Travails of an American Tax-Victim Overseas

Jon Alternative Media, Economy, Government

In a recent article on LRC, tax specialist and Forbes columnist Robert Wood shared a letter that one of his clients, Marilyn, had sent to President Obama about the travails of being a US Citizen who lives outside of the good ol USA. In order to explain more fully what is going on with offshore citizens, I’ve taken the liberty of writing a response from President Obama. I’m in the same boat as Marilyn and have suffered from the same outrageously punitive and discriminatory rules that she has.
Dear Marilyn,
My staff mentioned that we received your letter and that you were considering ending your status as US citizen because of my rules on reporting foreign financial accounts and treatment of foreign mutual funds. I know there’s lot’s of folks just like you who live offshore, so we’ve come up with some responses to your concerns.
Yes, my FBAR form has draconian penalties if you don’t fill out the paperwork for all of your financial accounts correctly [rubs palms together]. To make things easier on you, I’ve instructed the IRS to institute a voluntary disclosure program for people who don’t fill out the paperwork correctly. You tell us everything and we’ll consider only taking half instead of all of the account balance and we’ll even consider waiving the 5 year jail sentence in most cases. According to a precise reading of the rules, we could fine you far more than the account balance, so be thankful.
And to further ease your burden of running to the post office and mailing in your account information on the FBAR form each year, the form is no longer accepted by mail. If you’re foolish enough to mail in the form in order to report your accounts, we’ll treat that form as evidence of non reporting, subjecting you to the draconian penalties. [smirks and covers mouth with his hand]. I’ve also given the form a more user friendly name. Instead of FBAR, it’s called FinCEN Form 144(a). Your high priced tax guy can send in the information via the internet, where you can be sure the information is safe. [giggles]

This post was published at Lew Rockwell on September 4, 2014.