Canada Tells IRS To Back Off

Tax crackdown could ensnare tens of thousands of innocent US citizens, and our neighbor to the north is having none of it.

Does anyone really need to state the painfully obvious -- that "Canada is not a tax haven"? Apparently so, and to his credit, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty did just that the other day. And I'm glad he did.

"Back off our taxpapers, Flaherty tells U.S.," read the recent headline in Canada's Financial Post after Flaherty fired off an angry letter to the Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal blasting a new Internal Revenue Service tax crackdown that could ensnare tens of thousands of innocent Americans living in Canada. Stop targeting "innocent and law-abiding people" who owe no U.S. taxes, added the angry Conservative Cabinet minister.

'Stress and fear'

The simmering cross-border battle over new rules applying to dual-citizen Canadian residents is spreading "unnecessary stress and fear," wrote Flaherty, referring to a little-known IRS proviso that requires all U.S. citizens to file annual returns with the IRS, regardless of where they live and work. Many transplanted Yanks had no idea of this requirement. The Toronto Globe and Mail reports there are roughly a million Canadian-American citizens living in Canada. (That figure seems a bit high to me, coming from a country of 34 million, but it's possible.)

More