The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

Andy Scheer, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, IRS Tax Target!

Tags

America, American, Andrew Scheer, Conservatives, FINCEN, IRS, Taxes

So Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, is an American citizen. I don’t know the details, but it seems his father was an American citizen and Andy is too by way of birth. He’s a form of what we call an accidental American. Many others are persons born in the U.S. while their foreign parents were working or studying there and who then moved back home. Boris Johnson is one of those, and he got nailed by the IRS.

As an American expat who relinquished his American citizenship – I arrived in Canada in 1970 and will never live in the U.S., so why keep the burden? – I am somewhat familiar with the tax laws Boris and Andrew are facing. Somewhat. I am not a wealthy person like Andrew Scheer. I say wealthy because one internet site has his personal wealth estimated at $961,000 and I’ve seen references that It may be much higher. His government pension alone has him set for life.

That is until the IRS comes calling.

Yes, the American Internal Revenue Service taxes Americans no matter where they live. You might think it’s silly and wrong, I do, but it’s the fact. Andrew Scheer is required to file income taxes annually to the IRS as well as file FINCEN reports (Formerly FBAR) to the Treasury Department of all his foreign financial accounts and balances. And let’s hope he has; because if he hasn’t, he’ll be making the news for all the wrong reasons. How insane is that? If he becomes Prime Minister, he will have to disclose his entire financial situation to the American government or face severe penalties. He may even be arrested if he crosses their border.

Pause: these American tax practices are wrong simply because American colonists revolted for flimsier reasons, a silly little stamp tax. They claimed at the time it was wrong for a power in a different land to tax its people in another, yet this is exactly what America has done since Lincoln decided traitors fleeing the country could not flee his new income tax. Moving on.

I don’t know Scheer’s salary, investments, or the details of his pension. I’ve seen numbers of $259k, and undisclosed amount in three RELPs, and $3,000k respectively, but whatever they are, he’s still potentially in a mess. I’ll address each of these as parts one, two, and three.

Part one: American persons get to deduct about USD$103.9k of foreign salary from their income. This only makes sense if the majority of your income is salary and if it’s within this modest range. Andy’s salary is roughly USD$195k , so using this deduction won’t help him. He will have to file the long form and deduct Canadian taxes paid from his taxes owed to the IRS. In Canada Andy will only pay taxes on his salary, maybe on some of these part two RELPs, and on none of his pension. Could be a clean wash and he’ll owe nothing to the IRS. Except nothing is ever a clean wash with the IRS.

Part Two point one: I don’t know anything about these RELP investments, but let’s assume the worst. First, Scheer has to include them on his annual FINCEN Form 114. Failure to do so incurs severe penalties. I don’t want to even think about what might happen to him if he’s noncompliant, but he can kiss those RELPs goodbye.

Part two point two: income earned in these RELPs is taxable in the U.S. as the tax deductions are not covered under the AmU.S.-Canada tax treaty. So Andy’s tax savings benefits in Canada are useless. Pay up Andy!

Part two point three: these RELPs are likely considered Passive Foreign Investment Companies or PFICs. I’ve never investigated the ins and outs and I don’t care to. What I’ve heard helped drive me to relinquish as I may wish to create my own corporation. Basically, and this is anecdotal from memory, Andy will have to pay 2% excise tax on the value of these investments biannually as well as pay the maximum 35% tax rate on all income, basically making the investment worse than worthless, if deemed PFICs. If not, he will merely have to add the full income of these devices to his American income.

Sigh. Not double-taxation, but clearly serving two masters inhibits one’s ability to minimize taxes and save for retirement.

Part three: pensions not registered with the IRS are likely considered PFICS as well. I don’t know these rules either, and it is possible, though not likely, the Canadian Federal Government pension plan is registered with the IRS, but in a worst-case scenario, Andy will have to include all government contributions as income, pay the 2% excise tax twice a year on the value, and 35% tax on all earnings. If the value of a government pension after 14 years in parliament is $3,000k, then basically Andy will go bankrupt to the IRS while serving our country. Oh, and he also has to include these in his FINCEN report or else.

There are other considerations too. His free living at Stornoway might be considered a tax-free benefit for a leader of the opposition, but is it under American laws? Tax, tax, tax!

Finally, Andy is planning on renouncing his American citizenship. Good call, but he will have to become compliant with the IRS before they will let him go. Then, any net worth over $5 million USD will be subject to a 35% exit tax. He might be there and suffer even more draining from his retirement funds. Renouncing will incur at least a USD$2300 charge from the State Department. Funny, acquiring citizenship only costs $700. Apparently the security risk of leaving America is three times that of joining.

Oh, by the way, I write for the satire magazine The Manatee, but this is not satire. This is the truth as I know all too well. A million American persons, many also Canadian citizens, live in Canada and are subject to these outrageous laws. And our (Canadian) government has done nothing to stand up to the bully. So far, the IRS has not come after private pensions. But Andy is a public figure. They have to press him. They can’t set a precedent for the rest of those to escape from this stupid net.

No wonder Andy has tried to hide his American citizenship.

 

 

NAFTA – Financial Services Excluded

Tags

Broken, cbt, citizenship-based taxation, expats, fatca, Financial Services, NAFTA, Sucks, TBT, territorial-based taxation

International financial services need an overhaul. The first North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) did diddley for competition in this area — any restriction already in place was to remain in place. Fine. Makes sense to some degree. Nations should have control over their own tax systems, retirement programs, and investment incentives. Unless of course it is deemed as an unfair restriction of U.S. sales, then it’s evil.

Some examples.

• Americans cannot buy Canadian mutual funds.
• Americans cannot buy Canadian Life Insurance
• Americans cannot buy Canadian stocks
• Americans cannot participate in Canadian private pensions
• Canadians cannot buy American stocks unless protected by a registered plan
• I am not sure if Canadians can buy American mutual funds. I think we can, but generally such investments are hidden from us as those of us who purchase such things tend to bury them in registered plans and buy them through management companies. My financial advisor is Sun Life, and I have no idea which funds I own. Some of everything. But as they live in an RRSP, the IRS cannot touch them.

These might seem abstract concepts and do not affect you as a Canadian or American. After all, why would an American want to buy life insurance from London Life or participate in a provincial government pension plan?

In reality, these policies do not affect the everyday Joe or Jane, but they do affect at least one million American Persons living in Canada, maybe more, maybe double that. We do not have an accurate count of active Canadian citizen green card holders (those people who were resident in America but returned without cancelling their card. And why would you cancel it as they are so hard to get in the first place, especially if you have any hints of non-white or non-Christian ancestry.) now resident in Canada.

It affects us because the U.S. taxes its citizens and green card holders no matter where they reside. A cash value on a whole life insurance policy that is not registered in America is treated as a savings account, and it does not grow tax free. That private pension plan we may participate in (often we are required to as a condition of employment) is nothing but a savings account, It does not grow tax-free in the eyes of the IRS. Investments into non-American mutual funds are subject to harsh PFIC taxation rules making them prohibitive. Dividends of American stocks by Canadians and Canadian stocks by Americans are exempt from favourable dividend tax credits*; so if you want to invest your millions in foreign dividend generating companies for whatever reason, you won’t because there’s no way to benefit as much as even a marginal company of your own country, For Americans in Canada who are subject to both the CRA and the IRS laws, what one grants the other takes away. We cannot benefit from any dividends. Again, RRSPs grow tax-free, so as long as your money is buried in one (not a private pension plan) these laws don’t matter much. *I won’t get into the mechanics of dividend tax credits.

What this all means is

• the majority of people do not have a full range of choices. These are protectionist policies and only the major corporations benefit. Individuals do not.
• Americans living in Canada are severely restricted when it comes to investing, protecting their families, and saving for retirement.
• The major financials are in no way impacted.

Let me rant about the banks. Canadian charted banks operate in the U.S. They are major financial players. The services they offer in Canada are offered in America. They can sell American things to Americans and Canadian things to Canadians. They are happy and are not raising a stink.

The real people impacted here are Americans living in Canada, and we are being hurt by the U.S. policies.

Does this rant matter? Not int he least. President Obama was the American Expat’s worst enemy; Trump is too stupid to understand the problems (and he has other, more important problems); Prime Minister Trudeau is a two-faced ******* who promised to help us fix these problems but now brushes us off; and because the financial institutions are not really impacted, they couldn’t care less. After all, it’s all about their money, not ours,

 

 

Trump and Climate Change

Tags

Algae Fuel, Climate Change, Donal Trump, Nuclear Fuel, Paris Agreement, POTUS, President Trump, Solar Power, Trump, Wind Power

So the Donald has pulled out of the Paris agreement and the world is doomed. At least that’s the initial reaction I see from many. If you believe in science — how anyone can not believe in science baffles me — then you already realize this hardly makes any difference. Climate change will happen regardless of how we try to stall it. Say goodbye to the east coast of North America.

Before we all drown, we will become poorer. At least Americans will, the populace anyway. The rich will keep on getting richer. I am talking about oil. Trump is committed to maintaining fossil fuels as America’s fuel: oil, coal, and gas. No need for all these windmills and solar farms. No need for more dams. No need for new alternative fuels like algae oil. No need for clean, safe nuclear power.

The world is moving to new fuels. I now see wind farms in my remote corner of the continent, and “net-zero” solar homes are making the news here. Some countries, like Germany, are targeting 60% of their energy from renewables in the very near future. One day in 2016 they achieved 95% and even hit a point of negative cost where they paid people to use electricity. Current estimates have the USA meeting their energy demands from only 19% renewable energy sources.

What’s amazing is that the economics are so clear. It costs a hell of a lot of money to extract fossil fuels, and it’s only going to get more expensive. New coal is deeper than old coal was, and new oil is in more hostile environments. Can you imagine drilling in the arctic where the oil runs as thick as tar? Can you imagine American workers revelling in -40c conditions to ensure their muscle cars run cheaply? While the rest of the world moves to alternative fuels, the economies of scale will make it cheaper. In summary, economic growth is in renewable fuels, whether America gets on board or not. I can see a future in the not too distant where the only major oil production is in the middle east and the American arctic. And of course Russia. They sail the same model of idiot boat that America’s alt-right does.

But corporations understand this. Oil companies are all engaged in algae research: algae oil can theoretically plug into much existing infrastructure like pipelines and refineries. It is a direct replacement for fossil fuels, a renewable fossil fuel. We are all moving forward to combat climate change anyway, regardless of anything President Trump does. And it’s because that is where the money is now focused.

So why all the opposition to the new money-making machine? Can the alt-right not bear to engage in change? Change is what made America supposedly great. My answer is, in part, American exceptionalism. I fight for tax freedom from American extra-territorial taxation, a practice completely at odds with its raison d’être — taxation without representation. But there are other areas America refuses to change. It sticks to its backward imperial measurement system; because, you know, it was devised by Americans. The USA refuses to consider changes to food guidance, despite the overwhelming evidence that sugar kills, not fat; because, you know, that will mean less money in their pockets. The country refuses to control guns, yet every other advanced country does. It refuses to supply universal healthcare, despite it making economic sense; because, well, it’s socialist, and we can’t have socialism. Fascism is fine, but fuck socialism.

What this decision comes down to, in my opinion, is power. The religious, alternative right thrive on slanting reality, and the only purpose is to achieve and maintain power. The attacks against the press, against the judiciary, the dismantling of institutions (like education), is nothing but megalomania. And this walking away from the Paris Agreement feeds into the alt-right propaganda machine. All the little Trumpian rednecks out there are ejaculating wildly over this victory, over the proof they are right and the lowly libtards are once again proven wrong. It’s a propaganda dance, and it’s dangerous. The danger here is not the planet being wiped out by the climate but being wiped out by our loss of freedoms. Donald Trump, the alt-right, the religious right, and any group who tries to impose their ideals on humanity is our real enemy. Anyone who cannot think, assess alternatives, and make decisions based on fact rather than stupid ideals (and yes, this includes much of the left wing, but they don’t hold the dice right now) is our real enemy.

Wake up and smell the real threats.

 

The SAD month of MAY

April was poetry month, and now May is short story month. That’s a short story a day, every day, for 31 days. I’ve done seven NaNoWriMos and eight NaPoWriMos or equivalents. I don’t want to try to name this month. NaSsWriMo?

I sat at my desk on Monday, May 1, 2017, having written 54 poems and a blog post about it, wondering what to write next. Do I pull out 2012 and commit three or four months to fixing it? Do I continue salvaging parts of 2016 to make a short story collection? Maybe I should pull out 2010 or 2014 and have a second go at those unfinished novels. 2016 called the hardest and I’d all but settled on it. That would mean skimming the 50,000 words looking for nuggets. I have pulled the first three scenes as stories already, but where to next? Always the question.

So I did what any good writer would do: I opened Facebook. Almost immediately I found a post by my friend Andrea about a contest in May to write a short story a day. We talked about this in the past on our Sunday morning write-ins, I’ve participated in 15 other x-a-day events, so I didn’t need to think about the implications very much. I went to the Story-A-Day site, signed up, took the first prompt, and wrote a 1489 word story.

Bang. #1 done. It felt great.

\The story had nothing to do with anything I’ve written before, but it was based on reality. For that reason alone, I will not share it. Especially where fiction is weaved in, and some of that fiction is not nice. Sorry I had to kill you off, X.

May 2’s prompt fit almost perfectly a scene/story for 2016 I had been pondering. I sat and wrote. I took a break at 500 words to think, ponder, and write nasty political tweets — Even though I gave up my U.S. Citizenship, I still fight for Americans living abroad. And I’ve been quite acerbic lately towards the liberal shills out there supporting #FATCA and calling people like me tax cheaters.

I could not fit today’s prompt into any existing project, which is no concern, but I could fit it into a potential 2017 NaNoWriMo story. I’ve been pondering writing Science Fiction instead of my social conscious urban literary stuff.  I only invested 313 words in it, but I think it is full of theme, conflict, and potential. The conflict is implied: we’re all becoming the same, and what does that mean for humanity. Could be my backbone theme for my seen-book series *grin* It is a very thin piece, trite, but I actually love it. I will try to write more around this piece and other ideas this month and through the busy summer ahead of me. NaSsWriMo might just make NaNoWriMo very productive.

Enjoy

Prompt: People called him The Doll Maker. Nobody ever wondered aloud why every doll had the same face.

“Did you guys see Doctor Davis’ new robots?”

The lunch table paid no attention to him. Jared set down his tray and pulled in his chair.

“He can choose any face he wants with a few clicks but he picks the same face, the same physical features for every one of them. You guys don’t find that odd?”

“Jarrod,” Emily says. “You had a busy morning? You’re late.” She stuffs a roll of California Gold into her mouth.

“You haven’t heard a word I said.”

“Sorry,” she says as she crunches on the crusty, green roll of processed unknowns the government has certified as optimally nutritious for young scientists. She chases it with a glass of fortified water the color of the noon sky as displayed in the wall monitors. “We were just discussing Doc Davis’ new robots. Did you know he ordered them to all look identical? Why would he do that?”

Jarrod picked the gray New Jersey Jets roll up from his gray plate. “It makes no sense. You’d think he was building an army or something.”

Emily inspects her mint-green plate for crumbs but finds none. “I know. It’s so creepy. We’re not going to be able to tell which is which.”

“They’re all fucking robots,” William chimes in with his usual cheer. “Who cares what they look like? You ask for a Solar Coffee, they get you a Solar Coffee. It’s not like you’d have sex with one of them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Emily says.

“They’re all male,” Jarrod says.

“So?” says William.

“They’re all so…unremarkable,” Emily says and smiles.

“He could have selected at least some variety,” Jarrod says.

“They’re robots,” William says.

“What does he have planned?” they all say simultaneously. They stop but don’t laugh.

William picks up his blue Florida Fish Roll from his light-blue plate and looks at it. “Why are they all the same?”

 

2017 Poem A Day (PAD)

Tags

Alden Nowlan, Alliteration, Down River, Haiku, Hamza al-Khateeb, metaphor, PAD, rhyming, Sonnet, Voice

This post is about my experiences at the Writer’s Digest blog Poetic Asides; where each April Robert Lee Brewer runs a poem a day (PAD) event. In 2016 I posted every day with my poem and thoughts. It was too much, and I didn’t want to invest that effort this time. It becomes pretty dull after only a few days of mediocre poetry. Sorry bloggers, but reading our unedited, off-the-cuff poetry is too often a painful exercise.

This season I want to write about what I have learned, with examples. I don’t know how many of the 54 poems I wrote this month I will post, but it will not be double digits.

April is National Poetry Month, and for me, it has become a month to focus on poetry. Not entirely. I met with an editor this month about my novel. In my mind it is finished and ready to go, but what does ready to go mean? I am not sending it off in queries, yet, as the forces are telling me to self-publish, and do it NOW! Including my wife who has finally read my work. More on that later.

I read one complete book of poetry this month and about 30 pages of another. I picked up a copy of Alden Nowlan’s Early Poems for $8. A steal as other shops are charging $30-$40 for this 1983, posthumous publication by UNB’s Fiddlehead Press.

Nowlan writes earthy poems of simple life-events and often adds a dramatic twist. His rhyming can be forced, and he willingly strays into the dirty areas of life. You will not find a light, airy, emotional Alden Nowlan poem. I sympathize with the style and it has influenced my poetry this month. Here is one example of his work.

Down River by Alden Nowlan

In cities the embittered ones are cunning;
anguish sharpens their wits, I’ve seen the eye
glint in whoresons and beggars, its approach
quick and malicious as a common fly.

But here persistent misery endures;
growing thick-headed like a cow, it chews
thistles in mute protest against the rain
of innocence it cannot lose or use.

This poem I wrote is about a man in a funeral procession carrying a casket, upset at others, his tailor who screwed up his pants is sitting in the back of the church and the guy in front of him wearing jeans, yet he cannot see the irony of himself wearing boots. Most definitely Nowlan-influenced.

Untitled

It is so disappointing when people don’t show respect,
forty dollar dress pants too long, and the haberdasher knew Tom;
he sits at the back of the church, head bowed, embarrassed
as I step on the cuffs with the heels of my boots
afraid I’ll fall while hauling this casket
the weight of Tom’s miserable life on my shoulder,
and the guy in front of me who pretended to cry
while buddy spoke of friendship and sadness and told lies
is only wearing jeans.

Nowlan uses simple rhyming but more complex and subtle alliteration: In, cities, embittered, wits, glint in, its, quick, malicious, persistent, misery, thick, it, thistles in mute, innocence, it, cannot. Fantastic when you look for it and read it a few times. And as I sit in this down-river city with the painting of Nowlan on a brick wall along Canterbury St., look at the persistent fog and drizzle outside my office window, and walk among the thick-headed denizens, oh, do I feel this Nowlan poem beating!

I attribute the following to Nowlan Influence, especially the simple rhyming scheme.

Platinum 3776 Century SF

The sound of this fine gold nib
an this smooth, heavy paper
is the sound of a clean sheet of ice
being etched by a smooth figure skater

It traces ornate twirls as it glides
through the jungle of imagined words
jumps and spins as it writes attacking
the loudest clashing of swords

The following is in many ways concrete and earthy but the conceit is abstract: sitting in a coffee shop wondering if you fit in.

The Sound of Youth

I try to sit in silence
sip my coffee
read my book
the pages won’t lay flat
but keep closing
my eyes wander the rows
tables full of chatter
incessant social banter
not looking at faces
straining to decipher
the deafening sound of youth

I also worked through In The Palm of your Hand by the late Steve Kowit out of San Diego. I read this with some trepidation as Steve called a friend of mine illiterate after she submitted poetry using Canadian spelling. American exceptionalism? Myopia? I can’t comment, but she was not pleased. Anyway, while this book has issues with generalization, examples you have to track down in back pages, and editing snafus, this is actually a stunning read. I highly recommend it.

I am also working through the book Studying Poetry by Matterson and Jones. This is another stunning book. It is advanced and assumes you understand the basics of poetry. These authors dig deeper and discuss how poetry actually works. This month, some of this text has led me into exploring alliteration and forms of metaphor deeper, such as in the following poems.

Haiku 17417

Clothes hang from the line
strung-out lives, histories dancing
in the cold, spring wind

And this poem combines Nowlan subject matter and twist with alliteration.

Untitled

Their 54 Plymouth, festooned
with Green Giant corn cans
and full Cracker Jack boxes
rambled down county road one
scaring the deer and raccoons.

I tried not to, but I also strayed into politics again. I have often made statements such as, “America will never be able to change its ways; it can’t even adopt the metric system.” And when Robert gave a prompt of ‘metric’, I knew what I had to write.

Untitled

When hicks talk in klicks
you can bet they’ll accuse
the country of Bolshevik
influence and interference
calling the president a lunatic
and march on Capital Hill
with night sticks and booze.

The following poem hurt to write. When you write a poem, the emotional impact is many times that when you read it. I spent half a day reading about Syria; because I didn’t understand it. I stumble across this article in Al Jazeera and decide I needed to write a poem about it. It put me in the darkest mood I have ever been in. Ever! After dinner my wife and son went out and I was home alone. I couldn’t take it, so I went to my favorite pub and played trivia a night early with friends. Oh the beer went down fast!

Hamza al-Khateeb

You loved it when the rains came
filled a simple irrigation ditch
a makeshift swimming hole; you weren’t to blame
for giving your family’s money to a boy without a stitch

The Arab spring promised freedom
a loner, you joined the protest
an easy target, young and without wisdom
al’aman, security; we all assume it protects

They whipped you with steel cable
shocked your knees, elbows, hands, and face
left your tortured body on a table
a bullet in your belly, they cut off your penis

Hamza al-Khateeb, what have you seen?
you were an innocent boy; you were only thirteen

Yeah, a tough one.

Of course I also had some fun this month. Some of my poetry was light and airy and even made me smile 😉

This aphoristic poem in response to ‘in <blank> of love’

Laws of Love

There are no laws of love
no rules or conditions.
There is no bad love
to avoid
and there is no good love
to prefer,
no rolling of the dice
no depending on tossed rice.
The only love that matters
is the love you live to make.

And another metric poem.

Untitled

I waited for you
until the parking meter
ate all of my coins

It was a very good month for me. I wrote 54 poems in 30 days, learned a lot, and I explored much. I took another baby step towards learning my poetic voice and becoming a confident poet, if there even is such an animal.

#FATCA Hearings (4/26/2017) – a very brief introduction

Tags

cbt, citizen-based taxation, fatca, FBAR

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (#FATCA) is a law requiring all foreign financial institutions (FFI) to provide the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with financial account details of any American Persons who has accounts with it. If a FFI does not comply, then it is subject to a 30% withholding tax on all its American transactions.

There are arguments for and against #FATCA, and even though I am fully against it, I will try to present both arguments.

Argument For

• The United States has suffered from tax evasion where its citizens and residents park their nest eggs abroad tax free. FATCA forces other countries to report these monies to the IRS. Estimates of taxes that will be recovered vary from $250 million a year to $792 million per year. The actual amounts received in taxes to date is only about $400 million.
• Since implementation in 2010, the Treasury Department has received about $8 billion from FBAR penalties — fines for not reporting overseas accounts; which are not tax revenues but reporting violations.
• More American Persons living abroad have become tax compliant. I cannot find figures on this, but I know it is true because it is true for me and many I know (online).
• There is no cost to American taxpayers. *At least this is argued. There is an indirect cost via increased compliance costs of US banks and the associated lost tax revenue.
• FATCA adds a layer of transparency — money cannot be squirrelled away anonymously.

Summary: the positives are compelling. FATCA is bringing home lost tax dollars, is preventing at least some tax evasion, and this is the argument commonly made.

Argument Against

• FATCA infringes on the right to be free of unwarranted searches as described in the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

  

• It imposes costs on foreign financial institutions whose only ties are American customers. #CBT
• It imposes burdens on non-American persons. #FATCA & #CBT
• It infringes on the sovereignty of foreign nations (by applying American tax law on foreign soil). #FATCA & #CBT
• It helps capital from foreign economies into the American economy. #FATCA & #CBT
• Americans are being denied basic banking services.
• American small businesses abroad are less competitive through higher taxes and compliance costs. #CBT
• Threatens $2.2 trillion in American exports.
• Increases the impetus for the world to move away from the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
• American livelihoods are impacted and threatened. #CBT
• In some cases violates attorney client privilege (when an attorney living abroad has foreign clients whom he or she has authority over their financial accounts).
• Exposes personal financial information to hacking.
• American citizens are renouncing their citizenship in record numbers.
• Americans living abroad are becoming disenfranchised and may be acting as a negative force on the global opinion of the USA.
• It exacerbates the world’s existing image of America as a bully.
• The US refuses to comply with its promise of reciprocity.
• There is no tax revenue gain.

Summary:

Most of these negatives are real. Others such as loss of trade are as yet undocumented. I take the individual citizen living abroad as the canary in the coal mine. Americans have lost all financial accounts and have even had mortgages cancelled, small businesses have suffered through loss of financing, and some individuals have lost jobs (existing and potential) due to their signing authority on foreign commercial accounts. And over 4,000 of us are now renouncing annually with no signs of letup.

Discussion

Some of these negatives are inextricably linked with citizen-based taxation (CBT). CBT was not as much an issue before FATCA as most Americans ignored their American income tax obligations. Actually most did not know they had tax obligations, and many today still don’t know they do. Others simply refuse to comply, and while I don’t know the compliance rates, all discussion I’ve seen says they are still far below 50%.

Most of us who live abroad think CBT should be abolished and replaced with residence-based taxation. This is how the majority of the world taxes its citizens: you are taxed if you live in a country, but if you move away, you are not. Why the US continues with this practice boggles our minds. It is virtually the same practice King George imposed on American colonists which is commonly known as taxation without representation. We get zero American services, so why should we be taxed?

One way to look at these issues is to reverse the roles. Suppose all other countries taxed their citizens in the US. Some 40 million foreign nationals would then have to file taxes abroad, and because of all the flimsy tax treaties the US has, the estimated $400 per head would leave the US ($16 billion annually versus the $3.6 billion the US extracts from foreign lands.) Plus, every American bank would have to supply financial information on every foreign person they had as a customer; which would mean verifying each customer’s nationality. The American financial services industry would not go for it; the American people would not go for it; and the American government would not go for it (as evidenced by the existing refusal to comply with its own law).

This is a bi-partisan issue. CBT was first created by President Lincoln, a Republican, and these laws have been supported and added to by both parties. Many of the Republicans are now understanding the complete immorality of CBT and FATCA, but most Democrats are clinging to their need to control.

There are better ways to catch tax cheaters. Recruit some business schools. Consult countries like Canada who have logical processes to protect taxes. tax money as it leaves, not the people. But Americans don’t want to do things the best way; they have to do things their way; because American way is always the best.

 

 

Citizenship-based Taxation is Absurd

Tags

@FACTCoalition, @youngturksrec ‏, @youngturksrec ‏ idiot, American Expatriates, cbt, fatca, FBAR, idiot, IRS, obama, POTUS

A Stupid Story

Larry worked for a great company, Universal Solution Associates. He worked on the highest end projects, led his industry in quality and quantity of projects completed. He was a shining star for this industry leader.

Larry was required to submit timesheets. His time was billed, and the company needed to know how many hours he worked on each project. It was a condition of employment. Larry could have refused to submit timesheets, but he would be fired. It was also a requirement to receive overtime. The company rightly paid Larry for every hour he worked, but they would not pay undocumented overtime; because they could not bill customers for it.

Larry was happy, USA was happy, and much money was made.

One day Larry met Lucy at a café. She was eating a foreign looking dish; while he munched a cheeseburger. He asked her what she was eating, and before long, he was in love with her dishes. Lucy worked for a competitor of USA, Enriched Universal.

EU successfully recruited Larry to work for them. Larry gave his two-week notice, got thoroughly drunk at his going away party, and left on friendly terms with all his coworkers. Larry loved USA but EU offered extra benefits such as wine instead of beer, food he couldn’t pronounce that tasted awesome on Friday mornings instead of donuts, and he did not have to submit timesheets, that pain-in-the-ass, no value-add inconvenience.

Life was good for Larry. He grew to love Lucy, the new foods he couldn’t pronounce, and the freedom of working on whatever he wished to work on. But there was one problem. EU would not pay him any overtime. It did not matter if he worked thirty or eighty hours a week, his pay was always the same. Before too long, his love of Lucy waned, and he began to crave cheeseburgers and beer. He decided to return to USA.

USA was grateful to have Larry back. Their business was not the same without him. They even gave him a raise. But there was one problem.

“Larry, you have not completed your timesheets for the last year.”

“I worked for EU.”

“Because you are delinquent, we will be taking the money that would have been paid to you off your future earnings.”

“I didn’t work for USA, I worked for EU.”

“Because of the administrative burden on us, we are also imposing a fine of 50% of those earnings you didn’t submit timesheets for.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t work for you. I had no employment contract.”

“But you did, Larry. The original contract you signed was for life, and you agreed to all of these terms.”

That’s crazy. You can’t do this.”

“We can Larry. The courts have already backed us in other cases. Lew went to work for United Kickassers and he never reported his time. We just sold his house last week.”

“His house?”

“Your house too, Larry. We’ve put a lien on it, and if you do not come clean within the year, your house is ours.”

“Everything I own is in that house. I have no retirement funds. You can’t do this. This is stupid.”

“This is the way USA works, Larry”

“Well I am leaving USA!”

“You can leave, Larry, but every competitor will garnish your wages for us.”

---

Discussion

Of course this is a stupid story. Anybody reading this can plainly see the injustice of this situation. In fact, it is completely implausible. This is not a scenario any person smarter than a grapefruit would even consider as realistic.

Yet.

Yet this is how the United States treats its citizens living outside the country. Once we leave the country, we are still obliged to fill in our timesheets (taxes, FBAR reports, and loads more paperwork) or be penalized, even though we live in, physically and under the laws of, foreign nations. All I did was replace the word country with company and tax with timesheet.

Yet.

Yet because President Lincoln first created this practice in 1861, all Americans think it is legal and just. Because the Supreme Court backed these laws in 1924, our elected representatives think it is just. Modern day taxation gurus and champions go to war defending these laws and accuse those of us who don’t believe in them as tax cheaters.

What Americans cannot do with these laws is think about them logically. They cannot sit back and examine how the rest of the world taxes citizens and fights tax cheating. Americans, even though this is supposedly what makes American great, cannot find an better (at least acceptable by all) way of doing things. Americans cannot even understand that this situation is taxation without representation (we get zero American services) and is the reason colonists went to war with Britain. Only when Americans decide to move abroad — which by the way is a universal right of all people of this world — do they come to realize the absurdity of these laws.

I don’t care who you are (@POTUS, Obama, or Rand Paul) or what you believe (Left, Right, or anywhere in between, religious or secular), the bottom line is, if you think the existing citizenship taxation laws are just, then frankly, you are an idiot.

Think America. Please think!

Blizzard

Tags

blizzard, chronic pain, shoulder pain, sleep deprivation, weather

I write this from the middle of a blizzard, our second in four days. I don’t use the term blizzard lightly, but I live in a winter storm belt and 30 plus centimeter (1ft) snowfalls are common. The National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a storm which contains large amounts of snow OR blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for an extended period of time (at least 3 hours). Being unable to see the road from a sidewalk is not unheard of. The image below is from two years ago.

 

My life the past few months has been blizzardy. In August 2016 I somehow partially tore a tendon in my shoulder. I’ve lived with nearly constant pain since then. It is not intense pain but it wears on you. The worst part is trying to sleep. An arm hangs straight when I sit or stand, and the tendon likes that. But lie down and the arm wants to move sideways or backwards. Ouch. Most of my sleeps have been two-hour sessions, and I wake in stiffness and pain. I stay up for a couple of hours, try to write, let the pain dissipate, and go back to bed for hopefully two more hours sleep. I’ve slept six hours maybe three times in the last six months.

Lack of sleep is an insidious condition. It slows your thinking, your memory, and your concentration. Writing, editing, thinking, learning, exploring a poem, whatever I try to do is impacted negatively. Yet somehow I finished NaNoWriMo, Robert Brewer’s November Chapbook Challenge, have written at least a poem a week, have studied poetry, and have edited some of my novel. Short sessions. Even now my mind drifts back to my throbbing shoulder.

Then there was the election. The election affects my novel as my story is set in Canada’s political environment. It is a trip across the nation and explores various protests, the divide between left and right. It is not so much a political book, but it is. It was written when this extremist divide was more or less defined in my head. left likes this; right likes that. But now President Trump has thrown a bag of hammers into the political machinery. I struggle with trying to understand him, people who support him, and people who defend him. I struggle with the left too but on a more purely ideological scale. The question of whether my story is relevant haunts me, and it has hobbled my progress.

I think it is still valid, and in many ways I think my message is more relevant than ever. I’ve been through reader feedback and am now reading to myself aloud.  I am up to page 65 of 303 in my Word document, and I hope today I might knock off a hundred more pages.

Anyway, I wrote a poem this week after the last blizzard ravaged us. I had originally written it with longer lines, but it didn’t work very well. Too much wallowing image and emotion and not enough tension, so I busted it into short, tight lines. I had it all in one stanza, but I do have some logical breaks in scenery. I don’t know if it will speak to you, but it speaks to me. I have lived through at least one blizzard a year for the last 46 years.

Oh, and the shoulder is slowly improving. Motion is up, MRI was definite, and back to physio today if the storm lets me.

Blizzard

a biblical plague
snowballs from
the fists of God
smack you in the face
the wind sucks
the breath from your lungs
a frozen sneeze
spraying your world
the howling ghosts
of dead trains

slippery footing
hobbling
plunging bodies
shoulders lean into
conflicted heat differentials
slams you hard
into the boards
grabs your collar
throws straight punches
tight knuckles

a father and son
killed
the New Jersey Turnpike
doesn’t care
if you are hunkered and afraid
the raid comes
brave cower
the regretfully stupid
quantum motion
of infinite chaos

the day before
calm
wet and clammy
you could smell it
coming up the coast
throbbing temples
filled with supplicants
refugees
nobody lays claim to
a blizzard

The front window view at 6:20AM

Can we stop trying to grow our population?

Once again I read a Facebook plea from my mayor Don Darling that, “Growing our population in Saint John,” is a key success factor for our future.” It is a rather ubiquitous political stance. Former NB premier Frank McKenna wrote in the Globe and Mail a year ago, “…parts of Canada are dying for lack of population growth.” In Ottawa, a 14-member council formed to advise the Trudeau government on economic growth recommends tripling the Canadian population to 100 million people.

I am not against immigration; I am an immigrant. My wife is on a team helping a refugee family, and I help out. I am all for open borders, globalization, and economic well-being for all. But I am tired of us killing our planet.

Have you ever thought about the finiteness of our planet?  We have water shortages worldwide; we are very close to killing our oceans to the point of the only fishes it will support are jellyfish (enjoy your jellyfish casserole!); our air literally stinks; global warming is a fact; animal extinction is accelerating; and I could run on and on and on. The cause, while seemingly complex, stems from one simple fact — we are growing the human population base unfettered.

Did you know we cannot make iron ore? We can make oil, but we don’t want to yet. We can desalinate water. We cannot make rare metals. We can grow more trees, but we keep cutting them down faster than we plant them. We can probably grow more food in the ground, keep adding fertilizers, and … no, before much longer all our food will be hydroponically grown as all our topsoil will be dead. What is, what isn’t, what can this planet sustain, have we passed its limits: these are arguments that meet resistance. People oppose the thoughts we need to cut back; because we like our elite lifestyles and want to defend them. We want our children and our descendants to live in an advanced society where they can flourish. It is a noble goal, but can the planet support us?

Let me ask you resisters a simple question: how big is too big? We have 7.5 billion people now. What’s your cap? 20 billion? 40 billion? A trillion? An alt-right man argued to me once that we could fit the world population in the state of Texas; therefore we are not even close to maxing out this planet. In my opinion, 7.5 billion is way too many people, yet at the rate we are growing, in 100 years it will top 22 billion. Enjoy wearing your life-support suits.

In the 1950’s, geophysicist M. King Hubbert realized that Earth’s resources were finite and devised his peak theory to predict the lifetimes of its resources. Primarily applied to oil, it has been expanded to other natural and renewable resources. We will at some point exceed the earth’s capacity for human demand in many if not all categories: oil, iron, copper, food, air, water, minerals, etc. At some point, humans will stop growing because they cannot grow anymore, and at that point, it is more than likely that great reductions in human populations will occur. Laws of nature. Foxes and rabbits.

It might take decades, centuries, or even millennia to prove the finiteness of this planet, but we will discover that population growth is not sustainable, so why do we push it? Short term gain? Let our kids worry about how to feed themselves?

Saying we need to grow through population growth is lazy. Think about what you are really saying when you say Saint John, NB, or any other jurisdiction, needs more people for its economic well-being. Its area population base is about 100,000 people. You are basically saying any city with such a population base is too small to sustain itself. Sussex at about 5,000 cannot possibly survive. Bathurst at 12,275 people is a hopeless cause. Every other community around the world less than what, a million people maybe, is pointless. If population is so vital to economic well-being, then let’s merge Canada’s population into one single city: Toronto.

These are stupid assertions, but that is what you are implying when you say we are too small. We are not too small, we are too lazy. If it’s good enough for much of the world to live in small communities, then why can’t it be good for us? Let’s get innovative. Let’s put our heads together and find ways to be prosperous. But let’s not keep expanding our footprint on this beautiful planet; because it just cannot sustain us that much longer.