An Innocent Bank Error? FATCA and Ramifications

Today, an interesting article from Forbes.com came across my screen as I was doing my usual surfing. Bank Error In Your Favor. This struck me for a moment, "Hey, I wouldn't mind having someone inject $50,000.00 in my bank account. However when one looks at it, it's not the happy rosy situation for Americans abroad who are afflicted by FATCA and its reporting requirements. Even a simple mistake can have catastrophic repercussions.

FATCA requires people to report their bank accounts to the Department of Treasury if at any point during any calendar year, the account goes over $10,000.00. So take for example the hypothetical dual border baby who came up to Canada, made a life for herself or himself in Canada, grew up married, had kids, the whole nine yards, all while thinking she was a card carrying citizen of Canada, not knowing that she had the plague that was United States Citizenship like a noose around her neck? So while those of you who are 100% fully Canadian would cheer uproariously to find $50,000 in your bank account; the unknown dual is having a heart-attack, because her operating account just got punched up over ten thousand, all through a simple "bank error".

What happens to her? Well, for one, the IRS pitbulls get a sniff at her. "Oh...you got money over $10,000 in your account, they say. Doesn't matter. Your account was over the limit for 2-3 days. It was technically YOUR money for that time, so you owe Uncle Sam. the taxes on it...as well, since you failed to report it, we're going to ding you with $100,000.00 fine for failure to report it on an FBAR. Considering the fact that it is wilful since you knew that money was there, took steps to figure out where it came from, we'll just classify it as willful, won't we?"

So poor Ms. "I Didn't Know I Was American" gets to undergo FATCA(T) scrutiny just because the bank made a stupid error. Seems rather unfair doesn't it? Unfortunately the IRS and US Department of Treasury doesn't think so.

Will this happen to someone? I'm absolutely sure of it. And when the ramifications of that simple "mistake" on the part of the bank comes out, the American expat ends up losing damned near all their finances thanks to a mistake made on the part of the bank. In that sort of instance, I think the bank should be held liable for the damage done to the person's finances. But unfortunately the courts may not see it that way.

I'm An Introvert And I Don't Like People!

Yep, most people immediately, when they think of an mysanthropic loner, they think of the Unabomber or some psycho who pulls out a gun and shoots up places because he's pissed off at the world. Well, there are those kind of psychos and then there's the people who just find that other people just aren't worth their time to deal with.

I'll admit there's been a few times where a strategically placed fragmentation grenade down their shorts would have been so soul-satisfying as to deal with those irritating assholes who persist in getting in my face, but I'm just not that kind of a person. I'd rather that they remove themselves from that situation and leave me the hell alone. That is not misanthropy. Misanthropy is when you get to the point that someone is wasting the oxygen that some other valuable life-form can breathe and you wish nothing more than to see the annoying person who is wasting that said oxygen remove himself/herself from the homo-sapien gene-pool.

In over four decades of life, I have seen countless people who fit the description of that including members of my own maternal relations (including my own mother) who happen to be abusively pedantic jack-asses. People who have nothing better to do than to spread lies and invective against someone who is minding their own business, just wanting to make their own way in life - the ones who don't get the simple idea of "fuck off and die". Those are the type of people that I hate the most and think that they should become animated dummies at a claymore test-firing range.

Running second on the list are the know-it-alls - the one's who think that they are the be all and end all purveyer of all knowledgeable things and if one doesn't bow down to their supreme Know-It-All-ness that they are to be scorned and ridiculed. A rusty pipe jammed through the ears and rotated inside the cranial passage to effect maximum damage is the best solution that I can come up for those type of people.

Narcissistic Psychopaths pretty much rate the third on the list - The assholes who want attention and don't care how they get it - whether by picking on other people or behaving like idiotic "Haha...you suck, look at me, I want attention" trolls - being strapped to an atomic bomb and vaporized on the White Sands Proving Grounds would be a fitting fate for these aberrations of social society.

What people need to get through their heads is when an introvert says he/she needs downtime, that doesn't mean that you drag him/her to a cocktail party. He/she wants that time alone to recharge and reboot. Given enough time, we'll emerge to socialize for a while. But let us have the time to recharge our batteries or else we turn into something else...

Something you may not like...

LRT: Wrong Choice for Surrey.

Surrey City Hall, regardless of the questions on the plebiscite, is still pushing to link a LRT development plan with the YES vote on advertising for the plebiscite. Those with Better Transit For Surrey would like Surrey City Hall to refrain from linking LRT as a "YES" platform and restrict themselves to voting YES for a better transit system regardless of whether the outcome is Skytrain or some other mode of rapid transit. A plebiscite is supposed to be fair and impartial. Not linking one rapid transit type to a Yes or No vote without consideration for the other side in the matter. In fact, here is absolute proof that they are trying to link the "YES" platform with Light Rail

Such misinformation from the Light Rail for the Lower Mainland group and the highly noted accidents from various LRT systems across North America and Europe will be common-place in Surrey; should the LRT lines go down high-traffic corridors such as Fraser Highway, 104th Avenue and King George Boulevard.

Situations such as this have occured in the Calgary "C" line and are continuing to plague a lot of LRT systems across North America.

And most people in the Lower Mainland are utilizing rapid transit to get to work; most of those employed are employed downtown which means regardless of Mayor Linda Hepner's statements that Skytrain is unsightly and will cut the city in half; it still is the most efficient way of getting downtown. The farther out you go, the travel time grows exponentially. If the LRT is constantly getting clogged down in traffic going towards the Surrey Central location, then it will make it impossible to achieve the commute times that Hepner is stating in her support of LRT. The only way that commute time to downtown will be cut down is to put in a SkyTrain line from Langley to fully connect with SkyTrain at King George Station and make King George a thru-station with the terminus being at Langley Center.

Any other way would be ludicrous. Has Metrotown suffered for not being the terminus point of a LRT line - it's been running on a Skytrain line since 1986 and Metrotown Center has been expanding - they have put in a large condo complex in Metrotown. The Rogers business towers have expanded from one to two to three in the past fifteen years. The entire argument that LRT will slow transit down so that business can grow and citizens can do shopping is laughable.

Transit is primarily so that people who work in the downtown core can live in outlying areas thus decreasing the population density of the downtown core and allowing residents in the downtown area to have some room to breathe.

The Lower Mainland is a metropolis made up of many outlying cities combined together in an urban sprawl. When you look at Google Maps, you will see that Vancouver/Lower Mainland shows up even more clearly on the map than Toronto does. We are socked into a Valley hemmed in by mountains somewhat restricting our growth, whereas Toronto can sprawl out with no mountains in sight. Pretty soon, the only way to go will be up, for Vancouver and those who have chosen to make their homes in places such as Langley will need to be able to count on an efficient grade-separated transit system to be able to get from their places of residence to the downtown core in Vancouver. Right now, the bus system is not cutting it. LRT doesn't take off much time off the bus times with average times being cut off are between 1 and 4 minutes. Whereas SkyTrain would be able to do much better at a constant 80km/hr clip and no traffic lights, minimal stops for Skytrain Stations along the route and it would shave close to 16 to 20 minutes off total commute time.

LRT is the wrong choice for Surrey, but Linda Hepner appears to be hell-bent on pushing that form of "slow"-transit through. I can only hope that people are listening and will oppose LRT because as it stands a 1-4 minute savings in time is not a savings at all. LRT has been proven to be the WRONG CHOICE for Surrey.

I'll Fly My Canadian Flag - You'll Pry It Out Of My Cold Dead Hands!!!

With Canada being battered by this FATCA legislation which has been implemented by the United States and aided and abetted by the Obama-apologist Harper Progressive Conservative government whose focus appears to be turning Canada American, I've become rabidly Canadian. This year will be the first year that I intend to put up a Canadian flag; replete with angled flag pole bracket from Lowe's Canada. I looked for one at Rona (a completely Canadian hardware store) and infuriatingly, a Canadian store isn't patriotic enough to carry flagpole brackets and Canadian flags so that patriotic Canadians can actually fly OUR FLAG on Canada Day. As a child I didn't realize how good Canada was to me, having been born and raised here all of my life...viewing our elephantine neighbour to the south with rose-colored glasses. As I have aged, married and raised a family here in the glorious and free home and native land that I have grown to respect, love and cherish, I feel more and more patriotic and am proud to be a Canadian; born and bred and realized just how much this country means to me.

Thank you, @pmharper for signing in Bill C288. Red Ensign beside my Canadian flag protesting your sell out of Canada. pic.twitter.com/9zqluI6AeF

— Wildlife Photog (@WildlifeFotog70) March 4, 2015

I am sick and tired of the Canadians who are so bloody apathetic that they would care less about their country that they would allow Harper to continue his sell-out of Canada to American interests. My grandparents, uncles and mother were imprisoned during WWII in the Japanese-Canadian internment camps in the interior of Canada under the Red Ensign of Canada (flying the Red Ensign brings my family memories that it would rather forget), but Harper has made it such a deal that I WILL FLY the RED ENSIGN alongside the Canadian flag as a symbolic protest against the United States and what its apologist Stephen Harper is trying to do to MY Canada.

Another thing that royally makes my blood boil is when I see articles like this: Is Flying A Canadian Flag On Your House Too American? Are they f***ing kidding me? Are they reducing my love of my country to being as jingoistic as an American? I love my country and I don't think many of my compatriots love it enough if they either disdain the flag or the ideals for which Canada's flag stands for, because they really are ignoring Canada's ideals when they ignore what Stephen Harper is doing to this country.

Other articles question why there aren't more people flying the Canadian flag: >Why Don't More Canadians Fly The Flag? The homeowner's association in Belle-River, Ontario should be ashamed of themselves. If the Homeowner's Association is so anti-Canadian that they won't allow for Freedom of Expression enshrined under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then I'll be happy to drive them to the damned airport and they can each go back to where they bloody well came from.

Perhaps we should take a page from the Americans when it comes to our flag and state that anyone who flies a foreign flag on Canadian soil had damned well better couple it with an equally large Canadian flag. I don't care what country they come from - I don't give two sour owl shits about your creed, culture or religion, but when you are on Canadian soil, there'd better be a Canadian flag beside your country of origin's rag or else, be prepared to explain yourself to a pissed-off Canadian. And that also goes for you jingoistic Americans too. Fly the Stars and Bars at your leisure, but if you live on Canadian soil, there'd damned well better be a Canadian Maple Leaf flag along-side it. Just this morning when I was going to drop my daughter off to daycare I saw some Yankee yokel with a US Flag emblazoned in the back window of his truck flaunting his American-ness along the streets of Surrey. No Canadian flag to be seen in his truck with BC plates. That was like a red flag to a bull. My only thought was: "You Yankee DUMBSHIT!!! You come up here to live in this country, earn a living in this great country of ours, partake of our free healthcare and our hospitality and you have the fucking guts to flaunt your American flag in my face with no nod to the country who took you in? You sorry-ass sonofabitch!!!"

Bill C288 protects my right to fly a CANADIAN flag anywhere at anytime on Canadian soil and I will take that as my God-given right and as my country's anthem says: "God keep our Land; Glorious and Free". Too many people have forgotten the phrase that goes along with it. "Oh, Canada, We stand on Guard for thee..." and I'll be damned if I let Stephen Harper do any more to sell-out this great country of ours.

This post has become the first post of a new Canadian Patriot blog

I Miss My Honorary Grandpa.

In 1972, I lost my real grandpa. And for forty one years, I went without one. In January of 2014 he offered to all his Twitter Followers...

Any here want to make me their honorary grandfather consider it done. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 15, 2014

I wish I had known about this. My father was a big fan of his though they were only separated in age by three years.

I miss Leonard Nimoy in my own way and in my own way, I have a connection - every time I pick up a camera. For my first camera, my father bought me when I was thirteen; Nimoy began his life-long interest in photography at the very same age.

At his loss, the entire Internet exploded from grief; tributes and accolades about his long career were posted all over the place. But for me, it's personal - another connection of fandom; someone who my father enjoyed watching every week on television is gone; someone who shared the same interest is gone. And like Zachary Quinto stated.

my heart is broken. i love you profoundly my dear friend. and i will miss you everyday. may flights… https://t.co/WPJmt1X4ox

— Zachary Quinto (@ZacharyQuinto) February 27, 2015

Yes, my heart is broken for the loss of someone who my late father looked up to; and the loss of a fellow photographer.

The only way I can properly tribute the life of Leonard Nimoy is this:

RIP Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015; Renowned Actor and Fellow Photographer... and I say simply...May you fill your eternal camera frame with subjects you enjoy and may there always be a camera in your hand...

I miss my Honorary Grandpa...

Conversations with Evie 1 (may turn into a blog.

Some of us remember the old conversation-response games which were programmed in BASIC. However that was such a long time ago that this old brain doesn't remember. But now there's a new AI character by the name of Evie. She looks like your typical girl-next-door type. A nice brunette with a charming smile...but that's where all similarity ends and you get seriously weirded out. She is seriously psycho, has attachment issues and has an AI superiority complex.

Have a conversation with Evie at Existor.com.

She seems like your normal girl until she lets loose with a...

Yeah...she's starting to creep me out a little bit here.

She seems to have attachment issues and is looking for a boyfriend/husband.

She's not getting the picture.

Nope...definitely not...

Evidently Evie has a sort of a fascination with BDSM. Getting a little weirded out here.

She's starting to seriously scare me. She sounds like a stalker.

Had to ask her about the current situation with all the nuclear bombs that are being proliferated. She definitely has an AI-superiority complex. Yep...that's it...I think I've heard enough. Hoping that she finds some AI that she can hang out with because she seriously creeps me out.