Posted by Michael Bach.
Dear Canadians,
Let me get to the bottom line before you get to the bottom of the bottle.
That evil bastard, Berwick, just wrote me and asked me to write on “the downsides of being an ‘accidental American.'” Hell, I can write for hours on the downsides of being any kind of American – intentional, negligent, reckless, syphilitic, and brain-dead.
But, no, he wants a screed limited to ‘accidental Americans,’ which is whiskey-prism talk for Canadians. You know, people like you and Berwick, who suffer from having been flash-frozen out of the womb and then making the rest of us suffer with your hideous disabilities and whining ever since.
But that is a story I will save for later.
What he is talking about, or wants me to talk about, are the Canadians who are about to be given a swirly by the 900-pound gorilla to the south because they had the misfortune of being born to one American parent in Canada, or were born in the US for no good or apparent reason before returning to Canada as children. They are, to their extreme disadvantage, American citizens, whether they know it or not. And, American citizens, voluntary, knowing, or otherwise, are required by the most dangerous criminal enterprise in the world to report and pay taxes on every thin dime they earn their entire miserable lifetimes regardless where in the world they earned them or where they live.
So what? So this:
Canada, being just another water-boy for the behemoth to the south, will turn over all its banking data on “US persons” to the United States Internal Revenue Service starting July 1 this year. Why? Because the gorilla with the bad attitude wants it and even passed a law threatening every nation in the world who doesn’t step and fetch it. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will impact all these ‘accidental’ Americans who will begin receiving letters that go something like this:
“It seems you have failed to file your US income tax returns for the last 47 years, not to mention reports on your foreign bank accounts, about which we have total knowledge and access thanks to your pussy government who bent over for us just like they always do. By our calculations, you owe us everything you have ever earned plus penalties and interest, and that much again for not filing FBAR’s on your Canadian bank accounts. In short, you are fucked. And, if you don’t pay, you will be indicted and we will hunt you down like a rabid animal and cage you until death do us part.
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation,
The USSA”
Or words to that effect.
And, that’s not all.
Some of you ice-heads made the hideous mistake of marrying an American and co-mingling not only your bodily fluids, but your money, too. Oops. By doing that, you not only insured the American will go straight to tax hell, but the Canadian with them. Their accounts suddenly become reportable and likewise will be turned over to the Pit Bull on a gunpowder diet and you will be accused of such heinous crimes as failure to file your TD-90 forms on bank accounts (checking and savings), investment accounts, mutual funds, retirement and pension accounts, securities and other brokerage accounts, debit card and prepaid credit card accounts, and even life insurance and annuities having cash value. “The penalties are, more or less, the same as those meted out for first-degree child molestation, including a $10,000 fine per account, per violation, and 5 years in “pound-me-in-the-ass” prison. The ‘unintentional’ US person will naturally feel slighted at this revelation and divorce their evil American spouse or at least beat him to death with an Elk femur. The defense he had no idea will be about as effective as it will be with the IRS.
And, finally:
There are more than a few Canucks who wander across their southern border on a seal blubber high and stay too long snorting blow in Palm Beach or visiting family in Des Moines. For now, they can stay 6 months without violating US immigration laws and being summarily deported and prevented entry for the rest of this lifetime. There is an effort to have this extended for Canadians over 50 years old, but it is a trick that will capture more of them than ever in the US tax lair.
Here’s how:
Under US law, one is considered a US resident for tax purposes if they meet the ‘substantial presence’ test for “any calendar year which means they are physically present in the United States on at least 31 days during the current year, and 183 days during the 3-year period that includes the current year and the 2 years immediately before that, counting: All the days you were present in the current year, and 1/3 of the days you were present in the first year before the current year, and 1/6 of the days they were present in the second year before the current year.”
Whatever the fuck that means.
And what that means is the US will lure Canadians across the border to spend their money on good bourbon whiskey and hookers who don’t wear parkas just long enough to send them a letter, “Welcome, US resident! Please file your income tax return on your worldwide income and, by the way, let us know where you have every dime hidden. Or else.”
Bottom line? Threats, fines, imprisonment, and serious bodily harm.
And insanity, of course. The greater the coercion in any society, the greater the occurrence of mental illness. It explains why most Americans of the intentional variety are crazier than a shit house rat. Among indigenous cultures, that is those folks who walked barefooted, chewed roots, and more or less enjoyed themselves before we came in a mass-slaughtered them for getting in the way of progress, there was no insanity. They had no need to chew a handful of Prozac to make it through a day because no institutions of higher violence were threatening them.
But when you add modernity’s coercions not present in those simple, more or less anarchic, cultures, e.g., school, employment, and governments that take joy in fining and imprisoning their own populations, you end up with a society of blabbering, violent morons, one that is alienating, disengaging and no fun.
You end up in Canada.
After the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act goes into effect, coercion will be exponentially multiplied and Canadians, also known as ‘unintentional Americans,’ will pay a grim psychological price for their ignorance and many of your northern brethren will suffer until they die by their own hands just to stop the pain or be gnawed apart by some US bureaucrat with a serious grudge to settle because he got beat up by the bigger boys in gym class when he was in junior high school.
That’s the answer,
Jim Karger
