Why expat Americans are giving up their passports

Re:Why expat Americans are giving up their passports by Ensorceled on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @07:37AM (#11072304)

My ex and I used to use the same accountant to file our taxes. As a Canadian citizen, our accountant charged me $100CDN, my ex who had joint US/Canadian Citizen was charged $500-$2000CDN depending on the year and the amount of work that needed to be done.

So, yeah, there are qualified tax advisors who can help but it's painful.

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Re:Why expat Americans are giving up their passports by gcb0 on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @12:51PM (#11074477)

and even after that $2k is gone every year, you're still not sure you can't be fined.

I've had to fix my taxes every year that i had paid Ernest & young to prepare them for me. had i trusted them blindly as most people do, I'd be subject to a couple $20k fines. of course, those depends on you being big/of interest enough to be bothered by the irs. but i like to have clean books and not count on luck.

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Re:Why expat Americans are giving up their passports by Ensorceled on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @02:34PM (#11075345)

That's the real problem with the IRS. I've made mistakes on my taxes before and got a "Oops, you owe us $2000 more, pay by XXX to avoid interest and penalties" from the CRA. The IRS jumps straight to large fines and penalties, especially for ex-pats.

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