The CBC is reporting Eritrea Collecting Money For The Dictator From Expats in Canada.
It is despicable what is happening to this woman and other Eritreans in Canada.
But, I have difficulty understanding why the media can see how wrong this is and yet call long-time Canadian citizens “tax cheats” who need to “come clean” to another foreign country.
That same Canadian media sees nothing wrong with a foreign country seizing our banks records with the full cooperation of Canadian government and banks.
What am I missing? More importantly what is the media missing?
There were two letters about this in the National Post on Saturday. You need to scroll down a few letters to Tax me, I’m a foreigner.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/06/21/todays-letters-its-a-dangerous-world-out-there/
One from Lynne Swanson asks
Jim MacKay asks
I met a Canadian from Eritrea this week.
Of course, my first question to her was about income tax. She and her husband have lived in Canada for 25 years and have never once been hassled by the Eritrean government or the Eritrean Consulate for
She is the fourth person I have met from Eritrea. Not one of them has ever received a demand from Eritrea and they do not know anyone who has in the Eritrean expat community in Canada, the U.S. (where they have relatives) or Egypt (where they lived before coming to Canada).
When I told her about the IRS, she said “Go away!” My thoughts exactly!
Looks like the Eritrean expats are fortunate compared to U.S. expats. The U.S. is “unique” on the planet in respect to their discriminatory taxation policies. I say “unique” because the expletives that come to mind are not appropriate for the Maple Sandbox.
Even if an Eritrean citizen chooses to pay their diaspora tax its a simple 2% of annual income filed with a simple form. There are none of the byzantine rules, complicated information forms, foreign bank account reporting, punitive treatment for certain types of investments, or general life control that a US expat filer faces.
If the US continues to insist on CBT, they should at least study the Eritrean system to get some good ideas on how to improve their US system.