Chapter 20: The child tax credit, take it, leave it and how to take it

See the following Facebook discussion.

“How To Live Outside The United States In An FBAR And FATCA World” – Part 3 – Sanctions and “direct life control”

Introduction …

Tax Connections recently reposted a post that I wrote:

“How To Live Outside The United States In An FBAR And FATCA World”. That post was reposted at the Isaac Brock Society, where it has received a number of interesting comments. Additional comments appear at the American Expatriates Facebook group. The comments have made me realize that there are many, many, more dimensions to this problem.

In 2012 a seminar presenter at NYU joked that:

“FATCA is the gift that just keeps on giving”.

What has become clear (as a U.S. tax expert once commented) is that:

“U.S. citizenship is the gift that just keeps on taking!”

FATCA is simply a mechanism to help the USA exploit “U.S. citizenship” to keep on “taking” from:

• U.S. citizens temporarily living outside the United States
• Accidental Americans who are citizens and residents of other nations and (in many cases) do NOT regard themselves as U.S. citizens
• The economies of other nations who are subjected to “tax seepage” via U.S. taxation of residents of their nations

There is more than one way of “taking” …

“Some” ways of taking include:

• direct taxation
• extra-territorial laws that restrict the liberty of U.S. persons (including “accidentals”) abroad

Restricting the activities of Americans Abroad

This post is to acknowledge and describe some of the ways that the USA uses its assumed jurisdiction over “U.S. citizens” to restrict the activities of those “citizens” when they are outside the United States.