Another interesting article by Michael Cohn at Accounting Today.  We have a couple “Fair Share Acts” in play in the Senate and the House, that all of us should be keeping our eyes on.

S.2059 – Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 A bill to reduce the deficit by imposing a minimum effective tax rate for high-income taxpayers.

and the parallel House bill

H.R.3903 — Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 To reduce the deficit by imposing a minimum effective tax rate for high-income taxpayers, entered by Ms Baldwin

Now, the question will be, what amendments will be “larded on” to these bills to effectively “kill the bill”, or just wound it with surprises like some new FATCA-like addition that most of us who don’t follow Congress for a living will be shocked to find out about later.

Carl Levin, for one, won’t miss the opportunity to add his Son of FATCA on credit card restrictions for non compliant foreign financial institutions here, now that SB 1818 in the Surface Transportation bill seems to be dead. Maybe Reid too, will try his Passport restrictions SA 1813 from the same transport bill.  These “Fair Share Acts” sure seem a natural vehicle for them in the Senate.

I think I will be paying attention, as I am sure there are those in Progressive Caucus in the House who also have other agendas they would like to attach to a “Fair Share Act.”   For example…

The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ “Budget for All”, which would have repealed the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, (FEIE) was voted down by 78–346 last week as reported by Eric here. It was formally proposed as Amendment 4 to H.Con.Res. 112.

In that failure of the “Budget For All”, stunningly, 7 members of the Americans Abroad Caucus voted for it even though it contained these anti Expat provisions.

I would not put it past them to try to add another bunch of anti-expat amendments stuffed into the new HR 3903 bill.

Congress, as we have learned, for reasons that seem almost incomprehensible is doing everything they can to make life difficult for US Expat Diaspora around the world. I think they just want us to come home or renounce our citizenship as many discuss here. There doesn’t seem to be any move towards a reasonable and logical territorial tax system like the other 191 countries in the world. Rather we are faced with Global FATCAs (GATCA) and the potential that other countries will copy our absurdity like France?  Go figure.