I read in the Globe and Mail this morning that the IRS has yet been unable to come up with a draft of the regulations they plan to force on Canadian banks in order to track the accounts of US citizens living in Canada. Rumour has it that the cost of the program to the US will far exceed the amount of tax revenue that they could possibly discover. There is also the possibility that Canadian banks will simply refuse to take on customers that are US citizens (there is no right to bank in the Charter, after all) in order to avoid penalties that could include a whopping 30% on a bank's business in the US.
For practical purposes, I won't be establishing any joint accounts for my Love and I anytime soon. Then the US could claim her earning and assets (retirement accounts, etc.) are partially mine and tax us for their value.
All I know is that as soon as I can, I'll be putting this complication behind me by renouncing my US citizenship. It's years in the offing, of course (and who knows - the IRS may never get their act together on this), but who needs these wallet-snatching Americans in their back pocket when all they do with the money is give it to their friends in the large multinationals?
Read the Globe article here.
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