F.U.B.A.R.

Interesting article popped up on Drudge today saying that the number of US citizens renouncing their citizenship between 2008 and 2010 increased 1000-fold.  In the first half of 2011, the number was running at over 1,000, which indicated a possible doubling over 2010 numbers.

According to the article, the primary reason given for this rather dramatic move was the IRS.  It wasn't the level of taxes, which is bad enough, but the fact that the IRS lies to people about agreements it makes with them to settle past claims, and the overall nightmare that is known as the US Tax Code (code being the operative word here, since it is designed to keep anyone from knowing it).

Most folks don't realize that the US is the only country in the world that requires its citizens to file returns every year, regardless of whether they live and work in the US, or not.  On top of that, new regulations require the revealing of every asset, bank account and financial holding a person has outside the US.

Oh sure, some will say, that's because so many rich people, like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, hide their money in tax havens, and they need to 'pay their fair share.'  Of course, the law doesn't affect people like that.  They know what holes were written into the law to permit them to get away with hiding their assets.

If you know what you are doing, all you have to do is set up a couple of dummy corporations in the few remaining 'tax havens' and POOF!  You money disappears off the IRS radar.  Corporations know this and use it to their advantage, as well.

An example?  A US corporation, we'll call it CorpX, registers in Delaware, which has lots of corp-friendly laws.  It then sets up a wholly-owned shell corp in someplace like the Virgin Islands or one of the other Caribbean ghost nations.  It hangs out a shingle and pays some lawyer to get mail dropped at his office.  The shell corp then does business around the world.  Through accounting quackery, all profits are offshored in low-tax jurisdictions, while all losses are repatriated to the mother corp, which then uses them to offset income and avoid taxes at home.

This is how massive corporations with billions in income pay absolutely no taxes in the US, even though they are US-registered entities.

But this is off track a little.  They point here is that the tax code has become so onerous and heinous that people are literally forced to renounce their citizenship in order to stay out of bankruptcy due to tax burdens.  They little guy doesn't know or can't afford all the little comforts written into the code to protect the Big Guys.

The fact is that most expats pay taxes on income in the jurisdiction where they live, and most countries leave their citizens alone when they live outside the home jurisdiction.  Not the US.  It's long arm reaches out, and even when the expat doesn't owe taxes, due to local payment and tax treaty provisions, the IRS still wants paperwork.  If you don't know all the thousands of applicable rules, you are liable to quite easily miss one or two (hundred).  And when you do, the IRS comes down like vultures on a rotting carcass and eat you alive with penaties and fines and other fun things.

Of course, even renouncing citizenship doesn't protect you.  The US Code provides that any and all taxes and penalties that were due up to the point a person dropped their citizenship are still due in perpetuity.  Believe me, you made a mistake somewhere and they will hold it againt you until you die.  And then they'll take it from your heirs.

The mafia only wishes it had the 'power' and thuggery available to that bunch of thieves.

Recently, Indonesia strengthened its laws regarding citizens living and working abroad.  Any income they receive while working outside the country is not reportable at home, as long as it is taxed in the foreign jurisdiction.  It also allows folks to discontinue their NPWP, which is the local version of the Social Security Number (SSN) for a variety of reasons, including extended stays outside the country.  Granted there's a pretty stiff set of requirements, including an immediate audit by the tax man, but try that under any circumstances with an SSN.  You are virtually branded in the US at birth and can not extract yourself for any reason.  Even residents in the US who get an SSN while they are living and working in that country are stuck with it for life, and the IRS can and will come after their income and assets anywhere in the world.

I wouldn't have such a great problem with all this, except the code is written to protect the Big Guys and shaft the little guys.  The BGs pay little or no taxes by playing 'hide the sausage' in various jurisdictions and through various entities.  The LGs are the ones who get the sausage broken off on the relative pittance that they earn, and the pitiful bank accounts and occasional beach house in Tahiti.

If ExxonMobil or GlaxoWellcome or Citibank paid their 'fair share,' I'd feel a lot better about getting stiffed.  But when the burden rests on us little guys because the Big Guys lobby their way out of billions in liabilities, it rubs salt in the wound.

All taxes anywhere are a sham.  After all, what exactly has any government ever done to help you make money?  All I have ever witnessed anywhere in the world are a bunch of lazy do-nothings on the public teat sucking my life-blood for...what?  Does the government make any laws that help you or me earn a living?  Au contraire.  Does government protect us from predatory practices that threaten our livelihoods?  Banish the thought...they are a major part of the problem.  Does government do anything at all to aid and abet us little guys in creating and amassing wealth?  Hahahaha!

So just exactly what are we paying all these taxes for?  What services do they render us?  What benefit do they buy us?  In fact, outside of paying a bunch of lard-assed bureaucrats, bloated militaries and non-productive members of society, what do we get for all the trouble and money we go through to pay our 'fair share?'

Apparently, there are a couple of thousand people a year, and growing, who think that at least one country is so screwed up that it is easier to switch citizenship than fight the corruption and greed at home.  That's a sure sign of a sick system.

Having paid taxes in a few countries, I know that most have a fairly straight-forward system with a single-page form.  It takes all of a few minutes to work up your annual dues and settle up.  I have never had to file less than ten pages in the US, and it takes the better part of a week or two to calculate and re-check everything before filing (God help you if you make a mistake).

What makes it even more egregious is that the IRS is nothing more than the collection arm for a private banking cartel called the Federal Reserve.  Sorry, but none of your taxes is paid to the US Treasury.  US citizens spend all that time and effort and money on tax preparation firms to pay back the Fed for all the money Congress has borrowed.

And here's the Big Problem...the US debt stands at around $15 trillion dollars, and there's not nearly enough money in circulation to ever pay it back.  It's an eternal game of 'bend over the barrel,' and we're on the receiving end.  Come next April 15th, remember whose fault it is that has caused you so much pain.  It was Congress who set up the Fed and Congress who borrowed the money and stuck you with the bill.

It's enough to make a guy want to renounce his citizenship.  Glad I'm a Texian!

Something Rotten In The State Of Taxus

Sensus Pajak

I smell a rat.

I'm usually pretty good at this.  When pieces don't add up and I get that funny feeling in my stomach, I pay attention.  Here's what's going on...

Recently, the Indonesian tax office announced that it was doing a Sensus Pajak, a tax census.  First time ever.  Folks are required to disclose pretty much anything of value they own, and to who and what you give your money.  That alone doesn't particularly worry me.  The attitude in Indonesia is that, if it weren't for laws, they wouldn't have anything to ignore.

What bothers me is the new IRS form 8938, telling everyone they must disclose all their overseas holdings.  The form is still in the formation stage, but it will be among the goodies coming for next year.

All real estate earning money through rent or other activity.  All foreign bank accounts and financial investments.  So far, you have to descibe and estimate the value of about 80% of where money goes outside the US.  The other 20% are most likely in the offing.

Taken together, these two items start to make a picture.  An email from an acquaintance told me the rest of the story.  At least two other countries are doing something similar.  Now I can see what's going on.

THEY are trying to get a worldwide accounting of what everyone's got.  Bet me there's a clause somewhere that says if you want to play with the World Bank, here's what you have to do.  Bet me...

It starts to sound like THEY are trying to level the playing field globally.  THEY want to bring up the low and take down the high until everyone meets in the middle, and THEY have all the marbles.  All these market shenanigans and currency wars, combined with a global tax census = world government

THEY are using the simple tool of debt to bring the whole world under the heel of banksters.  If a nation or corporation owes money to someone, THEY can twist arms and get what THEY want.  Hell, THEY even have the Vatican tring to convine their sheep.  Any muslim country that doesn't knuckle under is being bombed into dust.  Buddhists and Hindus won't put up much of a fight.  There's better than two-thirds of the world in your pocket.  The rest will fall because there's no one left to help.

THEY are trying to get a global snapshot of atjeull wealth everywhere, and where it goes and what it buys.  THEY want to track as many transactions as THEY can get THEIR claws into.  Imagine the size of that project.  Attempting to control every economic action you and I take, and by economic, I mean pretty much everything we do when two or more people are together.  It's a brute force kind of thing.  THEY think that it's all pretty much down to a couple of pockets of resistance.  THEY are taking out the ones with appreciable resources for 'special treatment'.  If a nation has oil or some other tasty treats, and they aren't playing ball with the Big Boys, then those nations are destroyed to the point of complete submission.  It's truly amazing to contemplate this scale of operation.

Remember back in the 80s when THEY couldn't sell the UN hard enough?  Everybody was sucking up to the UN and folks thought that it would be the global government.  Now it seems as if the UN has been sidelined. Sure, you hear about it once in a while, when someone is pitching global warming or African famine.  For the most part, though, THEY have taken the spotlight off of international and regional governments and put all the attention on banks.

I mean, think about it.  If you can bring the entire globe to its knees economically, so that people don't have the energy to even protest any more, then you pop up with the Magic Solution.  Everyone is awed by your brilliance and foresight.  They praise your name as they settle once again in air-conditioned comfort, with food in their bellies and sports on TeeVee.  Ah, the feeling of wall-to-wall carpet and hot baths!  You'd do anything to keep that going, wouldn't you?  Whose ass do I gotta kiss to keep all this comfort?  And when I get that raise, I'll buy a bigger TeeVee!

Can't you just see it?

Think about how many people, over how many years, have worked THEIR tails off to bring the world to the point where we will call THEM our saviors!  We will joyfully submit or lose our place at the trough.  THEY really and truly want to own EVERYTHING.

It just floors me thinking about it.  Why would anyone want that much?  I mean, you get your own jet and people move to give you room to walk, but so what?  What kind of bent and diseased mind would spend centuries cooking up a scheme to take over the world?

At some point, people will either be pushed too far, or they will all knuckle under together in a plush prison of global scale.  No protest is going to change it.  The only thing that can bring THEM to THEIR knees is to complete leave the system and set up an alternate economy that can't be tracked, traced or taxed.  That's it.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Over the years I've listened to dozens, if not hundreds of people tell me where their line in the sand was.  Without exception, every one of those lines has been mowed over and mulched, and...nothing.  All the 'occupiers'?  They're not trying to get free, they're asking for handouts and to take the work of productive people and give them back their carpet and TeeVee and hot water.  Why didn't they fight when the revenuers showed up at the door to auction off their lives?

Nope, looks like most folks will just drop to their knees and hold out their hands in supplication to receive the gifts from their gods.  If all those 'occupiers' were being productive, they'd be discussing alternative economies and currencies and getting out of the system altogether.  Not try to make is more generous to them individually.

It's rather sad, really, to watch the YouTube videos of the protests and listen to what they have to say...or at least what we are being allowed to hear them say.  Either way, that's the message getting out.  And the actions don't seem to be telling a different story.

Form 8938

In the meantime, I'm faced with these two forms.  The Sensus Pajak wants to know how much I pay for electricty, and whose name the account is in.  It wants to know if I have a personal maid or driver, and how much I pay them and what their names are.  It wants details of my living arrangements and how much I spend for all that.

On the other side of the world, I've got another form that wants to know everything I own and where I keep my money outside the US.  Would that I had anything to report, but who are they to want to know?

What was that about fair share and related rubbish?  I trust you saw how much profit GE and ExxonMobil made last quarter, and more to the point, how much they paid in US taxes...$0.  There's your fair share.

It's a mighty big picture to take in.  Like a Seurat, you kinda have to back up a ways to really appreciate the size and complexity of it.  In fact, it really is like a pointilist painting.  Up close, it's just specs of color all piled up on top of each other.  But, if you back away, it all blends into an incredible picture of massive proportions.    Most folks never really see it, because they pass by a foot away and just see dots of color.  Few pace back against the far wall of the museum to soak in the intricate tapestry.

So, time to march off and take a full accounting of everything I have and what I do with it and where I leave it when I'm not playing with it.  Won't be much longer before I'll have to take inventory of my pockets every morning and evening, and fill out the online report to Massah.  Yep, can't wait for the moment to come.

Boy, the smell of dead rat is getting rather strong in here...