Call them what you want. Generation Y, the “Me” generation, the entitled generation, spoiled, whiny… All seem to fit, but they are fed up and fighting back. These “Millennials” take aim at Generation X, the generation before them and blame us for their woes. They blame us and the boomers for not retiring and hogging all the jobs, for over-parenting them and for heaping false praise on them… Or was that, for under-parenting them and not being happy with anything they did?!?
Either way, they’re angry and they’re looking for someone to blame and that blame is on every generation but theirs. Expecting free music, free movies, unlimited cell phones, and not willing to actually having to study, work hard and put in some effort to move up in life. I think this is the ADD generation. Things come to them in 140 characters, in instant texts and high-speed download and they don’t understand that in business and in life, things just don’t happen that fast.
Try buying a house, then paying it off themselves, or changing a procedure in a large organization… It takes time.
Read the post below and let me know what you think. Do they have a legitimate reason to be pissed or are they crying in their caviar that we bought for them!
Everything is Terrible! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Oy, kids.
They say and do enough things on a daily basis to keep me posting for a long time, but not being around them during the week except for a few hours at night, I need to save up their comments until I have enough for a decent post. Here are a few gems, in my honest opinion.
1) Last week at Linus’ baseball, Stewie and Berry took off to the shade (it was over 40 degrees with the humidity) and were playing in a pseudo sand box with another boy. Stewie thought it was a good idea to play with the broken, upside down bike beside him, and after moving him away from that he had an even better idea;
Stewie: “Hey, let’s pick up these big sticks and make a band!”
Gives sticks to Berry and this boy. Then starts smacking his stick on the bicycle rack hoping it would sound nice.
To the unknown boy; “You are going to hit your stick on the fence while I hit this and Berry is going to hit the bike”.
Boy starts smacking the fence.
Stewie; “Stop. You’re terrible. Stop hitting the fence. you’re not in the band anymore!”
Me: “Stewie!!! You can’t say that to him – no matter if you think its true or not. It’s not nice to tell someone they are terrible”.
Stewie pauses… Thinks… Says; “Okay. You’re not terrible. You’re amazing! but you’re still no longer in the band!”
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At dinner 2 nights ago when 3 exhausted kids were getting on each other’s nerves I heard Berry say this to one of her brothers; “Stop! Or I will pee on you!”.
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Linus had a rough day at Chess camp this week. School ended last Friday and he really wanted to attend this camp so we signed him and his brother up for Monday and Tuesday.
Well towards the end of Monday some kid punched Linus in the eye. It was the first time he got hit like that, and as a green belt in karate he should have blocked that punch, and that boy is VERY lucky Linus didn’t strike him back.
After this event he was shaken, so we kept them home Tuesday.
I guess he wanted to play Skylanders on our Wii Tuesday and could not figure out how to get it working so he called me at work. It was the first time he had done that, and to be honest, I didn’t think he knew how to use the phone.
I answered, he was very clear, nice and polite on the phone and we walked through how to set up the Wii and during that time I was amazed at how well he was able to follow directions, read and understand the TV settings and navigate through them.
We hung up then I started to think…
How did he get my number?
So when I arrived home at night and after I gave him a monster hug, I asked him how he knew what number to reach me at, at which point in time, he walked over to his bulletin board in the family room and there was my business card. He said he knew which number to call from there.
Cool.
So smart.
I predict many calls from him going forward. 
I was added to the list of 7 new blogs by Dan Bohmer who writes Nine and a Half Hours Ahead http://danbohmer.wordpress.com/ as part of him receiving the One Lovely Blog Award.
Dan is a US Soldier overseas in Afghanistan. He’s a father and he’s been blogging as an outlet in order to share some of his pictures and his thoughts. I don’t think I have to go into detail about my thoughts on those who enlist in the services and who put their lives on the line to protect our countries. In my opinion it is probably the most selfless, most courageous, thing one can do and I respect these men and women for doing something I could not do, but would if I had to.
So because Dan left me a note to nominate me and that he enjoys my blog (thank you Dan, the feeling is mutual), I am proudly accepting this award and complying with all the rules. I also encourage you to check out Dan’s blog. Read his thoughts, look at his beautiful pictures and enjoy.
The rules: To post 7 things about myself and then to nominate seven other fantastic, inspiring bloggers:
1. My first online identify was “SpeakEasy” because I thought the concept of a speakeasy was very cool. When my wife became the “Urban Mummy” it only seemed to make sense that I became the “Urban Daddy”
2. I grew up with a baseball glove on my hand, a baseball cap on my head and a hockey stick nearby, but never played any organized sports until I was 19-years-old. At 41, I’m still playing!
3. I started and ran a club in University for left-handed students. The University subsidized me and provided me an office to use at my leisure and it was massive.
4. I ran for student council president in my 3rd year of University and lost to some kid named Jian Ghomeshi. Look him up. He’s done quite well for himself since that landslide victory.
5. I was approached to be a regular participant on a TV show as a “Daddy Blogger” but turned it down because at that time it’s not something I could see myself doing. As I get more comfortable in my skin, the door to something like that slowly opens again…
6. I’ve been blogging since 2004 and that precedes the urbandaddy.com site that promotes cool things in big cities and urbandaddy.com.au which sells shoes.
7. Ball-hockey: I once scored a goal on a slapshot from beside my own net. It was our only goal in a 10-1 loss. I have played well over 1000 games and have never been in a fight or injured another player on purpose. I have, however hit someone hard enough that their shoe flew off and went over the boards.
Now for the seven utterly fantastic, must-read, blogs – they are not rank ordered, so the first one listed is not ‘better’ than the seventh one.
For those that I select, I want to reiterate that I completely understand if you do not wish to continue to keep the award chain going.
Just know that I enjoy your blogs!
1. Lazy Photographer; http://www.lazyphotographer.ca/
2. Funny Things Are Everywhere; http://www.mapsgirl.ca/
3. Edudad; http://edudad.com/
4. Luke, I am Your Father; http://liayf.blogspot.ca/
5. Good, Bad, Wicked; http://goodbadwicked.com/
6. Daddy’s In Charge; http://www.daddysincharge.com/
7. Aiming Low; http://aiminglow.com/
So for each of the above 7 blogs named, I am passing along to you the One Lovely Blog Award. The avatar is below and you can add to your blog if you would like, or you can ignore this and continue writing some amazing posts and taking some incredible pictures.
This is an image of Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986 (Photo credit: Wikipedia). Why is it blue???
I have had this list sitting in my draft folder for almost a year, and I finally filled in the 13 words which make me snicker as if I were still 8-years-old, and sometimes I burst out laughing.
So sit back and enjoy this week’s Thursday Thirteen, and please… No judging! I can tell if you are.
13. Query – It’s a funny word. Hey, look at that dude. He’s tall, in great shape, dressed to the 9′s and his eyebrows are plucked and perfectly shaped. He’s rough and tough looking but also a little query. It’s all good.
12. Mandate – When someone in a meeting says it’s time for a “mandate”, I try as hard as I can to focus, not smile, and not look around the room at the other men. It’s funny only in MY head I tell myself over and over again.
11. Chair – Will you chair the meeting? Who is the chair? Why is something I am sitting on leading a meeting?!?
10. Probed – nuff said. When I need my staff to get to the root of a problem I ask them to “probe” the issue as deep as possible. (Insert snickers in my head).
9. Mingle – We have friends of the family and their father is a Toronto Police Officer. When I was a little UrbanPainInTheAss there was a self-defence course and the officer said that if being attacked… Ladies… You need to grab a hold of the attackers “stuff” and squeeze as hard as possible and move your fingers around to create the most pain possible. That technique to try to crack the nuts she referred to as “mingling”. So when I’m at a party, I don’t go mingle, I go be social.
8. Aspic – You do that in the privacy of your own house, then wash your hands.
7. Uranus – It’s not just a planet in the solar system, but it’s a great joke that my kids are too young to get. ”Hey, out of curiosity, what colour is Uranus? Is it hot on Uranus? How fast does Uranus rotate?”
6. Dictator. Dick. Tator —-> Penis. Potato…. Yup. Many dictator’s are giant penis potatoes.
5. Foo-Foo-Dust. My kids made this up but it has to be a word in the Urban Dictionary. Think of the uses.
4. Shoo-Sha-Lay – Another word created by my kids. They run their hands up and down their abs in opposite direction saying “Shooshalay. Shooshalay” while laughing hysterically.
3. Fwoof - The action of lifting up a crumpled up blanket / duvet and making it nice by lifting it off the bed and letting it drop down straight and softly. My wife came into the marriage with this word and when she asks me to fwoof the duvet so she can sleep better we both still giggle.
2. Snorfle - That disgusting noise people make with their noses that sounds like a combination between a snort and a sniffle. All I know is I hear it and it makes me cringe. I feel the only thing worse is the horking sound which precedes the spitting of said nose mucus after.
1. Urinate. I know, a lot of silly words, but about 6 months ago when we were watching Grey’s Anatomy there was a tense scene and all of a sudden up pops my wife to go to the bathroom. I yelled to her as she raced across the room (and I had paused the show); “On a scale of 1 to 10, you’re an eight”. She stuck her head back out the door at me and looked puzzled, when it donned on her and she returned to the bathroom and then back to watch the show.
Normally on a scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10, but at that moment she was an 8.
Honourable mention: spiromalavitis - it’s a good diagnosis or a disease, so I’ve been told.
What’s your funny or code word?
We had the pleasure this past weekend to be in the car with our two boys as they decided to have a conversation about death.
Linus is 7-years-old.
Stewie is 5-years-old.
Berry is 2 1/2 years old.
Stewie; “You’re going to die two years before me because you’re two years older than me.”
Linus; “That’s not true. I’m so going to live longer than you, I’m healthier than you.”
Stewie; ” That’s not true. You’re a poo”.
Linus; “I didn’t have any treats yesterday so I’m healthier than you and I’m going to live longer than you”.
Stewie; “You’re still going to die before me.”
Us: “Stop! No more talk about death, okay!!!”
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Stewie on his way to school to his mummy; “Mummy, it would not be fun to be an ant”.
STOMP.
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Us to Stewie; “Stewie, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Stewie; “Everything!”.
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A sign your children watch too much wrestling on TV…
Berry to Linus; “I’m going to chokeslam you. Go away!!!”
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Stewie to me; “Daddy, can you lift the world?”
Me; “No, not today son.”
Him; “Mark Henry can (wrestler formerly the “World’s Strongest Man”)
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Stewie to his mummy; “Mummy you can buy a dreydl out of water for Berry cause she’s your daughter. See, it rhymes… Water. Daughter”.
Me; “But a dreydl out of water?!? Really?”
Him; “Oh yeah”.
English: TIFF Bell Lightbox, one day before its official opening, shot from Dhaba Restaurant across the street. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For those of you in Toronto, or near by, there is a fantastic summer cinema series at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Lightbox cinema down on King Street which begins this Saturday night coinciding with Father’s Day, and it might just be the ideal gift for the Dad in your kid’s life.The series is called Schwarzenegger/Stallone: The Rise of Beefcake Cinema series and it follows Arnie and Sly’s rise to box-office royalty, signaling the beginning of a new era in action movies; the Age of Beefcake. This series is programmed by Todd Brown who also programmed “Back to the ’80′s and Bangkok Dangerous: The Cinema of Nicolas Cage for the TIFF.
The kind folks at the TIFF forwarded me a link to their Summer trailer that has some clips of the series – http://www.youtube.com/user/tiff
It runs from June 16th to September 1st, every Saturday night this summer.
Looking at the movies included in this series, I noticed a few that I had actually seen, and a bunch that I had always wanted to see. IT’s funny looking back at how these two guys, Stallone and Schwarzenegger brought on a steroidally enhanced renaissance of an even more disreputable form: the fifties Italian muscle man epics, which were given new life in 1982 with the double-barrel blast of First Blood and Conan the Barbarian. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had both started out in the seventies as bit players and supporting actors, but as the new decade dawned, these pronunciationally challenged behemoths became icons, and replaced the more realistically scaled tough guys of the sixties and seventies — Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson — with a new ideal: the super-buff, superhuman action hero.
The movies in the series and their showing dates are below;
The Terminator – Saturday, June 16, 8:00 p.m.
James Cameron’s low-budget sci-fi action thriller launched Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom in his role as an unstoppable cyborg assassin programmed with a nicely deadpan sense of humour.
First Blood – Saturday, June 30, 8:00 p.m.
Sylvester Stallone had his first non-Rocky hit playing lovable sociopath John Rambo in this lean, mean action thriller, in which the eternally misunderstood killing machine is hunted through the forests of the Pacific Northwest by an army of cops and National Guardsmen.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Saturday, July 14, 8:00 p.m.
Having had his switch flipped from “Evil” to “Good,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s invincible cyborg returns to protect the adolescent future leader of the human resistance from another, even more formidable Terminator.
Cliffhanger – Saturday, July 21, 8:00 p.m.
In this white-knuckle, physics-defying thriller, Sylvester Stallone plays an alpine rescue ranger battling a gang of high-tech thieves who have landed on his mountain looking to retrieve their lost loot.
Conan the Barbarian - Saturday, July 28, 8:00 p.m.
Arnold Schwarzenegger crushes his enemies, sees them driven before him and hears the lamentations of the women as the mighty, sword-swinging warrior in John Milius’ mildly fascist fantasy epic.
Demolition Man - Saturday, August 4, 8:00 p.m.
A disgraced 20th-century cop (Sylvester Stallone) is released from his cryogenic prison in a utopic future to hunt down his psychotic, recently defrosted nemesis (Wesley Snipes).
Total Recall – Saturday, August 11, 8:00 p.m.
Arnold Schwarzenegger teams up with Dutch master of excess Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop) for this stupendously violent, gleefully nasty and polymorphously perverse science-fiction thriller.
Daylight – Saturday, August 18, 8:00 p.m.
Sylvester Stallone continued his quest to redefine himself for the 1990s in this old-fashioned disaster film, playing a former Manhattan EMS chief who descends into a collapsed, rapidly flooding tunnel to lead the survivors to safety.
The Running Man - Saturday, August 25, 8:00 p.m.
Stephen King wrote the source novel for this sci-fi action flick, in which a wrongly accused man (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in a dystopian future must battle his way through a deadly gladiatorial game show to regain his freedom.
Rocky - Saturday, September 1, 8:00 p.m.
Sylvester Stallone went from bit player to overnight sensation as the writer and star of this much-loved, Academy Award–winning underdog tale.
What a great selection of movies and a great date night activity.
With Father’s Day fast approaching, I came across some interesting thoughts and statistics from Insight Strategy Group’s marketing and gender expert, Jen Drexler on how the “New Dad” is evolving in modern times.
I read it over and asked for permission to re-post it because I think it really summarizes the change in the role of the Dad / Father over the past 10-15 years. I do things my father did not do, and I’m certain he did things his father would never have done and I can already see my kids will be doing things that I would never have dreamed of doing.
So please give Jen’s thoughts below a read and let me know what you thought. Mothers and fathers!
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THERE’S A NEW DAD TO CELEBRATE THIS FATHER’S DAY
Fathers’ Day has always been about buying Dad a tie or aftershave, and letting him play golf in peace for the afternoon. But in 2012, we might be saying goodbye to barbecues and hello to brunch because there’s a new dad in town.
This guy is the kind of father who sees taking care of his kids as a social badge of honor. Society is warming up to their kind, who you might find enjoying a Daddy play date in the park on the weekend, or pushing a stroller in Target. At home, they might even be folding laundry or cooking breakfast – Parenting Magazine cites that 26% of Dads do all the grocery shopping and 22% do all the cooking.
Let’s face it though: some Dads found themselves here as a result of the recession. Men lost 4 million jobs in the man-cession – 2 million more than women since 2007 – according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But once home, many dads were surprised that they actually liked being there – they found they were good at chores, raising kids, and taking care of their wives. Whether they are working or stay-at-home dads, men are finding their sensitive sides, discovering the emotional rewards of modern parenting, and dropping some of the traditional machismo that they were raised with.
This new class of fathers should give marketers a way to liven up the hum-drum routine of marketing Father’s Day. So, how should marketers cater to the “new dad” in 2012? Imagine what it would look like if they borrowed a lesson from Mother’s Day:
· What would happen if Dad was actually pampered, instead of being given a power tool? Imagine rewarding this new Dad with gifts like spa services like MAN-icures.
· Could restaurants get in on the action and host Daddy-Daughter dinners for more quality time on this special day?
· Could florists find a way to man-size flower arrangements, so that every dad would look forward to receiving that delivery?
Advertisers are already getting in on the new Dad action and using them to tug at our heartstrings in emotional spots, like:
· Google Plus’s recent commercial tells the endearing story of a first time dad who loses his cell phone containing all his baby pictures, but is relieved to find that he didn’t lose them at all- they were automatically stored in his Google Plus account. Time for a collective phew, right?
https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/5YHwRCmPxCY
· Subaru gets the tears flowing in their ad called “Baby Driver” featuring a dad handing over the keys to the car to his daughter who he sees as a 7-year-old awkwardly behind the wheel promising to be careful. (Interestingly, the father and daughter were not actors playing the part, but a real family.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qf8OGLqE1s
Let’s hope marketers pay attention in authentic and sincere ways because this year, this new type of dad deserves a new type of Father’s Day. Here are some findings from a study that Insight did for Spike TV about dads to support these suggestions for marketers, and for anyone looking to support Dad this year!:
The “new” dad is a nurturing dad vs. the traditional, straight provider dad. For New Dad, parenting is most important, for traditional dad, it was just one of a number of equally or even more important things in their life…
- 88% of dads today say they feel emotionally connected to their kids, as opposed to 35% of traditional dads.
- 89% of dads currently show open affection to their kids, as opposed to 34% of the traditional dad we grew up with…
- 81% of dads today are available for their kids anytime they want them, as opposed to 34% of traditional dads.
- 79% of dads now take time to have good conversations with their kids, as opposed to 34% of the traditional, ‘busy’ dad.
- 68% of dads are confidantes for their kids, as opposed to 25% of traditional dads.
- 77% of dads listen to their kids talk about their worries and problems as opposed to 29% before, when Moms took on much more of this activity.
- 74% of dads seek to be a shoulder to cry on for their kids, as opposed to 26% of traditional dads, who again, looked to Mom for this role.
- 69% of “the new” dads drive their kids places, as opposed to 30% of traditional dads.
- 63% of dads often watch their kids, as opposed to 18% of traditional dads.
- 42% of “new dads” stay home with sick kids vs. 11% of traditional dads
- 55% of dads these days cook for their kids, up from 20%.
- 60% of the new hands-on dads say they have an “excellent” relationship with their kids, as opposed to 38% of traditional dads.
- Interestingly, today’s very engaged dads are only 2% happier with their life overall than traditional dads — 42% and 40% respectively.
“Fathers today expect more fulfillment even if they don’t know how to get it,”says Jen Drexler. “Dads realize that for them, unlike for their own Dads, it’s now acceptable, or even preferable to be emotionally there for their kids.”
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ABOUT INSIGHT STRATEGY GROUP
Insight Strategy Group is a research-driven strategy firm that inspires its clients to build innovative and impactful experiences for consumers. Insight’s business savvy team of social scientists melds quantitative muscle with qualitative finesse to meet its client’s strategic challenges. Insight gets to the deeper truth of what drives people and their relationships to brands, and opens possibilities for growth.
Founded in 1999, Insight Strategy Group leverages backgrounds in the social sciences to help clients crack their toughest business challenges. With an expertise in predicting trends and fueling innovation, their research and consumer savvy allows clients to tap into emerging consumer needs. Insight is based in Tribeca, NYC. Find Insight at http://www.insightstrategygroup.com.
JEN DREXLER, Vice President, Insight Strategy Group
Jen brings her straight shooting style,her uncanny knack for trend spotting, and her strategic thinking to Insight as an authority on trends in gender and what it means for marketers. Jen is sought after for her non-traditional qualitative research approaches and her expertise on gender roles and drivers. Jen has experience working with a multitude of categories, including retail, fashion, media, consumer packaged goods, and more.
Previously she was the co-founder of Just Ask a Woman and co-authored “What She’s Not Telling You: Why Women Hide the Whole Truth and What Marketers Can Do About It.” (2010). Earlier in her career she worked as a futurist for Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve and in public relations.
Piano (Photo credit: me5otron)
Sunday in the urban daddy household started as pretty much every day the past couple weeks did, with a lot of piano music. Practice, practice and more practice was in order for my two boys who had their first ever piano recital in the afternoon. Linus was playing O’Canada while Stewie was playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
Getting Linus to practice has been difficult – he reminds me of myself as a kid taking piano lessons reluctantly, even less eager to practice, however he can easily read the music and gets both hands magically pounding out the tunes. Stewie, on the other hand, loves to practice and loves to play. He’s very determined and he enjoys playing songs by ear..
On Friday, for example, Stewie came home quite upset after a busy day at school and a less than satisfying playdate – and he went right over to the piano and began to pound out his songs. It’s his release, and he’s also really good at it.
So after the kids performed their songs at the recital and kicked ass (taking no prisoners) we all headed over to T&T grocery store at the Promenade mall for some samples, groceries, a bite to eat. We then strolled through the mall eventually ending up in SportChek so we could buy tennis rackets for the boys who will be doing a week of tennis at camp this summer, and we also left the store with a pink baseball that read; “Girls Rule” on it for Berry (which she later dropped on my broken foot by accident) and of course I had to grab a coffee at Aroma so I could include them in my 2012 Coffee Rankings – coming later this month.
With dinner plans up north, and hoping the snack would tide the kids over a took the groceries out to our very hot car – Toronto was roasting today – and drove over to meet my in-laws and my wife’s grandfather for dinner. In the car I thought to make sure the kids were hungry, and to see if we could plan ahead what we were going to eat and hopefully avoid any meltdowns.
“Linus, are you hungry?”, I asked.
“No, I’m thirsty”, he replied.
“Stewie, are you hungry?” I asked knowing he’s always hungry.
“No. Wait. Yes. I’m hungry”, he said.
To which Linus replied quickly; “Hi hungry, pleased to meet you, I’m thirsty”. Both boys began to giggle…
To this comment, Berry exploded; “NO! YOU CANNOT SAY HI I’M THIRSTY! That’s not right. That DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE! It’s not your real name!!!”
Errr. Okay. She was in fine form again this weekend… At 2 1/2 I cannot wait to see how what she is like a little older when she really grasps her vocabulary. Yikes.
But she was really cute at dinner, wanting to sit in between her grandfather and great-grandfather and at one point she was a mere few inches from her great-grandfather’s nose when she told him; “You have a big nose!” Laughing he played the “I’ve got your nose” game which she loved and it was less than 5 minutes before she was back sitting between my wife and I when she turned to my wife and said;
“I’ve got your eye”.
I have been all over FATCA since March 18th, 2010 when President Obama passed the Hires Act through Congress, aimed at getting Americans working and taxing the wealthy (isn’t that what all socialist and democratic governments do?) Out of this Act comes FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act which is set to become law January 1st, 2013 and unlike most new taxes, FATCA changes the way taxation is administered globally.I’m going to outline why FATCA was brought in, what the US government is trying to do, and why there have been a couple of events in the past 2 weeks which have come to light which leads me to believe that this was not what the US government was thinking when they pushed the Hires Act through Congress.
So FATCA, in case you are unaware, is on its way to becoming the world’s first global tax on Americans, administered by financials institutions and non-financial entities around the world… OR else. Can the IRS do this, you ask? Apparently yes they can. Why do they need to do this you are wondering? Because US investors have been evading taxes by hiding their identities from the IRS or they have created offshore companies to hold their investments out of sight and out of reach of the IRS. The net result here is that the IRS needed to find a way to track down all these US persons who should be filing US tax returns disclosing all their worldwide income but are either not filing, nor including these items.
The estimated lost tax revenues from these US taxpayers using offshore schemes to evade US income taxes is in excess of $100 billion dollars per year. Think the US could use these funds? Yeah, I thought so too. Say hello to FATCA.
So how can the US crack down on these US persons who are hiding their funds? Well first they tried asking some foreign banks for a list of Americans who they had on their registry. That did not go over well at all. The banks said, you have a specific person you want information on, we will give you details, however the IRS didn’t know, they wanted everyone and the foreign banks we not going to give us their revenue sources. So the US government sued beginning with Switzerland. Not the best way to win friends, globally, by suing them, so the US government and the IRS them began pushing FATCA on everyone.
In a nutshell, it requires all foreign banks and foreign institutions to provide information to the IRS as soon as they find a US person on their system / in their bank. The IRS intends on using this information to locate, audit and potentially prosecute US persons who are evading the paying of their fair share of taxes. The scope of FATCA is global. The complexity of FATCA is massive.
The IRS figures through FATCA that every organization globally will opt in to FATCA and will become agents of the IRS and within 5 years will have flushed out every US person to the IRS – both those who are complying and those and those who are not (those who are not have a catchy new name: recalcitrant).
The IRS even offers a way out of FATCA if you are an US person… Just give the IRS 1/3rd of your worldwide income and renounce your US citizenship and you’re out. For good.
Recently, however, I came across two fantastic articles through my FATCA research which clearly shows me that the IRS and the US government may not have thought through the full implications of FATCA.
So here is problem number 1, in a great article from Bloomberg;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/u-s-millionaires-told-go-away-as-tax-evasion-rule-looms.html. This article outlines the international response to FATCA as the deadline to sign up with the IRS gets closer and closer. Instead of gearing up systems to flush out these US investors who have been hiding millions and millions of dollars (the FATCATs), these foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) and non-financial foreign entities (NFFE’s) are going through their foreign policies to find ways to instead remove Americans from their business. The costs associated with complying with FATCA outweighs the benefit of US monies. Oh oh.
Does the IRS and US government really want to prohibit US persons from investing outside of the US?
Problem number 2 came recently when Brazilian-born Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire Facebook co-founder, renounced his US citizenship he gained as a teenager in advance of the company’s impending IPO and moved to Singapore to avoid paying capital gains taxes on his approximately $3 billion stake in Facebook.
This is FATCA response #2. Renounce your citizenship and you’re out. So instead of staying in the US and paying taxes, the very rich do not appreciate carrying the taxation burden for a tax and spend government and they take their wealth to another country where it will be appreciated.
Caught red-faced the US government needed to respond so they looked to do to Saverin what they did to the foreign banks who had US persons on their registry. They threatened to sue. Then they changed the law. The US senate introduced a bill under which any expatriate with either a net worth of $2 million, or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000, will be automatically presumed to be leaving the country for tax purposes — enabling the IRS to impose a tax on any investment gains that person makes in the future. Crazy. Greedy.
Apparently Saverin filed to give up his US citizenship in January of 2011, but the news didn’t surface until the federal government released the information in a routine report. Saverin may be barred from re-entering the US if authorities decide he left the country for tax reasons because you don’t want a super-rich guy coming into your country and buying things! That will show him.
Singapore doesn’t have a capital gains tax. It does tax income earned in that nation, as well as “certain foreign- sourced income.” Saverin won’t escape all US taxes because Americans who give up their citizenship owe what is effectively an exit tax on the capital gains from stock holdings.
Saverin maintains that his renunciation of American citizenship, which actually took place last September, wasn’t a ploy to skip out on American taxes, but rather an attempt to free himself from FATCA, which he described as a burdensome restrictions on American investors abroad. US citizens are severely restricted as to what they can invest in and where they can maintain accounts. Many foreign funds and banks won’t accept Americans so it was for financial reasons and not tax related.
It’s true that FATCA is making life more difficult for US persons, including the IRS’ global reach (many countries tax based on residency); foreign bank account reporting rules; and FATCA. As a result of all the regulations, some foreign banks are dumping more U.S. customers.
Saverin is hardly the only one taking this particular route to big tax savings. The number of those renouncing US citizenship stands at around 1,800 last year.
While I cannot see the US government pulling back on FATCA I think they need to look again at what they are trying to accomplish and how they plan on getting there before all their high-income earners not in the US disappear from the radar within 5-10 years of FATCA being in force. So the tax pool will grow, then diminish and the IRS will be looking for newer ways to increase tax revenues.
I’ve never done this before and I’m really excited to have my first every giveaway just in time for Father’s Day and this giveaway is actually something that if I got for father’s day, I would be pretty excited about.
2010 marked the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain‘s death and in celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain’s works, UC Press published the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1. This book represents the first of a projected three-volume edition of the complete, uncensored autobiography.
To the surprise of many–but not us dads–the book became an immediate bestseller and was hailed as the capstone of the life’s work of America’s favorite author.
In its original form, the book could viewed as a bit “intimidating” for some readers, containing over 700 pages, significant scholarly notations, and weighs in at just over four pounds in weight!
So with the 100th anniversary just passing and in response to well-received feedback – just in time for Father’s Day - the publisher has released AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOLUME 1, READER’S EDITION (UC Press, March 2012) which provides the bestselling text in a form that is convenient for the general reader.
Here is what Dads will love about the new Reader’s Edition:
. It’s portable
. It is a paperback
. It is written in larger type
. It is without any editorial explanations
. Includes an exclusive excerpt from Volume 2
Even with all these slimming changes, there is no downsizing in content. In addition to the full, uncensored biography, READER’S EDITION features a brief introduction describing the evolution of Mark Twain’s ideas about writing his autobiography, a chronology of his life, and brief family biographies.
Readers will also get an exclusive look at what is to come with an excerpt from the highly anticipated Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2-a controversial but characteristically humorous attack on Christian doctrine.
This updated major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain’s authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.
Here is what Esquire had to say about this book; “So the Autobiography of Mark Twain, what with being The Dad Book of the Year and all, is apparently flying off the shelves faster than bookstores can stock it.”
I have a copy of the MARK TWAIN, VOLUME 1, READER’S EDITION, for one lucky reader and all you have to do if jump through a ring of fire and walk across a tightrope over an active volcano.
No seriously… All you need to do is comment as to why you would like the copy I received to giveaway and then either go to twitter and re-tweet this post or like my Facebook page. If you don’t have twitter of Facebook that’s okay too. My Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-Daddy/109554365740659?sk=messages_inbox&action=read&tid=id.247493495355537#!/pages/Urban-Daddy/109554365740659 and there is a link to it on the right side of my blog. My twitter account is @urbandaddyblog.
I’m going to be diving into my copy soon and hopefully I can get the copy off to the winner on this weekend, so please if you are interested, let me know on this blog post by midnight Saturday night, June 9th, 2012. I will put all those interested into a hat and have one of my kids pull out the winner so it will be totally random, then I will reach out to that winner for their address.
Good luck to all.
