![\"\"](\"http:\/\/suddenalarm.blaseckie.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/baby-beaver.jpeg\" "\\"baby")
<\/a>My parents married that fall and\u00a0my sister was born in Seattle\u00a0the following year.<\/p>\nWe always assumed because she lived in Canada since the age of 2, payed all her taxes in Canada and never claimed dual citizenship that she was, like, really a Canadian. Until she applied for her passport and was told she really wasn\u2019t a Canadian\u2026or\u00a0American or, well, anything<\/a>. It took a signed declaration by my father along with his\u00a0birth certificate to prove he was a true stand-on-guard-for-thee Canuck and the intervention of a Member of Parliament to finally cut the red tape for a passport to be issued.<\/p>\n More importantly, the only way to divest yourself of this accidental investiture is to go into an American embassy and there swear really, for truly, you renounce your citizenship. Sign here and here. Don’t forget on your way out the door to deposit all back taxes owed on every penny you have earned in your entire life to this point.<\/p>\n Yes, despite ignorance of your status as a citizen of the United States or your avowed lack of intention to ever exercise the rights of this unasked for windfall, the Now this is nothing new. Recently, however, Uncle Sam enacted a law requiring all banking and investment institutions in other countries to start determining who amongst their customers may be accidental Americans.<\/p>\n Phase one, coming to a bank near you in early 2012: get these records in order. Phase two in 2014: hand said info over to the same people who watched their own banking institutions implode, taking the world economy into the tank in the process.<\/p>\n The best part is that even if she should now decide to go to her friendly\u00a0neighbourhood\u00a0US embassy to do the renunciation jig, she has to disclose all financial information and pay back taxes on everything she has ever earned, the cash value of all assets she possess and any dollars stuffed into her mattress or sewn into the hem of her coat. Then, sure, sign here and here and scram kid, you’re officially no longer a yankee.\u00a0Doodle. \u00a0Dandy.<\/p>\n While still engaged to Mom, Dad trotted off to the University of Washington to get a BA in Drama. Mom\u00a0and Dad corresponded faithfully until one of Dad’s letters made passing comment on working in a sorority to supplement the GI … Continue reading <\/a>Now there is a fresh hatch of weevils in the flour and I’m not exactly sure what will happen to my big sister. According to the 14th\u00a0amendment<\/a>\u00a0of the US constitution, a person born on American soil or on foreign soil but of American parents is a citizen of the United States of America.<\/p>\n<\/a>government of the United States is entitled to its tithe and tax of your income. It’s all here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>So, if my sister happens to feel a yen to visit Disneyland, she can expect her Canadian passport (showing clearly her place of birth as Seattle, Wa.) to defend her honour as much as a set of plastic mouse ears will bring Prince Charming to her front door with a glass coffin and a pizza.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"