Oh yes, they are. They are taxing the world. It’s quite shocking to me that so few know about it, particularly the poor deluded fools in the USA that think they are free. They need to try leaving.

The USA is taxing British citizens, and the citizens of other countries because the USA have decided they are US tax payers. Simple as that. You don’t need a US passport or in some cases, ever have been there. Merely being born to a Brit who is entitled to a US passport is enough to make you a US tax payer.

Citizenship taxation was introduced by the USA in order to punish those who tried to leave and avoid the draft during the civil war, they just never got around to updating it for the modern world. It was largely dealt with previously by completely ignoring it for the nonsense that it is. It’s become an issue now because Obama signed FATCA in to law, a law forced on other countries at the point of a financial gun in order to hunt down US tax payers (by US illegitimate definition) no matter where in the world they live their lives and already pay their taxes, and report them back to the USA.

Effectively, it makes normal financial life impossible for those effected by this, and their family. It is a curse. I’m going to cut and paste another post that somebody else made……Incidentally, the cost of implanting FATCA in the UK is estimated at £500 per UK household.

“”It’s really very simple: citizenship-based taxation is America’s Apartheid system. It is repugnant, immoral and indefensible. Since CBT is so clearly irredeemable, there is really nothing to talk about, unless your intellectual curiosity exists in a profoundly amoral vacuum.

CBT discriminates against a particular group of people on the basis of their place of birth – a characteristic as immutable as the colour of their skin. It labels them, tracks them, intimidates them, criminalizes them and forces them into virtual prisons from which escape is nearly impossible. Worse, the architects of CBT are now co-opting the rest of the world to implement this discriminatory regime for them. It is astonishing and disheartening how quickly and easily this is unfolding.

Far too many countries, cowed by the 30% withholding stick that the U.S. threatens to beat them with, like the FBAR and OVDP sticks they already beat their CBT victims with, simply refuse to challenge America on fundamental moral grounds and it is wrong.

The U.S. does not deserve a free pass on CBT and FATCA any more than the old South African government deserved a free pass for its heinous apartheid policies. Yet several ostensibly modern and enlightened nations have rationalized their acquiescence to FATCA by publicly exclaiming that America has the inherent right to tax its citizens in whatever manner it chooses. Well, in a just world it does not, for CBT represents a clear denial of basic human rights and dignity.

Yes, the global hypocrisy is staggering, especially from countries like Canada. Last year, our Conservative government expelled the consul-general for Eritrea for that regime’s tax extortion efforts against its expats in Canada. Just last week, the same government enthusiastically ushered-in America’s FATCA laws to override our country’s own Charter of rights and freedoms, discriminating on the basis of national origin, gutting federal banking privacy laws and setting the stage for a massive legal challenge which will be fought in our Supreme Court.

Beneath all the technocratic language about forms, compliance, jurisdictions and enforcement, there is a fundamental truth: these American policies are morally unjust and the world must not condone them any longer. FATCA will be a global disaster unless it is stopped now.

It is indeed time for the world to say no to the U.S. practice of citizenship-based taxation and to force it to adopt residency-based taxation like the rest of the world. If not, then the world better find a more deserving reserve currency in a hurry – the United States has abused its position of trust for far too long and it needs to be reminded that it is just one nation in a community of nations. The breathtaking audacity of FATCA is simply a bridge too far.””

You make it sound so very simple, and it very rarely is. The USA, in response to the massive increase in renunciations, has been quite deliberately placing obstacles in the way of those who try to renounce. So rapidly in fact that it is hard to keep pace. For example, many have only just found out about the demands of the USA on their lives due to FATCA, some having absolutely no idea about the onerous obligations placed on them by a country the other side of an ocean that they may never have even seen before.
The USA does not care, the obligations and punishments are exactly the same as they are for a US resident who has been hiding banks accounts in Switzerland. They make no distinction at all for the French resident and citizen mother with a bank on the same street. She was born to an American, the USA wants taxes. To renounce will mean supplying 6 (last I looked) years worth of tax compliance and paying all associated fines for not filing in the past. Given the truly horrendous fines that can amount to total confiscation and more, this can and does result in fines amounting to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS before a renunciation will be considered!
The sad truth is that very, very few of the people having their lives blighted by the USA are in any sort of position to renounce, many not even able to afford the $2350 required for the basic consular fee, let alone the cost of a specialist international accountant and the inevitable fines from the IRS. Incidentally, the $2350 is just one of the recent moves by the USA, recently raised from $450 to now be the highest renunciation fee in the world.

Rubbish

They were close to joining Adolf until Pearl Harbour kentchap

There was no realistic prospect of the UK being successfully invaded. This has been “gamed” by professionals hundreds of times. Not once has the result been a successful invasion.
The UK had the largest, most powerful navy on the planet, Germany a small navy with no vessels capable of landing troops by sea. The river barges Germany would have had to use could not cross the Channel safely….a large vessel even passing near would swamp them, let alone bombs and artillery fire.

I could hardly disagree more. Germany has few natural resources, in particular it had no access to oil without that from the USSR. It was always Hitler’s intent to conquer it, and hold it, a practically impossible task. Extracting resources from it, given a hostile population to hold down, entirely impossible.
The German economy was a ramshackle affair, as Hitler was warned. He was counting on a quick victory/stalemate in the West, then terms with the West, which would allow a free hand in the East.
The idea that Germany was some sort of economic, or military superpower is entirely wrong. The inherent inflation was suppressed by price controls, but as always, would break through eventually, destroying the economy…and that was before war started.
The army, far from being mainly mechanised, was mainly horse drawn…the German army marched into Russia…. It did not ride on trucks. The British army wss more mechanised, with better equipment.
“Britain” consisted of the British Empire, with all its assets, wealth and people. That is not a “little Englander, we are the best” type statement. It is a statement of the facts at the time.
I know it suits the modern British “foundation myth” that poor little Britain was all alone against the German giant. It is nonsense, as most such myths are.

Messrs Tooze and Edgerton are the required reading on the respective economies