Americans Line Up to Renounce US Citizenship in Toronto

More on the US FATCA and impact on Canadians:

Canada finalized its IGA earlier this year. It requires Canadian banks send the account information of customers with U.S. citizenship to the Canada Revenue Agency CRA. The CRA then forwards that information on to the IRS, a tidy workaround to Canadian laws forbidding banks from sending that information directly to a foreign government.

But attorney John Richardson calls the information-sharing deal a “mechanism for the United States to extract after-tax Canadian capital out of the country.”

“What the U.S. is really doing is claiming the right to levy taxes on people who don’t live in the United States on income that is in no way connected to the United States. It simply cannot be tolerated,” said Richardson.

Many Canadians don’t even realize that the U.S. considers them taxable citizens, nor do they want U.S. citizenship, he said. That’s because the U.S. considers those born to American parents outside the country American, or anyone born in the U.S. American, even if they live their whole life in another country, unaware they are accumulating a mountain of fees and taxes.

The IRS has changed its position slightly to wave the massive penalties for “accidental Americans” and those unaware they needed to file with the IRS. But they are still required to pay taxes.

Americans Line Up to Renounce US Citizenship in Toronto.