Unpopularity has scuttled the extra-constitutional, extra-judicial Christmas tree tax (see below video for a sample). Now the Department of Agriculture had proposed this tax, and of course they went about it in a completely wrong way. First, they should have the IRS collect it. Second, they should only impose it on US citizens living outside the borders of the United States, and recent immigrants, for example, people who have come from India in the last 10 years. That way it only hits those who don’t have representation in Congress or small persecuted minority groups. Then, a line should be added to the 1040NR form asking, “Did you have a foreign Christmas tree this year at any time during the year?” In the explanations of this line, it should say that if the answer to the question is yes, then each person filing must fill out a disclosure form DA-FCT1025365NR for the Department of Agriculture which must be received by the 30th of June on the year that the foreign Christmas tree was used. It should be mentioned that non-wilful failure to disclose whether one had a Christmas tree could result in a $10,000 fine per infringement, per tree (so that if two spouses filing jointly or separately would each have to make a disclosure). Wilful failure of disclosure can result in prison sentences and huge fines that are so stupendous that it requires the implicit waiver of the 8th amendment, let’s say as much as 300% of your personal wealth. Finally, this disclosure must be retroactive for the last six years.
Renunciation of US citizenship
Americans getting group therapy at U.S. Consulate in Toronto
Hi Obama, Geitner, Senator Levin? Are any of you aware that the Toronto consulate explained to a group of 22 Americans how to jump the New Berlin Wall last month. The Globe and Mail has an article telling about this group therapy session. The illness: American citizenship. The cure: Renunciation of citizenship.
The salient quote:
A U.S. embassy official played down the significance of the renunciation meeting. He said consular officials were responding to calls and requests for information prompted by a flurry of media coverage about the tax crackdown.
“We simply decided it was more efficient to have everybody come as a group and talk to everyone at once, rather than doing it individually,” the official said. “It was simply a time-management decision.”
For those interested in therapy, the cost is $450 per renunciation.
Mental midgets at IRS and US Department of Treasury may cost US 10,000,000 jobs
Hi, I'm an economic know-nothing
Ok. Here is where I am so angry at what the Congress, the IRS, Obama and Tim Geitner have done to me that I claim that you US persons are dumb and getting dumber by the minute. An article in the Washington Times yesterday claims that the mental midgets running Washington are implementing regulations that will cause the flight of $14 trillion of foreign investment capital out of the US. This will cause the loss of as many as 10,000,000 jobs. Read it and weep. Here is a salient excerpt:
Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, and the other economic-know-nothings who proposed these measures claim – without any basis in fact – that the United States is losing $100 billion annually because of foreign account tax avoidance or evasion. Private foreign investment in the U.S. is about $14 trillion. So $100 billion is less than 1 percent of the private foreign investment, yet the mental midgets in Congress and the administration are willing to risk trillions of dollars in job-creating foreign investment in exchange for a phony $100 billion. Well over 10 million American jobs are at risk because of this foolishness.
Phil Hodgen reports on the backlog of people who want to renounce their US citizenship. The US citizens living abroad now find that US citizenship is a liability not an asset and want out. We want our Declaration of Independence.
Canadian Taxman has no mercy for offshore investments
No mercy for those who have $100,000 or more in investments outside Canada. Ouch. Hey IRS: I live in Canada. I am exposed to enough capricious, confiscatory tax rules that I don’t need yours too. The Canadian taxman suffices. This is why I renounced US citizenship. Get used to it. There are a lot more people right behind me.
Headline from the Financial Post:
Should Canadians boycott the USA?
I wrote the following comment at Beating the Index, after Mich asked us what we thought of an oil company operating in Texas:
Hi Mich:
I gave up my US citizenship on February 28 2011, and I am very angry with the United States and its attempt to persecute Canadian residents, about 1 million of us, with extra-territorial taxation and persecution through laws that are intended to attack money launderers, drug dealers, and terrorists. Many innocent Canadians with dual citizenship with the US have become fearful of not even being able to cross the border to visit their families now, and Canada’s finance minister, Jim Flahrety, has told the IRS to back off of innocent Canadians who are not tax cheats.When you expatriate from a country because you think that the people running it are persecuting you, treating you in an unfair manner, do you think that’s gonna be the first place you would want to invest? I’ve decided to stop even travelling to the US, except for family emergencies where the risk reward ratio makes sense. I did invest in Texas a few years ago, but thanks again to the US Federal government, I was basically fleeced for 70K. No thanks. Never again.
I think EGL could turn out to be a good investment, but with the OWS movement and an administration that wants to tax the rich, is not nationalization of the resource sector not far off? Paint me as paranoid, but the US federal government has caused me great suffering by threatening me, someone who’s lived in Canada now 25 years, I feel like requesting my fellow Canadians to keep their money at home and to boycott the USA until they [the Yanks] can figure out that it is not right to attack innocent Canadians.
Thanks for letting me rant a little. I just think people should know about this.
The Righteous Investor 