73 thoughts on “Senator Paul stirs business ire over blocking of U.S. tax treaties (Businesses eager for treaties to win Senate approval)”

1. media silence. He can’t explain why to the media without getting butchered.

2. That man is becoming a hero among a den of cowards and liars.

3. Any support by way of comments to the article and/or letters to the Senator would be very helpful.

4. Jatras and center for prosperity and ACA should be immediately mobilized for this

5. The Paul family is quickly pushing me toward Libertarianism… if they could just let the gun rights thing go I’d be all over it.

   Someone posted on FB yesterday about how Obammy was awesome because he’s getting “tough” on that huge new list of tax evading corporations. Really? I think they have their hands full enough with us… why waste time on huge revenue generating corporations?

6. @Kathy, the thieves and thugs in government don’t like Paul because he wants to take away their power.

7. Does this say that each IGA must be ratified by the Senate as a tax treaty?
   This was not what we understood of the legal nature of IGAs. Maybe Allison Christians or James Jatras can chime in and comment on this article.

8. From Bloomberg, quotes Nathan Hochman, a former assistant attorney general who oversaw the Justice Department’s tax division, now a partner at Bingham McCutchen LLP:

   “The current treaty, he said, lets the U.S. pursue records through mutual legal assistance treaties and tax information exchange agreements. They “provide the government with more than enough horsepower to obtain the records they are seeking,” Hochman said.

   Paul:
   The IRS wants to “make it easier for sweeping looks at records, and I’m always a little bit worried about sweeping, sifting through millions of records looking for things,” Paul said. “If you’re accused of a crime, someone ought to have some evidence before they go sifting through your records.””

   Hear, hear!

   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-29/rand-paul-seeks-to-block-tax-treaty-change-on-swiss-accounts.html

9. but do we know exactly what they are ratifying? Is it indeed the IGAs?

10. Sophie Int Veld is a Liberal also. Classic Liberal. Same family as Libertarian (not US “liberal”).

11. “The new U.S.-Swiss protocol includes language that would prevent Swiss officials from denying an information request on the grounds that it would violate domestic bank-secrecy laws. The protocol would allow the U.S. to request account data without specifying taxpayers by name. “

12. And, further (for the US) …

    “We’re concerned about the due process of whether or not people have any kind of process before their records are looked at, the privacy of your banking records,” Paul said in an interview last week. “There needs to be some constitutional protections to your banking records.”

    FATCA bypasses other governments and applies to non-U.S. banks. The banks must report the identities of their U.S. customers to the IRS and withhold money from the accounts of customers who don’t provide enough information.

    Reciprocity is a bitch. Attention all other countries.

13. Senator Rand Paul is coming under pressure from some multi-national businesses to drop his opposition to tax treaties between the United States and other nations.

    or…

    can we say, lobbying by the “persons” who really run the government, of whatever description, VS lobbying by those representing US Persons Abroad and the collateral damage of individuals and families?
    http://www.globalissues.org/issue/50/corporations
    Corporations
    Author and Page information

    by Anup Shah
    This Page Last Updated Monday, January 07, 2013

    As the world starts to globalize, it is accompanied by criticism of the current forms of globalization, which are feared to be overly corporate-led. As corporations become larger and multinational, their influence and interests go further accordingly. Being able to influence and own most media companies, it is hard to be able to publicly debate the notions and ideals that corporations pursue. Some choices that corporations take to make profits can affect people all over the world. Sometimes fatally.

14. Corporation first. Constitution last.

15. Canada is said to be negotiating an IGA, yet Flaherty has called FATCA a “waste of resources,” pointing out that Canada is not a tax haven and that there is a bilateral tax treaty to deal with tax evasion.
    I don’t get it.

16. Switzerland, a long-time bastion of banking secrecy, is under international pressure to change its ways, and FATCA has been a driving force in that. The United States and Switzerland in February signed a FATCA implementation agreement that would make more information available to U.S. authorities about the financial interests of Americans in Switzerland.

    But the taxpayer information exchange cannot go into force without Senate approval of the U.S.-Swiss tax treaty.

    Mark Twain, it appears to say the “US – Swiss Tax Treaty”
    http://www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/law/double/switzerland.html
    pdfSwitzerland (Protocol) (PDF, 44KB) (signed on 26 January 2012 – not yet in effect)

    Gives more credence for countries to do this, where possible …
    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/04/25/email-from-liberal-mp/comment-page-1/#comment-301502 and discussion here: http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/fatca/comment-page-16/#comment-282417

    Old&Simple, Your comments and Flaherty’s letter convince me more that the focus should not be on stopping FATCA, which is a done deal for Canada.

    Instead, the Ministry of Finance should be shamed into amending the US-Canada tax “treaty”, before the agreement is signed and while Canada has some slight upper hand, to prevent as much as possible IRS from causing further harm to Canadian resident US persons through penalizing those who have RDSPs, TFSAs, a house that appreciates in value through no fault of ours, a business, a Canadian mutual fund that magically turns into a “corporation,” interest on a savings account that will be subject to new 3.8% Obamacare tax and quarterly payments etc.

    This, not FATCA, is the problem.

17. “The agreements previously have routinely … accomplished their main purpose of preventing double-taxation of income”

    Hahahah, this guy Patrick Temple-West is hilarious. Where have I seen his name before? Ah yes, he’s the author of other such insightful and totally non-propagandistic quotes about international taxation like “FATCA has come under fire from Americans with foreign financial accounts because they are accustomed to secrecy”
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/usa-tax-fatca-idUSL1E8N63DQ20121206

18. Calgary411

    I disagree. I believe fighting FATCA is still the number one priority for us. It is also a goal if enough domestic political pressure is brought to bear on Flaherty that is quite achievable.

19. Thanks for the link — I’ve never seen that piece before or missed it. Maybe it’s the follow-up article one commenter suggested…

    However, the cost is coming back home… To sweeten the pill, one version of these IGAs promises reciprocity, meaning all US Financial Institutions will have to get the information about the nationality of their customers, to send it to their respective governments and maybe threaten the client to close the account if they refuse. How do you think this will fly in the US?

    Maybe in a follow up article, you can talk about these other aspects.

20. I think IRSCompliantForever’s suggestion makes sense. It is fighting FATCA.

21. @All

    For those who haven’t, please do drop Sen Paul’s office a note asking him not to be deterred by these attacks, and to keep on standing up for consitutional principle and personal liberty in connection with the tax treaties and, especially, FATCA. Here is the link:

    http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=contact

    Messages preferably short be short, simple, and positive. But they make a difference. These are real easy issues for a Senator or Congressmen to get beat up on (See, “business” is against him — not Treasury and IRS, which no doubt placed this and a couple more in the same vein), and to start asking himself, “Why am I taking this position — just because it’s the right thing? Who’s with me?” Any encouragement is welcome.

22. @Calgary411
    Defeating FATCA is only a battle in the war against citizenship based taxation.

23. Thanks for that link, Jim.
    Ironically, Rand Paul also has a presence at the USG’s favourite place to spy on the citizens of the world: Facebook…or tweet him.

24. @bubblebustin

    Very, very true.

    Gettysburg, Midway, and Stalingrad were “only” battles. Such a battle won or lost can have a big impact on the outcome of the war. After losing some battles, there’s no recovery. If we “lose” FATCA and it goes forward the way that Treasury intends, I doubt relief for expats in the form of residence-based taxation will pop up as some deus ex machina. Conversely, if they lose on FATCA (and Sen. Paul’s position on the tax treaties is an initial skirmish), they’re on the defensive and other possibilities may open up.

25. Hi Jim,

    I listened to your interview on the Nomad Capitalist, but unfortunately, the feed stopped towards the end.
    What makes you think that there’s going to be a bill to repeal FATCA introduced soon?