Another cross-post from Maple Sandbox: Abolish FATCA Petition from Replublicans Overseas Now Online
The actual link to this Petition is: https://www.abolishfatca.com/live/
I, a person who has now officially renounced and am no longer a US citizen, have signed and sent my *online signature* for this Petition. In my comment, I cited that my son, with a *mental incapacity*, and others like him, are “entrapped” into a *supposed* US citizenship and absurdly affected by this.
Note that you do not have to be a Republican or *even like them* to sign this important petition.
Note also that anyone who is not “IRS Compliant” and is afraid to sign this (because of more US-induced intimidation) should NOT sign — that is, unless you are so very, very angry about extra-territorial FATCA combined with US citizenship-based taxation and how it affects you, your family, your sovereign country and its very treasury. There is, of course, a risk of disclosure for you (a service of the US campaign of FEAR instilled into us).
From Republicans Overseas re privacy concerns:
We understand your concern. I knew political motivated reprisal since I grew up in Communist China. Each time I spoke up, the regime could make me to disappear in the night and my parents to pay for the bullet. When several RNC members and I founded this worldwide political organization called Republicans Overseas, one of our goals is to protect our overseas American citizens from the fear of political motivated reprisal like the IRS targeting tea party groups. We believe when you are organized and speak as one voice by voting, you bring the political cost to the equation of the IRS reprisal.
For your privacy concern, we offer an overseas American petitioner or a tea partier petitioner in this country to select a button which allows us to only use your initials and country or state on your petition when we publish all petitions and deliver them to Congress. Also we will only allow the third parties such as friendly but objective media organizations not government agencies to audit our petitions by a secure sampling process. This gives this petition drive more political credibility. Finally, no government agencies would take a possession of those signatures and addresses.
This method of petitioning is much safer for you than getting signatures on a street corner to put a ballot measure on a November election ballot. In the second case, the State Secretary of State Office would require the Chief Petitioner to submit all signatures with names and addresses for sampling. In this case, the State Secretary of State Office would take a possession of all petition signatures sheets. Nobody knows who is going through those sheets and copying them in the night.
I hope my email puts your concern for reprisal at ease. Thank you for contacting us.
Sincerely,
Solomon Yue, Jr.
Chief Sponsor of the RNC Resolution to repeal FATCA
Vice Chairman and CEO
Republicans Overseashttps://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas
We can only hope that these various efforts act collectively to end the crisis that Americans abroad are in.
Signed. Going to RBT is the only reasonable thing to do which would make objections to something like FATCA go away.
Call me paranoid, but there is no way I’m going to provide that much personal information to sign a stupid petition calling for the repeal of an Obama pet project Obama has already shown he’s not above turning the IRS into the enforcement arm of the Democratic party.
I can easily imagine them specifically targeting the “tax evading scum” who are signing such a petition. The IRS can make your life a living hell even if you don’t even owe them anything. In the Democratic mind, being against FATCA is like saying you are in favor of tax evasion.
Too bad it’s not possible to comment that many are so scared by the FATCA onslaught and the current tyrant in D.C.that they can’t even risk signing a petition. So much for free speech. It’s risky enough even posting on Brock.
For anyone with linguistic talent or website talent, they (Repubs overseas) are willing to work together to find a way to publish your work externally or to help explain their own efforts in words. That site is pretty rough and blunt, and they don’t yet understand how FATCA is the worst law that the US has never known. How can someone be against something they don’t even know about? It needs text, pictures, format.
(There is no staff behind it—it’s only that core group of motivated people–a couple heavyweights and a small number of younger wannabe’s—-and the wanna-be’s know that they are gonna get bodyslammed by FATCA)
No ‘Former U.S. Green Card’ option on this petition. I’m excluded.
It took less than 48 hours to get over 120,000 signatures on a petition to deport Justin Beiber from the USA. Lets hope more want RBT than deportation… sheesh!
NativeCanadian,
People’s priorities are skewed: it’s all a soap opera / entertainment as our rights swirl down the drain.
I’m not signing any petition for politicians of any party in a country I despise.
@ChearsBigEars, I hear you. I found the very first word of the petition stuck in my craw. Honorable? Really? “Dear scumbags” would be more honest (though I can see how that might, er, negatively affect the petition’s success… 🙂 ).
I am compliant because my family income is so low but I am terrified to sign anything like this. I am afraid of a witch hunt because of the zero error mentality. The tiniest mistake and the guillotine.
How many compliant and non-compliant are so afraid that they will not sign?
I am so afraid that for this site I used a throw away non linked email.
Once upon a time I was so proud to be a US Citizen.
Now I am overseas and fearful, brought to tears at times, whats happened, is this what they wanted?
All I want to do now is take those slow steps to finalize my relinquishment from years ago and never ever go back or look back. I am even afraid of coming out to do that, hence the IBS therapy to work towards that.
God Bless you all.
To each his own, but I’d rather go down fighting.
Repeal FATCA!.
Take care @George, we have all been there too, or are still there.
I’m not signing simply because I have zero faith in the system, and for me to sign it, it means that I’m validating a system that I know doesn’t work.
Why would I want to do that? If I had any faith at all that the US system works, then why would I be on a website such as the Issac Brock Society? Why would I be so keen on losing my US citizenship? Why would I even be living abroad in the first place?!?
Also, I have to consider the fact that I could also be made a target just by signing it in the first place. I’m already well aware that the IRS has been used as a vector to intimidate, and oppress, political enemies of the government of the day. I would be lumped in that group simply because of my dissent.
….continued
I haven’t bothered with the yearly absentee ballot registration for exactly the same reason. It’s simply a waste of my time.
RE: Watcher
“No ‘Former U.S. Green Card’ option on this petition. I’m excluded.”
As a former or current GC holder… we are legal *guests* who should only have to pay taxes on all that is made in the US and we have no say whatsoever in any gov’t policy or vote in the US. So basically they are *legally* robbing us of our hard earned funds. We are also been told… too bad…too sad when we find out we also have to pay taxes to the US for all the things we had or saved elsewhere to the US… They don’t care if u left… they have the right to do whatever they want….cause u got a GC. Do I sound bitter.. heck yeah.. I hate to admit it but retirement is a hop & a skip away & I may have to start all over again cause we were stupid enough to save & invest for our retirement & it maybe all gone. People use to be so proud to have a US passport or GC.. now its a *secret* no one is proud to share.
@US_Person_Foreigner, yup, that’s about the sum of it. In a sense some sort of taxation-without-representation treatment is part of the deal you get when you sign up for a green card. What you don’t expect, though, is continual movement of the goalposts and for congress to regularly and unilaterally change the terms of the deal into which you are now locked to their increasing advantage (and your increasing disadvantage). Eventually all that remains to you is the ‘exit’ part of Hirschmann’s “Exit, Voice and Loyalty”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
It is a good thing that the Republicans are paying attention to this, although I don’t like that it is getting so partisan. I signed a MoveOn anti-FATCA petitition because the Democrats need to know that this is not just a Repubican issue.
That said, I have no problem with the petition. The amount of information requested on the petitiion is daunting, but I suspect that the Republican strategy will be to use it to make sure that the people who sign the petition vote in November. Parties are always on the lookout for large groups who have fallen out with their party. The Republicans need more moderate voters so they can move away from some of their traditional stands that are deeply unpopular with young voters. We need to be less loyally Democrat as a group. Of course, it you are dead set on renouncing, you should not vote, but many Americans abroad left solely for family reasons or during a recession.
No matter what party they are from, it’s worth doing a bit of research to see what your ‘Representative’ and Senators get up to. I normally vote Democrat but my Democrat representative doesn’t bother reading e-mails from non-resident constituents according to his website and when I googled him found that he had sponsored the abolition of the foreign earned income credit. I even wrote to him and got no response. He is extremely vulnerable. I will vote against him in the primary and, if he makes it through that, will vote for his Republican opponent in November. There is no point in staying in an abusive relationship, but we should NOT kick out sensible Democrats like Carolyn Maloney.
I know voting seems like a waste of time, but I heard from no less than the head of Democrats Abroad UK that the overseas vote can affect the outcome of a few districts, even in the presidential election when each vote counts less because turnout is higher. Voting in the incumbent’s mid-term primary is the key to clout, but it is a once in a four year opportunity. By the way, down the pub in 2012 it was clear that DA was fighting off really draconian proposed taxes on foreign pensions. There is a massive problem with some Democrats in Congress. Our big problem is that we never throw the bums out. We don’t necessarily need large numbers or our own district: the National Beer Wholesalers and Retailers Association is a powerful group even though it represents companies with just 130,000 employees but it is in every district and its members vote their interests.
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The FBI staked out my house when I was young and even sent two agents to my kindergarten nativity play, so I understand the concerns about government repression.
@publius
The reason why there are so many numbskulls in Congress is because people vote for the party and not the person. That said, the law of probability will allow one with a brain in on occasion. I can’t see how a US citizen living abroad can continue to vote Democrat, unless they plan to move back to the US and are willing to put up with a few inconveniences (like not having a bank account) until they do.
I don’t agree that someone who’s planning to renounce should not vote. It’s really only a problem when supporting a claim of relinquishment.
here is how the Liberals are spinning this, as you would expect.
Why Are Republicans Plotting To Sabotage A Crackdown On Tax Evasion?
from repubs overseas facebook
The Ambassadors from the G20 member nations to the United States of America have received the RNC resolution to repeal FATCA (https://www.abolishfatca.com/live/RNC_FATCA_Resolution.pdf):
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, European Union.
Here is a sample letter:
February 3, 2014
To: His Excellency
Sir Peter Westmacott, KCMG, LVO
The British Ambassador to the United States of America
British Embassy Washington
3100 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
United States of America
Dear Ambassador Westmacott,
As the Chief Sponsor of the Republican National Committee (RNC) Resolution to Repeal the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), I am forwarding a copy of this newly-adopted resolution to inform your government regarding my party’s policy position and resolve regarding this matter.
The resolution’s passage has laid a foundation for us to launch a worldwide online petition drive to repeal FATCA this morning. This link (www.abolishFATCA.com) is for your review. It would be our pleasure to forward petitions signed by U.S. Green Card-holding British citizens to your office.
My co-sponsors and I believe this law violates not only 7.6 million overseas American citizens’ right to privacy, but also the rights of your citizens residing in the U.S. FATCA’s intergovernmental agreements feature reciprocity of exchange of individuals’ financial information. It is designed to be a “big data” collection scheme on our citizens as well as yours.
We are committed to defend the basic human rights of our overseas citizens, including their right to privacy, to make a living, to have banking services, and to protect their private property against the 30% “withholding” of US-source payments without due process.
Attached please find a copy of the RNC Resolution to repeal FATCA.
If you have any questions about this resolution, I could be reached at RepublicansOverseas@abolishFATCA.com and would be happy to share more details on our worldwide repeal FATCA efforts.
Yours Sincerely,
Solomon Yue, Jr.
Republican National Committeeman for Oregon
P.S.: This letter will be posted on Republicans Overseas Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas
P.S.S.: In my personal capacity, I serve as Vice Chairman and CEO of Republicans Overseas, Inc.
P.S.S.S.: This resolution will also be forwarded to other foreign Embassies in Washington D.C.
note that he is offering to send each country the petition results to the country in question–for their residents & citizens.
as far as former green card holders or other FBAR affected people, I interpret it that they tried to include all affected that they knew about. The only exclusion is people who are not considered US persons in any sense
@Just Me
That article was a significant Brock battle ground.
@Mark Twain
We all should be circulating that petition wherever we can.
@all
It’s clear that Canada made up its mind about the IGA weeks ago…They kept us it was “imminent” and were just working their strategy, FAQ’s, etc out…
…and the time: in the shadows of the Sochi Olympics.