s country of residence and the United States itself. The following post describes how this can be achieved under the existing US laws.

As President Obama once said:

“The circumstances of one’s birth should not determine the outcome of one’s life.”

This post is composed of the following parts:

Part A – Introduction
Part B – The US Government And The Oppression OF Americans Abroad
Part C – The Legal Framework Of Renunciation
Part D – The Logistics – How The New Renunciation Process Would Work
Part E – Reviewing The Benefits Of The New Renunciation Process
Part F – The Revised Renunciation Fee
Part G – Democratizing Renunciation – Making It Available To All – A Financing Proposal
Part H – Sadly this could all be be prevented if the United States were to end citizenship taxation and adopt the world standard of residence taxation. But, …
Part I – Conclusion – “All Roads Lead To Renunciation”

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The Weaponization Of Citizenship: From “You Are NOT American” to “You ARE American”

Recommended Reading For Americans Abroad

I recently came across the book “You Are NOT American” by Professor Amanda Frost. I read very few books from beginning to end. This particular book I read twice. The subtitle of the book is “Citizenship Stripping From Dred Scott To The Dreamers“. Ms. Frost documents the struggles of those unlikely people who were conscripted into the an internal struggle – invisible to all except those affected – in the United States. I think of this struggle as the “weaponization of citizenship”. Historically this struggle has resulted from the attempts of the United States to reconcile its ugly history of slavery with its beautiful aspirations of freedom. The book is well researched and Ms. Frost was able to tell the stories of the principal “warriors”, bringing them to life in a way that humanized them. Although each person/warrior was the public face of a legal issue (many of their cases were heard by the Supreme Court Of The United States) we learn and understand the facts and circumstances that brought them to the court. While reading the book, I could feel the pain, the frustration and the injustice. We learn how the laws of the day impacted the people of the day. This knowledge comes from Ms. Frost digging into the archives and finding many original sources. The footnotes constitute a “treasure trove” of information akin to reading old newspapers. The book tells the story of “citizenship stripping” as a commentary on American history, culture and values in a broader sense.
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Thinking About Financial And Life Planning For US Citizens Living Outside The United States

Introduction

This week I am giving a (short) presentation on this topic. I created some slides that are designed to provide the categories for discussion. I thought I would share the slides in this blog post.

John Richardson – Follow me on Twitter @Expatrationlaw