As usual, Alex Newman provides a very well-informed and annotated update on the current state of affairs with FATCA and CBT in an article for The New American.
While he focusses on the efforts of the RNC and Republicans Overseas to repeal FATCA and CBT, Newman also underscores the need for all opponents of these destructive policies to join-together in a bi-partisan repeal effort:
GOP Votes to End Tax Regime That Is Crushing Americans Abroad
Democrats and propagandists in the establishment press initially tried to frame the Republican efforts to stop FATCA and citizenship-based taxation as a scheme to protect “the rich” and “tax evaders.” The half-baked tactic failed spectacularly, however — especially because those suffering the most are poor and middle-class Americans who cannot afford armies of lawyers and accountants. The group Democrats Abroad, stuck in a Catch-22, is now on defense, trying to walk a fine line between not alienating the millions of embattled Americans abroad while also not criticizing their party’s handiwork too vociferously. It recently accused the GOP of pandering for votes, noting that no bill to repeal FATCA has been introduced in the Republican-controlled House. The media has remained almost entirely silent on the latest GOP resolution.
Republicans, though, say the effort to ease the burdens imposed on Americans abroad and to boost the U.S. economy should not be a partisan one. “Republicans Overseas would welcome the DNC and Democrats Abroad to join us by adopting a RBT resolution, incorporating it in its national platform, building political support for a RBT legislation, and introducing a tax reform package to replace FATCA and CBT with RBT in order to end double taxation for 7.6 million overseas Americans,” Republicans Overseas said in a statement. “Doing what is right and just for expats should be bi-partisan.”
It is obvious that election time is getting nearer every day. I have let politicians in NJ know that I’ll only vote for him/her after they have openly stated that they support repealing FATCA and replacing CBT with RBT.
If the millions of expat Americans out there would do the same, I am sure we could turn this thing around.
This is tremendous. Never thought I would want Republicans to win!
Democrats Abroad is too busy vilifying James Bopp to care about Americans living abroad. Besides that, I think that they’ve made it pretty clear that they support the current regime of taxing based on citizenship by stating that CBT is here to stay.
Repeal FATCA, switch from CBT to RBT and restore citizenship to beleaguered diaspora? A sizable agenda but too little too late, imo.
The damage is done. They can do all these things, but what’s to stop them from doing it again in the future. They sat idly by and let this nightmare build for the last decade. They can’t be trusted.
I want out. I want my kid out. So where is the mail in renouncing fix? The fix that allows parents to remove their children from Uncle Sam’s custodial slave pen? The amnesty for people who didn’t know they had to file but will likely still be faced with years of back-filing for the years that CBT didn’t exist even if RBT is installed?
Yes, yes, I’m an ingrate. But they are pandering and I doubt highly their ability to deliver anything remotely helpful or timely even if they do win b/c their entire system is broken and owned by people who couldn’t care less if the US is ruined b/c they themselves are free to roam the world and look for the next country to bleed dry.
I agree with what Newman has written, but what worries me is that the Americans I met in the U.S. when I was back there, even the ones who are much better informed about politics than the average American, didn’t really seem to know anything about the CBT issue. I guess the good news is that they generally didn’t seem to be in favor of taxing foreign source income, but it was striking how many well-informed people knew nothing about it.
Sounds good, but I agree with YogaGirl that it’s too late. I’m glad I am out of there and have my CLN. I wouldn’t re-take US citizenship if they paid me.
At least they are saying the ‘right’ things and hopefully they will at least do a part of what is on the RNC agenda if they get control. Saying the right thing is the first step in actually doing something. Much better than the Democrats who are just continuing to push a square peg in a round hole, and Democrats Abroad that support their party even as that party throws them under the bus. I will be in the US on election day in Nov and will watch it all unfold – if the Republicans get control of the Senate, I will raise a toast to what is hopefully the first real step to fix the horror that the Democrat controlled Senate, House and White House put in place in 2010 when it passed FATCA.
If CBT were repealed it would like a great lead weight gone. CBT is so contra to all that 1776 was all about . . . and what I love about America. The USA offers and examplifies much that is noble and good in the world (and evil too I know) but this tax cancer insideously subverts the goodwill that the dispora (informal ambassadors) used to generate across the globe. So I love the glimmer of hope that the Republicans are offering here. I refuse to believe that this change is impossible.
Having done my daily read of the FATCA news, one thing that strikes me now is that this could be good if the part that gets done is CBT to RBT , but not so good perhaps if FATCA gets entirely repealed. FATCA certainly has very bad effects on generally law-abiding middle class people in high-tax or high-cost countries, but it also does seem to be making things tough on some people who have deliberately done very bad things. According to an FBI press release, FATCA helped the U.S. arrest a person who had devised a $500 million Belize tax-evasion scam that had attracted at least a hundred wealthy Americans (although it seems like there were clients from other countries as well). There was also a story in Chinese about FATCA was helping China to find lots of money that its former leaders had stolen from the country. If they get rid of FATCA but not CBT, I doubt that this will make things fairer.
@Publius
I agree that CBT is the worst thing about all of this. But people will argue with you about the dangers of FATCA and privacy issues.
@Publius
I’m in agreement with Polly. I’ve taken issue with Kevin Nightengale about this as he seems to think that CBT is the enemy, not FATCA. In fact, both are. FATCA is a law from a foreign country forced on nations around the world through threat of economic sanctions.
They BOTH have to go. I beginning to feel that some people are trying to divert attention away from FATCA so that we’ll only focus on CBT. That is likely the route Democrats abroad are taking as FATCA was their party’s doing.
I’m not convinced this isn’t just pandering. The House has voted how many times to repeal Obamacare “to make a point” but zero times to repeal FATCA or CBT? If they were serious about this, they’d bring it up in the house.
@Polly @Kathy
I don’t agree with a lot of elements of FATCA, which is totally over the top. I feel especially sorry for people who have innocently built up businesses abroad with foreign family members because they didn’t know any better or people who work in dangerous areas where their money isn’t safe. It is a badly designed bit of legislation.
The Republican effort is too really too little, too late though. Anyone who wanted to kill CBT or FATCA would have pushed harder during the primaries since that was the best opportunity for cleaning house. When Rangel, father of FATCA, won the June primary, he won his seat: there is no Republican running against him in November. There are also situations like New Hampshire, where there is no good clear choice in the general election.
@BillT
Yes, there is grounds for skepticism. In the past I have met Republicans who really did not like the Democrats’ mobilization of overseas voters around 2004 and basically saw overseas voters as illegitimate. In January or Feb. I read a comment by one Republican strategist that the Republicans planned to use overseas voters like a hammer against the Democrats. Sorry, folks, I hated my rep but I’m nobody’s tool so I voted against him in the primary and will make my own mind up in November.