This has been posted by Mark Twain on the ask your FATCA question thread and needs its own post…..
https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas/posts/208228726027597
A proposed RNC Resolution has been drafted by the following Chief sponsor and co-sponsors: Title — “Resolution to Repeal the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)”
Will the @DemsAbroad sign on too, or now oppose in typical partisan fashion.?
Read more below the jump…
Whereas, In 2010 Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in an effort to catch tax evaders; but this Act has inadvertently ensnared every United States Citizen living overseas due to its overzealous invasion of privacy and punitive taxation and enforcement;
Whereas, The United States is one of the only two countries in the world that taxes foreign income of its citizens living abroad who already pay taxes where they reside;
Whereas, FATCA creates enormous reporting burdens for American taxpayers living overseas and puts them a great risk for even the slightest innocent mistake;
Whereas, FATCA requires foreign financial institutions, to enter into an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to identify their U.S. account holders and to disclose the account holders’ names, taxpayer IDs, addresses, and the accounts’ balances, receipts, and withdrawals (sometimes in violation of foreign privacy laws);
Whereas, FATCA has resulted in Americans living and working overseas finding themselves, and their companies, shut out from access to banks, insurance loans and investment opportunities, as many foreign financial services providers have concluded that doing business with Americans is simply too much trouble thus decreasing America’s competitiveness overseas;
Whereas, FATCA’s primary mechanism for enforcing compliance of foreign financial institutions is a punitive withholding levy on U.S. assets, creating a strong incentive for foreign financial institutions to divest (or not invest) in U.S. assets, resulting in capital flight, hurting the U.S. economy;
Whereas, Time magazine reported a sevenfold increase in Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship between 2008 and 2011 and has attributed this at least in part to FATCA and another surge in renunciations in 2013 to record levels has been reported in the news media, with FATCA cited as a factor in the decision of many of the renunciants; and
Whereas, FATCA forces Americans living abroad to make a horribly unfair choice between renouncing their citizenship or abandoning their businesses abroad because foreign financial institutions won’t handle their transactions or accounts; therefore be it
RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee hereby presents this Resolution to each Member of Congress and urges the U.S. Congress to repeal FATCA and to allow those U.S. citizens who renounced their citizenship under FATCA to regain their citizenship;
RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee urges the IRS to cease inflicting damage on the United States and on the global financial system in an attempt to vindicate FATCA’s misguided approach to tax enforcement;
RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee by presenting this Resolution to each Member of Congress urges them to increase the competitiveness of Americans overseas and remove inappropriate invasions of American citizens’ privacy; and
RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee hereby presents this Resolution to each Ambassador and Representative from every foreign nation and warns them that the privacy rights of their own citizens are at risk due to reciprocal agreements.
Chief sponsor – Solomon Yue, Jr., Republican National Committeeman for Oregon
1st Co-sponsor – Carolyn McLarty, Republican National Committeewoman for Oklahoma
2nd Co-sponsor – Bruce Ash, Republican National Committeeman for Arizona
3rd Co-sponsor – Helen Van Etten, Republican National Committeewoman for Kansas
4th Co-sponsor – Roger Villere, Jr., State Chairman of Louisiana
5th Co-sponsor – Donna Cain, Republican National Committeewoman for Oregon
Additional co-sponsors will be added as more RNC members have an opportunity to review the resolution. It will be submitted to the RNC for consideration during its January Winter meeting in D.C.
N Dakota Sandy Boehler
http://www.gop.com/members/north-dakota/sandy-boehler/
http://www.ndgop.org/view/contact/
Senate
http://www.hoeven.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-the-senator
(you would have to fabricate an address)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Heitkamp
is the junior United States Senator from North Dakota and a member of the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party.
http://heidifornorthdakota.com/contact/
Rep, republican
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Cramer
https://cramer.house.gov/contact/email-me
The site is showing 25% of the RNC state committee leaders are in support and/or cosponsoring.
Great news Mark Twain. I hope that the snowball keeps building momentum.
Mark. That is indeed good news and could provide better visibility and advocacy for US change from citizenship-based taxation to residence-based taxation law as for the rest of the world.
I think this could be of use. If you think so, please use it. I am no longer a US citizen and do not do Facebook. But I do have a family member who is entrapped into US citizenship and all that means for him (and us) in absurdity of FATCA and US citizenship-based taxation coming to Canada. That any most vulnerable person is so affected is one person too many. Going forward, there will be more families than mine with this same story. What is the reason this would be allowed by the US? A parent, a guardian or a trustee of such a person is the one to determine if US citizenship is beneficial for the person they make other decisions for — not the U.S.
I’ve just put my thoughts of my family’s situation into a DRAFT document. It’s a process to help me understand all of this in my own head as I continue to live with it and as a means to perhaps better explain it to my government representatives and anyone in the U.S. who might be able to do anything about the absurdity. Citizenship-based taxation is evil, especially to those who are entrapped into U.S. citizenship. ENTRAPMENT of Persons with ‘Mental Incapacity’ into U.S. Citizenship
saw it. So far, I am on the edge of overwhelming them with information.
they do have contact info
265 50th Ave. NW
Salem, Oregon 97304
Phone (503) 370-7499
Email solomon@grassfiregroup.com
Website http://www.republicansoverseas.org
I will write these by tomorrow. Anybody else is welcome to join.
spkading@gmail.com
Sandye Kading was elected as the National Committeewoman from South Dakota in June 2012
cvanneman@gwtc.net
Kim Vanneman
SD cochairman
craig.lawrence@southdakotagop.com
SD cochairman
http://southdakotagop.com/about-the-party/party-leadership/chairman/
NORTH DAKOTA
http://www.ndgop.org/view/about/executive-committee/
Curly Haugland – National Committeeman
P: 701.255.2427
E: curly@recsupply.com
Sandy Boehler – National Committeewoman
P: 701.232.1246
E: sandboeh34@aol.com
Thanks, Mark. I’ve sent it to the email address.
Just posted on Republicans Overseas Facebook page:
Eight members of the RNC 9-member Resolution Committee have agreed to be co-sponsors of the RNC Resolution to Repeal FATCA:
1) Carolyn McLarty, Chairman of the RNC Resolution Committee,
2) Linda Ackerman, National Committeewoman for California,
3) Debbie Joslin, National Committeewoman for Alaska,
4) Steve Scheffler, National Committeeman for Iowa,
5) Melody Potter, National Committeewoman for West Virginia
6) Paul Reynolds, National Committeeman for Alabama
7) Pat Longo, National Committeewoman for Connecticut
John Frey, National Committeeman for Connecticut
On behalf of 7.6 million overseas Americans suffering from FATCA, we say thank you for defending their right to privacy and livelihood.
Thanks, bubblebustin.
Hear, hear
or
Here, here
or
Hear, Here!!!
https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas
The RNC Resolution to Repeal FATCA will be voted out of its Resolutions Committee on Jan. 23 with a do pass recommendation to all 168 RNC members. It is unprecedented for all nine members of the committee to be co-sponsors of this resolution:
1) Carolyn McLarty, Chairman of the RNC Resolution Committee,
2) Linda Ackerman, National Committeewoman for California,
3) Debbie Joslin, National Committee…woman for Alaska,
4) Steve Scheffler, National Committeeman for Iowa,
5) Melody Potter, National Committeewoman for West Virginia
6) Paul Reynolds, National Committeeman for Alabama
7) Pat Longo, National Committeewoman for Connecticut
John Frey, National Committeeman for Connecticut
9) Tamara Scott, National Committeewoman for Iowa
The probability of the RNC passing this resolution next day is 99%. Now the resolution has also attracted a total of 25 co-sponsors.
@Mark Twain, all
Been chitchatting with Republicans Overseas, and have just been informed to expect “a worldwide online petition drive to abolish FATCA is coming right after RNC’s passage in order to create awareness and put pressure on all house and senate members who will only respond to angry voters’ demand for change. Let their invisible hand work for us.”
Wonder how Democrats Abroad will take it.
@bubblebustin, I think it will be very difficult for the Democrats Abroad to decide what to do. Their exalted leader has not deigned to respond or notice our concerns. The closest Obama got to caring about US citizens abroad was caring how much money he could raise at those fundraisers abroad – ironically several hosted in Switzerland http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Obama_and_Romney_hunt_for_bucks_abroad.html?cid=33358278 , during the last campaigns.
Very few Democrats have even bothered to support the call to fund a Presidential Commission to even consider the issues that US citizens abroad face. I am not happy that the Republicans knew about this in the last election and didn’t come forward to do anything about it then, but the behaviour of the Democrats (remember the 2008 Obama Campaign promise that US citizens abroad were a group of particular concern http://obama.3cdn.net/610c7f29ee85b124a3_3cm6bxltu.pdf (only as US taxable serfs?) – “Obama understands the special concerns and issues of Americans living abroad and will seek to address these as president. “. The Democrats and Obama promised: “Concerns of Americans Living Abroad:
Obama believes it is important to understand the role of Americans abroad in determining U.S. policy. Obama will work with members of the Americans abroad community and the U.S. embassies to determine how the U.S. government can be responsive to the concerns
of overseas Americans. As a U.S. Senator, Obama has taken seriously the concerns of all Illinoisans, whether they are currently in Illinois or not. As president, Obama will work to establish a direct dialogue with Americans abroad. ”
Hard for the Democrats, and the Democrats Abroad to explain away the vast gulf between that 2008 load of horse—- and the subsequent reality they know about just as well as we do. And they can’t pretend that there are no DAs who’ve renounced. The numbers are non or bipartisan I’m sure. We know ex.Democrat supporters here who’ve renounced/relinquished. Those here are all over the political (and non or a-political spectrum).
I suspect that those abroad who still try to defend FATCA and it’s apologists are those well off Americans temporarily abroad, or with wealth enough to pay for planning to get around things, or to consider it a membership fee they can live with, planning to return to the US eventually, or who work for US employers who are providing US tax and legal help, and compensating them for losses incurred by US double taxation.
@badger
It would be in Republicans Abroad’s best interest if they could collaborate with Democrats Abroad on this. For 2014 I’m really trying to have a little more faith that somehow sanity will prevail in all of this mess and that people will not choose to toe the party line if it means their own self-destruction. I am hoping that the apologists and will end up on the wrong side of history, embarrassed by their wilful ignorance to the suffering of others.
@bubblebustin;
I have no faith in sanity coming from those in the US on this matter. And though I am glad for anything that will beat back FATCA, it will not restore for my Canadian family our hard earned savings gone to ‘compliance’ professionals in Canada to generate piles of useless incomprehensible paperwork in order to demonstrate ZERO US tax owed, and ZERO criminality of my and our joint local legal, post-tax Canadian savings, my TFSA dissolved and principal eaten into by US preparer fees, hours and hours of my wellbeing and peace of mind stolen from me by the US, as well as my forced handover of my US birthright citizenship.
I love my US family members, and know that there are pockets of good in the US, but I see it through an even more critical lens now, and that will never change – no matter what happens.
President Obama and the Democrats absolutely know the consequences of their actions on millions of ordinary families abroad, and don’t care. They are also willing to sacrifice countless of our otherwise unemployed young people to fight and die abroad without even good boots or sufficient supplies, when few or none of their own children are at risk.
I thought I would feel something after expatriation, but I felt only relief that that part is done, anger at the unnecessarily combative attitude displayed by the US consular official I dealt with, weariness at yet more incomprehensible forms to come, and more uncertainty and seemingly endless delays of closure, as well as general resentment at the US lack of ethical and moral constraints towards us and towards the rest of the world.
@Bubblebustin, I suspect that Democrats Abroad have often been asked to help make our lives a bit more comfortable, but I thought I would give it a try and just emailed the International Chair of the organization (cc press person) for an answer.
I explained in my short and polite email what Republicans Overseas are up to (RNC resolution, global anti-FATCA petition), quoted just one of the Obama promises above that Badger discovered, and asked simply whether and when the Dems Abroad will match the effort of the Reps.
I explained also that I would post the response on Brock and Sandbox. I will let you know if I receive or don’t receive a response.
BTW, if you go to the Dems Abroad website and hit the fourth photo button, JFK is making his famous statement: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” which now doesn’t seem quite so inspiring.
@Badger
Your words resonate a great deal in me, as I’m sure they do with countless thousands of others. The actions of the US have robbed me too, and will continue to do so until I too renounce US citizenship. The Obama administration surely knows what’s going on here, and still allows the suffering to continue. We’re low on the priority list. The future is uncertain and doesn’t look hopeful, but I can’t allow myself to continue to be consumed by it and therefore rob me of future happiness. I’m at least going to try.
I see here on these pages of Brock a great many people who even with renunciation are no more at peace as they were before renouncing- as although the immediate threat has been removed, the sense of injustice has greatly intensified. I suspect that in the event that some insight comes to US lawmakers, and the situation changed greatly to the benefit of US persons abroad, this sense of injustice would intensify even more greatly with the realization that all of this could have been avoided if people were just doing what they were supposed to be doing: paying attention. At that point, there must be some form of restitution made to those like us, but I know that will never happen. How could it? Reinstate US citizenships when the social contract between citizen and state has been broken beyond repair? Reimburse me the retirement funds I lost in my efforts to right the situation? What is the best we can realistically hope for?
That is in the mind of each of us to wrestle with – but will get us no closer to peace, I’m afraid.
@IRSCompliantForever
The thought had crossed my mind to do the same, and was going to even suggest to Republicans Abroad that they approach Democrats Abroad in a similar fashion. I’m glad you did it, as you are very skilled at that kind of thing. Thank you. I’ll make my suggestion to Reps Abroad tomorrow. Who knows, they may already have that in the pipe.
Badger, I feel the emotion of every word you write. And, bubblebustin, I try to answer what I hope for.
I am one whose renunciation did bring me some peace and relief that so much of a big undertaking was over — the insane paperwork involved and the cost from my retirement savings. I am so glad that I can now prove with my CLN that I am *only Canadian*. I will never lose that sense of injustice, my remembrance of my OMG *naive?* disbelief that this was happening to me (and the to the others the same as I) when I thought I had lost my US-ness with my becoming a Canadian citizen in 1975 and my decision to not register my Canadian-born kids with the US. Canada was the country I chose for raising my family and I thought I was in control of my life. To find out how false that was shattering. I’ll never regret my choice to be Canadian. My regret is what I have inadvertently passed on to my kids.
I will never swallow or forgive the demeaning by many US congresspersons and many US homelanders of US Persons Abroad as tax evaders and traitors to the US — never! That was the line in the sand for me.
And, of course, that there is no way that my son can join the rest of his family to be officially *only Canadian* is an injustice that will never lessen for me unless the US does something to make it right. To be told that the US is the authority to make the decision of the preciousness of my son’s US-ness and retention of supposed US citizenship over the choice of his family repulses me. It also repulses me that that my story will be the same for any other US Person family with a family member with a ‘mental incapacity’. So, I’ll for the rest of my life maintain that there should be an absolute choice for such families to be able to rid their loved one of an extraneous US citizenship — an ‘opt in’ to US citizenship for “accidental Americans” rather than an ‘opt-out’.
I have no illusions that the US will ever make an apology to me nor do I need that. I do not want returned to me the US citizenship that I thought I had lost in 1975 but in fact did not really lose until November of 2012. I have come to terms with the price I had to pay to officially become *only a Canadian* through my compliance costs, well more than a year’s worth of my CPP, OAS, small company defined-benefit retirement payments to me and any dividends earned on Canadian investment, over and above what I paid to the US in taxes for having a Canadian TFSA and holding an RDSP for my son. I consider the money gone, much like it would have been for losses in the stock market when that happened to so many. I have just convinced myself that it was money well-spent for the result. I am left with only a wish for the same for my son. I want no fancy work-around, no *hiding* anything from banks or tax authorities (as my son is an accidental American who doesn’t show US-ness on his Canadian passport), no worries for me in the middle of the night that my son will be *discovered* through connecting the dots of my US FBARs that contain all of his financial information, no worries that the US will in the end collect from what I wish to leave for my son’s well-being after I am gone. I want this all above board and legal — a way out of US citizenship for my son too.
I also know that so very many will not be lucky enough to have retirement funds like I did to pay for help with compliance (as I did not have the necessary skill to do so myself). I don’t know the answer for those families. I know that if this were happening to others in my (in the US) family instead of me, they would be backed into a corner with no way to afford professional help. So, I feel fortunate that I am the one in my family that had some savings to find a way out, though I don’t feel such cost should have to be for anyone. For many there is not a choice of relying on professional help or making some other decision — they just damn well do not have the money to pay for help.
I know that every one of us here will be left with part of our souls gone forever. It is just too, too sad a story what is lost for us through the betrayal we now know.
@bubblebustin, and @calgary411, I had to give up relying on hope since it was dashed too many times. What has kept me going is that we have tried to harness the feelings and directed them outward to action as much as possible, in our communal information gathering/sharing/awareness, support, participation and political engagement – each in our own way. Purpose can help to fill the space where hope is either tenuous or absent, and fear and sadness otherwise takes up residence. Those who even just read here quietly are also become important witness to these events. And can warn others to try and avoid the pitfalls we experienced.
I agree with you @calgary, that it is simply unacceptable that we are/were cast as suspect criminals – and subject to the Bank Secrecy Act and FATCA – thereby lumped into the same category as druglordterrorfundingmoneylaunderers by US law. I could not remain a citizen of a country which presumed to slander us wholesale that way. We are fully taxpaying law-abiding citizens and permanent residents of our country – in this case, Canada, and one of the reasons that a FATCA IGA is unacceptable is that it presumes and presupposes the mass guilt of every single person the US chooses to define as a ‘US taxable person’ living and banking in Canada and other countries abroad. The US can change the parameters and conditions of that definition at any time. If it chooses to redefine the rules of US citizenship and taxpayer transmission, then it can create more ‘taxable persons’ abroad thereby. It can choose to impose taxes on new categories and thresholds of our assets abroad – generated and held where we live, and we have no say or recourse. And we are held hostage also to those in the ‘compliance’ industry who take advantage of our necessity and our fear, and are busy steeply raising their fees – even in the middle of providing the services they contracted to provide. Expensive fees which in my direct experience did not preclude the ‘professionals’ from doing a shoddy job, and making careless and egregious mistakes on the very forms we needed them and their expertise to get perfectly correct – thus creating additional unnecessary subsequent problems with the IRS, while they kept busy enlisting and processing more of us than they could ethically serve well, in their quest for profit.
And believe me, I feel guilt and regret every day, that I had to spend a significant sum of my Canadian family’s savings on those professionals in order to become compliant in the manner prescribed, and in order to be free of the US shadow forever (and I owed zero US tax). Funds that should have paid for my Canadian child’s tuition, or for our retirement or longterm care – particularly as I do not earn much money, and have never been the family breadwinner (who is NOT a US taxable person). Basically we are being forced to buy our way out of US bondage via professional fees, renunciation fees, and other costs in time, money, and personal wellbeing. I consider that extortion on the part of the US. Even those who just need a backdated CLN for documenting their uncontested loss of US status decades ago are being forced to spend time and money on the effort – because they must travel to a US consulate or embassy to do so in person. FATCA is levying fees and costs on people who are not, and have not been a US citizen for many decades.
I would not take back my US citizenship if Obama himself apologized and offered it to me.
Everyone needs to be clear that FATCA is a symptom. Eliminating FATCA does not eliminate FBAR reporting, FBAR penalties, man-years of tax forms, nor OVDP. It just stops the worlds banks from collating names. Eliminating FATCA is only a 1st step as a delay for enforcements of bad laws.
Keep pushing to get the petitions related to RBT, elimination of FBARs for immigrants and emigrants, and OVDP/OVDI to be changed to focus upon real criminals.
The Democrats are going to have to look hard at themselves. Many of them really want for the Democrats to save them and will be loaded with jealousy that the other party is starting up the debate. It is really hard for them to cooperate, especially since the issue is coming in as part of the election process.
The Democrats will have to consider that any bill has to start on either one side or the other.
For the Republican Congress, they ought to remember that they are our employees and they need to show some results in order to draw voters and get elected. If they want the voters to do all the work for them, the voters will remember appropriately. If Congress does the work it was hired to do, the voters can also vote appropriately.
Waiting for that petition. It’s a good start from the RNC and lets see if more comes along.
And, all, please take the time to send a submission to the Senate Finance Committee to press for RBT. The deadline is close.
The Senate Finance Committee requests that comments and suggestions regarding the scope and mechanics for individual tax reform be submitted by January 17, 2014. Submissions should be made to: Tax_Reform@Finance.Senate.gov
@Jane Doe, I keep changing my mind on what to submit to Senate Finance (and may do so again) but for the moment have decided to make two separate, short submissions.
The first submission will only be in support of RBT. The second submission will acknowledge my support for RBT, but ask that while Congress is “debating” the RBT proposal, the tax laws be immediately and simply changed so that US persons abroad do not have to become IRS compliant prior to renouncing, as this cannot be justified. This submission to make renouncing easier follows Badger’s comments above that:
“And believe me, I feel guilt and regret every day, that I had to spend a significant sum of my Canadian family’s savings on those professionals in order to become compliant in the manner prescribed, and in order to be free of the US shadow forever (and I owed zero US tax).” and
“Basically we are being forced to buy our way out of US bondage via professional fees, renunciation fees, and other costs in time, money, and personal wellbeing. I consider that extortion on the part of the US.”
I might use Badger’s sentences in the submission.
Tax_Reform@Finance.Senate.gov
Not a bad idea, IRSCF. My letter focused on RBT but the committee needs to hear from those of us experiencing firsthand the multiple aspects of the problem.
Site administrator(s), maybe it would be worth tacking a reminder about this deadline to the top of the home page urging people to write to the Senate Finance Committee before January 17 ?
I mentioned above in a response to Bubblebustin that I emailed Democrats Abroad to find out whether this organization might match the efforts of Republicans Overseas (e.g., anti-FATCA RNC resolution and global petition drive). My request has been received and the initial response from the press officer is:
I am awaiting the response from the Chair.