Why does the United States claim the right to protect Americans abroad and therefore to tax them, when there is no entity or mechanism by which American citizens abroad may receive protection FROM the United States government? A Federal court has just decided that US citizens have no rights outside of the United States. Therefore US citizens abroad have no right to habeas corpus or from illegal detention of indefinite duration.
I don’t exactly understand the logic: United States Constitution does not apply to citizen abroad. But the tax code (section 26) does apply.
So, this makes it official then that what we have here is taxation without representation. Isn’t that supposed to be unconstitutional? You’d think the founding fathers would have mentioned that in there somewhere.
“If a set of laws can be re-written to accommodate violations of itself, how can it be considered valid by anyone other than those with the power of revision?”
It’s easy when those with the powered of revision carry a big club, and appear willing to use it.
The United States has lost all semblance of legitimacy on citizenship based taxation. The US president who overseas the Federal Government is become a tyrant.
The Obama administration has effectively consigned all the rights of American abroad into the dung heap. It has argued against the ACLU to make Constitutional rights invalid overseas. But it has also negotiated away the rights and protections of Americans in other countries that these nations provide to their citizens; e.g., the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, article 15.
Please note in the article the say it is for “national security,” issues
More and more arguments against CBT? What are non-residents paying taxes FOR?
Dual citizens around the world need to wake up and bring their ‘local’ governments to court and start challenging the various issues and put the US on notice they’re not standing still either.
The ruling doesn’t surprise me. However one of Bopp’s challenges on illegal search and seizure seems to be in trouble now which would be a constitutional issue.
Sole US passport holders are trapped in FATCA. We’ll have to see if duals can get ‘carve outs’ from local governments.
Also I made a suggestion about using changed documents. How about taking your second passport, scan it, use PhotoShop to change the place of birth, high quality print off, and find some poorly paid bank clerk who needs money, and if they must scan it use the print off in place of your passport. That way you don’t have to change your real passport. There’s got to be more than one way to skin the FATCA cat. Once the account is opened that could go on for years unless FFIs start to do annual document checks, which would be another regulatory headache for the banks.
Canadian banks have proven that they can’t bend over far enough for the USG. What’s a little more?
billy, please note:
Oppressive governments through the ages have all had at least one thing in common; at some point they begin pursuing their own agenda while abandoning consideration for their own people’s rights. If Amir Mershal’s case is framed as being relating to anti-terrorism, patriotism, national security, or drug through the filters of legal jargain rendering it inert towards most people’s attention, it will not change the basic underlying fact that at the core of his case. Before any bias is added to Mershal’s case; the constitutional rights of an American citizen were violated by an American government which then granted itself the legal power to repeat it’s constitutional violations in the future.
If a set of laws can be re-written to accommodate violations of itself, how can it be considered valid by anyone other than those with the power of revision?
@billy
Who decides if its national security issue? The gov’t does. So if u seem hinky… they can cite *national security* & keep u off american soil… move u from place to place… what recourse do u have to get the heck out of the hell hole? This opens a new can of worms… if someone in power don’t like something about u… they can use *national security* & u are screwed. They will tax the crap out of u… but the constitution is just this old piece of paper with some suggestions on it they can all ignore
Just a first step on the slippery slope.
They do not even need that as an ‘excuse’.
NDAA ended all pretense:
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub.L. 112–81. This NDAA contains several controversial sections (see article), the chief being §§ 1021-1022, which affirm provisions authorizing the indefinite military detention of civilians, including U.S. citizens, without habeas corpus or due process, contained in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Pub.L. 107–40.[6]
They do and they will do as they please. And have done and will use drones as they please both within and without their ‘borders’!
Over the last 7 months, reading at IBS and other FATCA-article sites has raised my ire at the US (and other governments) no small amount. But THIS!!!!! This is clear disownership of their citizens who deign to step off the homeland soil. I am going to send a link to this abomination to everyone I know who lives in the US. It is totally outrageous that this is their stance in relation to some US citizens visiting abroad (he wasn’t even living abroad) and then to expect obedience to tax laws for those of us living abroad who don’t read tax law as a soporific before going to bed or study same during the day. Scary scary scary and even scarier thinking about some of the potential policies of other countries in the world. Just wait until Hesbolah or Isis shoots it’s way into some middle-east bank with a FATCA agreement and the gun-toting folks start demanding the lists of US citizens living in that region….. I wonder if there were Romans who foresaw the downfall of Rome and experienced this same horror, rage and despair for what had been and what was no longer to be…..
The next step will be the Supreme Court, if it decides to hear this case. The shocking thing is that the government did not even try to argue that what it had done was constitutional.
‘Taxation without representation’ is not in the constitution, although it did inspire the short terms and taxation powers of the House of Representatives. It was a motto used during the War for Independence to justify the colonists’ actions. The constitution is much less ambitious than the ideals that inspired the founding fathers, but Americans still have a sense that government should aim for those bigger ideals.
Taxation without representation doesn’t have to be in the Constitution. It’s in the Declaration of Independence, and remember the 9th amendment says that a right doesn’t have to be explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.
I hope Jim Bopp is paying attention to this.
More evidence that the social contract between the USG and the American Diaspora is completely broken.
LM, I wrote this on Facebook for the benefit of my numerous friends in Alaska: Be careful when flying to Hawaii or to Alaska, friends, because you end up being outside the borders of the United States for a while. Hopefully, the US government won’t suspect you of terrorism and shoot your plane out of the sky.
They can’t have it both ways. No rights off soil but they expect US citizens and “persons” to file tax returns? Sorry, but if some of your laws don’t apply to me when I’m off your soil then NONE of them do!
GwEvil, exactly.
Stupider than France:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101781300
I really like Grover. I’ll watch the full thing tonight!!
America will argue each case in a way that it thinks has the best chance of winning.
Recently the IRS tried to argue that ‘Shall’ didn’t mean the IRS had to give the required time to somebody being audited after they broke the rules. I am pretty sure they have argued that ‘Shall’ means something else when they went after a lot of other people.
Even when the IRS loses they just ignore the fact. They did this when rules against of on the taxation of mutualized stock. IRS says basis should be zero. Court says it should be the owners investment in the company. IRS losses but insists it should be zero.
Why does 2 + 2 = 5?
Because Uncle Sam says it does.
I watched the full CNBC segment. Grover gets the situation. The host Joe Kernan was basically doing the ‘don’t let the door..’ kind of comment. Grover likened the current situation for both individuals and corporations to that of East Germany building the wall.
I mailed the host to explain the situation.