The Blockchain Blues
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the United States is currently a huge problem for those with American tax liability who want to participate in many ICOs or make use of the services offered by firms starting off within the blockchain space globally.
As usual, any post on such topics come with the general disclaimer that I am not offering tax or legal advice. But, this is pretty much the story of my life these days when it comes to participating in ICOs:
The above is a screenshot of the terms and conditions for the TenX ICO, which occured yesterday.
You shouldn't check that box if those conditions apply to you, because it can have some very negative consequences for the company running the ICO and/or offering you a service. It's just not cool of you to do that.
However, there is a legal solution to this problem and the steps to resolve it can be found in the book How to Renounce Your U.S. Citizenship in Two Easy Steps, written by an acquaintance of mine.
Why not give the title of the book out for people to get it?
I was leaving it as a teaser, but you're right. Better to share the title in the post! Thanks.
You're welcome
Upvoted and following!
Thanks!
The question is, how hard does international travel become without a passport?...
Virtually impossible. Glen Roberts, the author of the book I mentioned, and others such as Mike Gogulski are not able to travel beyond international border checkpoints because they are voluntarily stateless.
Then that's just another kind of slavery. :-(
I agree that it's a scary thing. For those two guys, they seem to be happy where they are and they can travel within the region. If you're stateless inside Schengen, for instance, you can move within the entire free movement zone...although that is becoming more and more restricted these days: I had to go through a passport check entering Germany from Luxembourg last year.
But, yes, not ideal. The people who have done it successfully are the lucky ones. Most often, it seems like being stateless in a country without already being a permanent resident or on some sort of long-term visa simply gets you arrested or deported. Joel Slater, for instance, was deported from Australia back to the US after renouncing but was, of course, no longer a US citizen, which made things complicated for him. This article seems to show that being stateless in Russia simply gets you put in jail until they figure out where to send you. Not optimal.
I love the idea of statelessness, but I'm not advocating that anyone go to prison or never be able to travel abroad or even return home to visit family just to avoid FATCA (or the many other ways the US government manages to interfere in the lives of its citizens living abroad). The fact is, it's just not so easy to pick up another passport unless you're wealthy...and I like being a nomad, in spite of my passport's growing list of limitations. So, FATCA it is!
One thing I find concerning, though, is that the IRS can revoke passports for unpaid taxes. In the case of Americans who participate in ICOs and fail to disclose their holdings, you could potentially run into that $50k threshold quite quickly...if you're "lucky" enough! Who's to say they don't expand it in the future to include past-due student loans, as well?