Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 94 Comments

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.

94 thoughts on “Proposed RNC Resolution has been drafted titled — Resolution to Repeal #FATCA”

  1. That’s a good start, IRSCompliantForever.
    Both parties should work on this together, especially with regards to a petition.

    Yes, I’m dreaming.

  2. This was just posted on the Republicans Overseas FB site:

    “From now on when you write to your senator and representative about how FATCA has impacted your life negatively, please also ask your lawmaker if he or she would vote to repeal FATCA and let us know. With your help, RO will be able to track each lawmaker’s position on the repeal. When vulnerable lawmakers, who are opposing the repeal, are up for reelections, RO could raise money and launch radio ads targeting them.”

    https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas

    I have a Congressional rep who I have often complained to on FATCA and citizenship based taxation, but I never made it explicitly clear to him that my vote (and those of people like me) will depend on his position on these issues. I am now going to ask him whether he would vote to repeal FATCA and citizenship-based taxation.

  3. I saw that too, IRSCompliantForever and happy I have one less person to write to, as my rep is Bill Posey 🙂

  4. The Bureau of Consular Affairs fact sheet, which showed the most recent estimate of 7.6 million US citizens living abroad, was just removed from the Department of State website (the link now says “page not found”), a week after after the National Taxpayer Advocate released her report to Congress (which used the fact sheet as a reference), and a week before the RNC meeting to discuss the resolution to repeal FATCA (which also used the fact sheet as a reference). I used it as a reference myself in my suggestions to Congress.

    Republicans Overseas are complaining, but they are also affirming that the resolution will be passed by the entire RNC next week.

  6. To get an understanding of the weight of these heavy hitters, you should google some of the members of the board.

    The legal counsel, the chairman, the Republicans Overseas Albania reps. You will see some pretty significant influence.

  8. RNC to join Rand Paul’s fight to protect privacy of Americans overseas

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/15/rnc-join-rand-pauls-fight-protect-privacy-american/

    “The law as it stands forces U.S. citizens to make a modern day’s ‘Sophie’s choice’ between their love for their country by not renouncing citizenship and their love for their families by continuing to provide for them without banking services,” said Solomon Yue, a prominent RNC member from Oregon who is leading the charge on the issue.”

    “Obama administration officials continue to defend the law. Robert Stack, deputy assistant Treasury secretary overseeing international tax affairs, said in a September blog post that the U.S. law is “rapidly becoming the global standard in the effort to curtail offshore tax evasion.”

    “He [Stack] dismissed what he called myths about impacts of the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, including that it imposes “overly costly” and complex regulations on banks, that U.S. citizens living abroad will be outcasts in the international banking market, that foreign banks have become extensions of the IRS, and that expatriate Americans will give up their citizenship in droves to escape the law’s reach.”

    “U.S. taxpayers, including citizens living abroad, are required to comply with U.S. tax laws,” Mr. Stack said. “Individuals that have used offshore accounts to evade tax obligations may rightly fear that [the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act] will identify their illicit activities. Yet a decision to renounce U.S. citizenship would not relieve these individuals of prior U.S. tax obligations, and might well create additional” tax obligations.”

    “Mr. Yue’s repeal resolution has attracted 26 co-sponsors, including the entire nine-member RNC Resolutions Committee. The early support almost guarantees passage by the 168-member RNC.”

    “Mr. Yue, born and raised in communist China, said the issue hit a raw nerve with him. “I escaped Chinese communist tyranny in 1980 and worked hard to earn my U.S. citizenship as an international trade economist. My American passport is my freedom. I just can’t imagine giving up my U.S. citizenship since I have no place to go.”

    Well Mr. Yue, if your resolution doesn’t work and you decide to move abroad, you will be getting rid of your coveted US passport for sure.

  9. Get realistic
    You need 60 votes in Senate to overcome FATCA, 67 to overcome a Presidental veto. The Senate would note even vote on restoring military pension by eliminating illegal alien earned income tax credit for people who do not have a SSN. This issue is probably more popular then overturning FATCA.
    “Among them was Ayotte’s measure, which would repeal cuts to military pensions by ending a loophole in the tax code that allows illegal immigrants to receive the Additional Child Tax Credit. Her attempt to get a vote failed 42-54, with only one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), voting with Republicans.”
    http://freebeacon.com/senate-democrats-block-amendment-to-restore-military-pensions/

    With legalizing of illegal immigrants the Democrat will be in power for the forseeable future.

  11. This seems more and more like a fundraising/vote winning ploy than anything else. This was posted over on English Forum today:

    http://news.yahoo.com/republican-party-vote-repeal-u-anti-tax-dodging-234904778–sector.html

    Moreover, Republicans are eager to use FATCA as a campaign and fundraising issue against Democrats ahead of the congressional mid-term elections in November, RNC members said.

    “I see FATCA just like Obamacare,” said Solomon Yue, an RNC official from Oregon who is leading the party’s FATCA repeal effort. “It will attract American overseas donors.”

    Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said: “It’s hard to imagine an issue this obscure playing a visible role in elections … It is making overseas Americans far more sympathetic to (Republicans) and could have an impact on fundraising.”

    Enough said.

  13. @MedeaFleecestealer

    I understand it. Politics is about micro focusing. Obama and his election staff were experts at it. Find a group that the other party has pissed off, and work on their hot issue. The Dems think Americans abroad are their constituency, (they always headed to Switzerland to raise money). With FATCA, while they still have their Stepford wives, but they probably have lost most of the overseas vote, at least to those that have been paying attention. They would be silly NOT to make this an election issue and raise its visibility as a wedge against the Dems and then raise political money off it. It is how the American System works. However, I would NOT discount the genuine disdain for FATCA for the reasons Ron Paul has already laid out as has Yue in other quotes not mentioned here.

    Also remember that the Reuter’s reporter, Patrick Temple-West, (where this story is from) is well known to us as a FATCA sympathizer. They would slant the story that way, as it is always more fun to report about the politics of an issue than the real issue it self. He could have an hour interview with Solomon Yue, (a Chinese immigrant) describing everything that is wrong with FATCA, and then just posted the one comment that suited his objective. Paint this story in crass political terms. Also Thompson-Reuters is part of the FCC and have their own FATCA products to sell! It is what it is.

    So, enough is NOT said. I would not be dismissive yet. Always consider the agenda of the Reporter too 🙂

  14. I am very happy to see the Republicans taking a stand against FATCA and I really hope they adress the root cause of the issue for expats which is citizenship-based taxation (CBT). Lets just hope that their stand will be genuine, which is something they need to prove to expats, who have had enough of being persecuted and shaken down to pay for public goods and services they never use.

    As for Democrats, any American living abroad who votes for or gives money to Democrats deserves everything he or she gets, especially FATCA and FuBAR.

    In any case, the only thing expats will ever be able to really trust is a certificate of loss of nationality, aka the now highly coveted CLN. Thats the golden ticket to freedom.

    What a shame America has become? The founders must be rolling in their graves.

  15. So how has this repeal effort been at generating Republican support in the Senate?

    Check out Ron Paul’s Repeal bill in the Senate which was launched 10 months ago…

    Where is ONE Republican co-sponsor for his Senate bill? Where? Where? Where? NOT ONE FRIGGIN Republican in the Senate has the balls to sign on!, NONE, NADA, Zilch!

    http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/887

    So what does that tell you about their Repeal effort?

  16. With the OECD GATCA announcement, their repeal effort is moot, unless they push for adoption of the OECD proposal. They should have voted a resolution for a switch to RBT instead. That would have been smarter and might have had a better chance of being successful.
    I don’t think their resolution was smart, as it could only be seen as a being for the rich tax cheats, from most American homelanders’ point of view.
    They made a point, but that might not have helped their image much. They seem disconnected to what is possible to do politically.
    From a pragmatic point of view, the Democrats Abroad amendment proposal has a better chance of being successful.
    They should also work on tax reform that would be beneficial to Americans abroad, while adjusting penalties based on taxes due.
    Let’s wait till July. I am curious to see what’s going to happen when withdrawing starts…
    My bet is that they’re going to delay withdrawing.

  17. @Noone…

    Sorry to say, but I think the Demsabroad are absolutely hopeless. They are busily tweeting away the merits of FATCA and how they will get a tweak or an exemption for the unfortunate consequences. They MISS the larger point, and would be better placed getting behind RBT, at a minimum. New Exemptions they tout are meaningless. They are shedding votes from thinking Expats, in my opinion. They are sooo focused in envy of rich that escape, they don’t care how repressive their legislation has to be to “GET THEM”.

    As for Reps overseas, this last minute conversion to FATCA Repeal was not well thought out with a communication strategy. They will lose they demigod war. I admire the effort, although with GATCA now launched, it may be too late.

  18. BTW, all the reports in MSM are that Obama is against Tax reform as a solution to the problems he is creating with his jihad. Again, NO ONE SHOULD LOSE SIGHT THAT HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR FATCA. He launched the war…

    http://youtu.be/PMEInTNsacg

    Whatever the good intentions, he let the dogs out to run wild in IGA implementation, and fathered GATCA, plain and simple. Cause and effect.

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