Green Cards And Taxes

Thoughts From A Conversation About Green Cards And Taxes

The purpose of this is to reinforce some very simple points. I find that people always have more trouble remembering what’s simple.

Moving to America

1. Taxation of income from your remaining “non-U.S. assets”
You will be shocked to find that many of your “foreign assets” will be subject to particularly punitive U.S. taxation.

2. Reporting of your “non-U.S. assets”
If you are moving to America, you are moving from another country. You will very likely retain financial assets and bank accounts in that country. From a U.S. perspective, these assets are “foreign” and therefore a “fertile ground” for taxation and penalties.

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To anyone who doesn’t really understand the fear and frustration of FATCA and the insanity of the US tax system:

I am not and never have been American. I don’t live in the USA and I have no financial connections to the USA.

However, many years ago I got a green card when I married an American. We lived in the so-called, Land of the “Free”, until we decided to move permanently to my home country to care for my elderly parents.

A year or so after my return to my home country my green card expired, became null and void, but I didn’t know I was supposed to return it to USCIS along with an I-407 form. (Green cards don’t come with a set of disposal instructions.) Years later when I found out about this I searched for days to find that old green card and then I sent it away. It was received (according to the mail trace) but never officially acknowledged and there were no replies to my follow-up inquiries.

This left me trapped in a perpetual state of deemed US “personhood” which comes with onerous US tax filing and now highly intrusive FATCA reporting too. The threatened penalties for not filing FBAR (FinCEN114) forms are staggering. They would exceed my life savings (mostly a modest inheritance from my non-American parents). If I lose my life savings to the IRS I could end up on welfare and that would not be fair to taxpayers here in my home country.

What did I take from the USA when I left? I took savings of less than $5K and a gain of less than $75K from the sale of the house we built with our own labour and paid for entirely from the savings I brought with me from my home country (no mortgage on that house). All of this was reported to the IRS and taxed appropriately.

What do I get from the USA? Absolutely nothing – NO right to return to the USA to live or work; NO US Social Security because I have never had US income; NO rescue by US marines in a disaster; NO US vote; NO representation in the US Congress; and since I haven’t visited the USA in almost 20 years (and never will again), NO benefit from the USA’s infrastructure. I do not want any of those things anyway.

What do I want from the USA? I want to be left alone so that I can lead a normal life without the stigma of being called a “US person for tax purposes” (and ONLY tax purposes).

What’s the biggest irony of my whole situation? Well, my husband is no longer American since he recently relinquished his US citizenship. He now has a priceless piece of paper called a CLN (Certificate of Loss of Nationality) which means he can open and retain bank accounts here with no intrusive FATCA reporting.

Meanwhile I, who never was American, will have to live with uncertainty for the rest of my life. If my bank finds out about my past connection and failed disconnection to the USA, it will report me and my accounts to my country’s tax agency which will forward that information to the IRS. And then … well I shudder to think.

Some Americans may hate me for saying this but I have no love or respect for what the USA is doing with its irrational citizenship-based tax system and now its FATCA overreach. These same Americans might even laugh and gloat about how I became trapped as a “US person for tax purposes” but at least my husband, an upstanding citizen, has escaped the clutches of the USA. He did so with no regrets and when his CLN finally arrived he felt nothing but relief. I and my country are proud and pleased to have him. His warm and welcoming citizenship ceremony here in my, now OUR, country was one of the best days of both of our lives.

Neither of us is “un-American” but we are “non-American” and we cannot fathom why the USA will not graciously let its people go.

Anonymous

Original Statement on April 9, 2015
Submission to the United States Senate Finance Committee
International Tax

Have a question? Contact John Richardson

Your comments are welcome!

Well he won the lottery. Specifically he won the “Green Card” lottery. He and his wife came all the way from an Asian country to “Live The Dream” – specifically the dream of living in the United States of America.

He spoke English. His wife did not speak English. He believed in strict compliance in the law. His wife relied on him to ensure her compliance with the law. Read More

John Richardson

Introduction – Introducing Gerd Topsnik

“This case will be seen as the first of an (eventual) series of cases that determine how the definition of long term resident applies to Green Card holders. The case makes clear that if one does NOT meet the treaty definition of resident in the second country, that one cannot use that treaty to defeat the long term resident test. A subsequent case is sure to expand on this issue. Otherwise, the case confirms that the S. 877A Exit Tax rules are alive and well and that the 5 year certification test must be met to avoid non-covered status.”

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This is part of a series of posts on: (1) tax residency, (2) the use of treaty tiebreakers when an individual is a tax resident of more than one jurisdiction and (3) how to use treaty tiebreakers to end tax residency in an undesirable tax jurisdiction.

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John Richardson

Before a “Green Card” holder uses the “Treaty Tiebreaker” provision of a U.S. Tax Treaty, he/she must consider what is the effect of using the “Treaty Tiebreaker” on:

A. His/her immigration status under Title 8 (will he/she risk losing the Green Card?)

B. His/her status under Title 26 (will he expatriate himself under Internal Revenue Code S. 7701(b)) and subject himself to the S. 877A “Exit Tax” provisions?

Now, on to the post

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John Richardson

America doesn’t really need skilled immigrants, or does it?

Clearly a potential immigrant to the U.S. with assets in the home or a third country would have to have a special kind of insanity to subject himself to this system with all the paperwork and potential for double-taxation. And it would do this person absolutely no good whatsoever to become a U.S. citizen since this would change nothing. On the contrary, being a citizen would actually make it worse – one might shed a Green Card relatively easily (if done before the immigrant acquired too many assets in the U.S. or abroad) but U.S. citizenship is forever unless one renounces.

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In this day and age, with businesses going global and worldwide travel being so easy, it is becoming more and more common to see marriages occurring between a U.S. citizen/U.S. resident alien and a resident of another country. These marriages trigger significant tax consequences.

U.S. resident aliens are individuals who have become permanent U.S. residents but are not U.S. citizens. To be classified as a U.S. resident alien, the individual must be a “green card” holder or meet a “substantial presence test” that is based on time spent in the U.S in the current and prior two years. For U.S. income tax purposes, a resident alien is treated the same as a U.S. citizen and is taxed on worldwide income. Read More

Star Trek came much later to Indian television, growing up, I was always a big fan of the science fiction stuff, every Sunday morning my brother & I would be glued to the telly waiting for the next episode of “Star Trek”,not even the tantalizing smell of special Sunday breakfasts would get us to budge from our spots. Many, many re-runs of the Star Wars series and the cult movie, E.T later, when I landed in the United States, I was amused to find out that I was considered an “alien”!

Of course, that was not meant as a “stranger-landing-from-a-space-ship” kind of an alien, but it was more as a sedate, ubiquitous immigrant alien. So let’s get to the mundane type of complicated rules to determine – for income tax purposes- if you are an alien, that is, not an U.S. citizen, there are certain criteria you have to examine. Read More

I usually have clients who need substantial presence in the USA. Most times this is for a spouse and/ or a dependent in the country to apply for an ITIN when they would not otherwise qualify for a Social Security Number. It is also possible that the taxpayer himself needs to establish substantial presence in the US so he is able to make a “First Year Choice” for the previous year.

Some taxpayers whose parents make repeated trips from abroad and stay with the taxpayers for extended periods of time, may be able to apply for ITINs if they fulfill the substantial presence requirements. This usually results in the taxpayers claiming the parents as dependents for that year if other dependency tests are fulfilled. Read More

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Expatriation And Exit Tax

Many individuals who previously took on United States citizenship as a second nationality or obtained a green card are now regretting this decision.  Some individuals often incorrectly assume they can give up the US citizenship or the green card without adverse US tax consequences.

Under the so-called “expatriation” tax rules, harsh tax consequences will result if the individual giving up his US citizenship or “long-term” green card (generally, held for 8 out of the past 15 years) is a so-called “covered expatriate”.  Only “covered expatriates” will suffer the onerous tax consequences.  One is a “covered expatriate” if the individual has either a net worth of US$2 million at the time of expatriation; or, if he has a certain average income tax liability over the past 5 years prior to expatriation. One is also automatically treated as a “covered expatriate” if the person fails to notify the IRS that he has expatriated and satisfied all of his tax liabilities for the past five years even if he did not meet the aforementioned dollar thresholds.

In these cases, imposition of an “Exit Tax” (among other harsh tax results) will occur when one gives up his US citizenship or “long term” green card. Under the Exit Tax provisions, the individual is subject to tax on the net unrealized gain on all of his world wide assets as if such property were sold for its fair market value on the day before the expatriation date.  Thus, the individual must pay US income tax on gain that he is “deemed” to have earned by operation of the Exit Tax rules, when in fact, the individual has not sold anything and is without any cash in hand with regard to the deemed sale. Naturally, this raises the issue of how the individual will fund payment of the Exit Tax. Read More