This article in the Washington Times (a conservative newspaper) found by JustMe provides some background information on the Republican Overseas Legal Challenge to FATCA effort.
The tweet that was sent out by Michael DeSombre (“Republicans Overseas will be launching legal challenge to FATCA”) did not mention that funds need to be raised for the U.S. legal challenge. I expect that the Republicans will be successful in raising the monies. My understanding is that there will be a separate organization related to Republicans Overseas raising these funds – similar to our own Canadian “ADCS/ADSC”.
Irrespective of whether you like Republicans, or worry about their motives, the world will better off if either Republicans Overseas or ADCS/ADSC is successful in killing the bad FATCA law.
Jim Bopp, the mean bulldog lawyer who would lead the charge mentions here some (but not necessarily all) of the U.S. laws that might be contradicted by FATCA:
Mr. Bopp told The Times that he plans to attack the act on three legal grounds: that it violates the Senate’s sole possession of foreign treaty power, the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel or unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s personal privacy guarantee.
Some research convinced Mr. Bopp that the act violates the treaty powers that the Constitution grants members of the U.S. Senate. The U.S. government has forged agreements with foreign governments to have their banks reveal all financial matters about their American customers or face huge penalties.
These country-to-country agreements are in effect treaties but ones that no U.S. department or agency bothered to seek the U.S. Senate’s advice on or approval for, he plans to argue.
Finding senators to serve as plaintiffs in a drive to get the Supreme Court to acknowledge the act’s unconstitutionality is task No. 1 for Mr. Bopp and the board of Republicans Overseas.
Mr. Bopp, as general counsel to Republicans Overseas, presented to its board two other constitutional objections: violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against unusual punishment in the form of gargantuan monetary penalties and violation of the 14th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure of the financial assets of Americans abroad.
Republicans Overseas now wants a litigation vs. legislative approach:
“Seeking legal rather than legislative remedy on behalf of Americans living abroad before the scheduled July 1 full implementation of the law is the only available course for now,” said Solomon Yue, the Republicans Overseas chief operating officer and an Oregon RNC member.
The Republican Overseas position differs from that of Republican Senator McCain and Democrat Levin:
Mr. McCain and Mr. Levin see it differently. They not only want to sustain the law, but they also want to strengthen it.
In a joint report by their Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, the two lawmakers signed on to a call for “the U.S. Treasury and the IRS [to] close gaping loopholes in FATCA that have no statutory basis.”
@George says:
“Can’t you see the pincer movement? The Charter Challenge in the North and the Republican Overseas in the South.”
Legal back and forth between the Bopp team and U.S. Government lawyers in the FATCA/FBAR/IGA lawsuit. We are suing IRS, Treasury, and FINCEN in U.S. District Court in Southern Ohio.
Today (December 29, 2015) Bopp filed a Memorandum opposing Government’s Motion to Dismiss.
Part of Memorandum says for example:
If I’m reading this right, Bopp is indirectly citing Roe v Wade as precedent for causation of harm? How delicious.