Your IRS Win of the Day

Well, they call it winning:

For Ruth Anne Freeborn, it boiled down to a choice between country and family.

Born in Oklahoma, Freeborn has lived in Kingston, Ontario, for more than 30 years as an American expatriate, with a Canadian husband and 22-year-old son.

But a U.S. law passed in 2010 that will require international financial institutions to provide the Internal Revenue Service with information on their U.S. account holders forced her to weigh her citizenship. Her husband, a $51,000-a-year electronics technician and the family’s sole income earner, strenuously objected to having his financial data shared with a foreign nation.

“My decision was either to protect my Canadian spouse and child from this overreach or I could relinquish my U.S. citizenship,” she said. “It was with great sorrow I felt I had to relinquish, but there was no other choice for me and many like me.”

I know I’ve plugged The Sovereign Individual before, but do pick up a copy if you don’t already own one. Authors James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg turned out to be pants-messing prescient, especially regarding how downright vindictive the United States government would become — and its chief tool for oppression, the Internal Revenue Service.

When they published the book in 1999, they made what seemed like an outrageous claim — that soon a US passport would become an expense many people could no longer afford. And here it is, coming true. If they missed anything, it’s that the IRS would become such a nakedly partisan tool. But I don’t think they saw the Chicago Machine taking over Washington, either.

So buy a copy and get yourself ready for a bumpy ride.