LM has proposed a separate thread for us to post our suggestions for anti-FATCA/CBT action in 2015.
Perhaps there could be a new IBS page on which we all can list our IBS/FATCA/ADCS new year’s resolutions as to what we WILL make an effort to accomplish. As part of that, maybe there could also be a review what has and has not been successful so that we (1) don’t keep spending our time/energy attempting approaches that end up just being a waste of time and (2) see what has worked and encourage more of that.
Along with helping to organize a John Richardson evening presentation (Hamilton, Ontario – March 26), one tack that I am starting to take is to connect with other US Expats around the world to let them know about IBS and, more importantly, ADCS and the only-currently-active-litigation-against-FATCA. This is being accomplished through joining EpatBlog (http://www.expat-blog.com) and starting conversations on forums as well as some messaging to specific active Expats there who have indicated their US origin. Is this “gentle spam”? Maybe, but we’ll see what expanded support can be garnered…..
As well, I continue to hand out my FATCA flyer to lots of people as I go through day to day life. For example, when my plane-boarding was delayed an hour just before Xmas, I handed these out to lots of folks at the airport; I quietly, respectfully walked around with a file folder boldly labeled “Are you a US Person or do you know anyone who is?” and anyone who looked up and seemed interested, I handed them a flier. Had a few good conversations…
Let’s follow LM’s lead and fill our “comments section” with more great ideas on which we can, and will, take action!
I am presently putting together a list of addenda to send to the UN in support of our Human Rights Complaint.
At the suggestion of another reader here at Brock I am also looking into the possibility of submitting a Human Rights complaint under the European Convention on Human Rights. I am looking for individuals who live in EU countries who would be interested in pursuing this. A separate thread on this will be posted soon but I’d be delighted to hear from anyone on this thread in the meantime.
Also, let’s not forget that 2015 is the year we get to give Stephen Harper and his cohorts the big “heave ho”. I will make appointments with the candidates in my riding within the next week. I will let them know that just because the big media boys didn’t list the FATCA IGA as one of their “Top 10” news stories of the year doesn’t mean it isn’t *the* top news story for a significant portion of the Canadian electorate.
Acquiring media attention and support is critical. Media drives what is to be taken up in legislation.
We need to reach the tipping point.
Tipping point?
If/when the US Congress takes up immigration again, the plight of the USCs and their offspring living outside the borders needs to gain a foothold in the conversation.
The rules that are plaguing those with inherited citizenship are largely the result of changes in Immigration law b/c the US Constitution basically only allows for birthplace citizenship and naturalization. All the other tweaks come from legislation.
Immigration garners a lot of media attention down there. Becoming a part of that would be good for those of us still burdened with Americanism.
Simply making inherited status something a person has to ask for rather than de facto would save countless numbers of people and allowing for children who left the US to drop their status upon taking up another citizenship with the proviso that they can reinstate by choice as adults would save countless more.
This falls under immigration and for those still inclined to badger US reps, my my feeling is it is better to go after those things that mark us rather than FACTA. FACTA is a fight we should take to our home govts, who have screwed us by bending over.
Personally, I am checking out. Filing the last forms. Maybe getting the CLN and maybe not. I am somewhat beyond caring right now. I go there so seldom and if I never went again, I would adjust and I say this knowing full well that if the USG went hardcore, I stand to lose inheritance and even hard-earned pensions. Whatever. I don’t care anymore.
Beyond that, I am just going to live my life. No one down there cares about my tiny existence. No one is going to hunt me down. They can barely keep track of the ones they have caged at this point and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Well with tax reform needed so badly, the IRS on the verge of collapse, the Constitution trampled on and Americans renouncing in record numbers, something has to reach the tipping point down there. Let’s just hope it doesn’t tip for the worse.
The NDP keeps asking for donations. Tell them what we expect in return.
Via comment on articles, Twitter and other means:
1) Highlight injustices, and develop more effective ways of doing so. Through commenting and engaging I am learning.
2) Grow the Isaac Brock Community
3) Draw more attention to ADCS, legal claim and funding requirements.
4) Help highlight the unfairly narrow definition of double taxation that the US Treasury Department has inserted into tax treaties. The defence team opposing ADCS has been fooled by the language themselves by stating that the Canadian-US Tax Treaty “eliminates double taxation” in their reply to the ADCS claim.
5) Obtain acceptance that US tax compliance is a form of taxation in the resources it requires, time it takes, and potential severe penalties involved, even if no US tax is owed – in and of itself the compliance represents substantial double taxation.
6) Try to get journalists to actually interview those behind FATCA in regards to its consequences for US citizens living abroad.
7) Try to get a significant donor to contribute to ADCS
8) Try to get a significant overseas person to speak out against FATCA, CBT, FBAR such as Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
9) Draw attention to fatcalegalaction and its lawsuit (yet to be launched) against FATCA and FBAR.
10) Encourage RA to launch legal action against CBT. Solomon Yue said if $60K appears for the purpose of getting Bopp to present an opinion on the constitutionality of CBT that he would see to it.
In Australia there has not been one article on FATCA other than the rehashed press releases on it from the US Treasury. I saw one article with some complaints about the costs of complying with GATCA but nothing about FATCA.
11) Try to highlight that Australia by allowing US taxation of the government mandated retirement accounts “superannuation”, by not exempting it from US taxation in the tax treaty, is wrong and in contravention of Australian government policy to encourage residents to save for their retirements. There are lots of other injustices yet I believe this will be the most effective to highlight. Suggest that superannuation and other items such as house, income and investments here shared with Australian spouse and other items should be excluded from US tax for Australian residents in the Australian-US Tax Treaty.
12) Get the Australian Taxation Office to change their website report on Tax Treaties that they prevent double taxation, without any special note for the Australian-US Tax Treaty. Taxation itself is very complex, yet when one tax system is overlaid on another it becomes unfathomable for those without an interest in figuring it all out. The way the ATO website is written is that there is no problem because the tax treaties fix any problem of “double taxation” by preventing it. I have tried to point out to the ATO that what they have on their website is false, misleading, and not in line with ATO stated goals of making the information on the website clear and accurate. No doubt Australian politicians have been fooled by such language as well voting on the treaty as a good believing falsely that it prevents double taxation. We get the website to state something along the lines that if one is also a US citizen or Green Card holder resident in Australia that they may have to file US tax returns (even if they have no US assets and income), potentially face severe fines for not reporting their financial accounts (even on joint financial accounts with an Australian only citizen) to the US government, and must potentially pay substantial double taxation to the US including on superannuation accounts, then I believe this will go a long way in helping present the problem as a problem and not lost is US Treasury Department doublespeak. https://www.ato.gov.au/General/International-tax-agreements/In-detail/Tax-treaties/What-are-tax-treaties-/
13) Try to get Australian journalists to report on the controversies of FATCA, FBAR, and CBT.
No doubt I’ll think of more.
on my “to do” list: fundraise for ADCS in London. events! there is only so much money I can donate through savings, I have to save like stink into pension funds to make up for the money we spent on forenic accountants and laywers (worth it though to get me out). I contribute as much as I can afford to ADCS out of my monthly earned income but the only way I can think of to make “extra” money is to fundraise.
weekends are free. now I just need to think of an event.
@JC
The Civil Liberties Australia wrote a year ago about FATCA – not sure if they could help:
US gobbles up privacy over tax, banking
http://www.cla.asn.au/News/us-gobbles-up-privacy-over-tax-banking/
There was one recent Australian article that I did see on FATCA:
Watch out, the US taxman may be after you
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/watch-out-the-us-taxman-may-be-after-you-20141211-124rs2.html#comments
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@ Crystal London – is that London, England or London, Ontario or other?
LM,
Here is a previous comment from @Crystal London on Brock:
crystal london says
June 13, 2013 at 4:55 pm
Dear IBS friends……..teary eyed over messages of support and understanding.. currently interested in expressions of interest to organise a UK/EU “mirror”.replica of the IBS Canada “traumatised by FATCA” conference this coming weekend…….especially relevant as the FATCA FFI “portal to Mordor” [to quote Stephen Mospick] opens in a few weeks @ early July 2013…FFI friendly list published 1st Dec. remember. we love USA ,, Thomas Paine, US constitution etc. and TOTALLY SUPPORT the principles of tax justice and fairness (ping: I live in a country with 20% VAT, 40% higher rate income tax+12.5% National Insur AND , 60% tax duty on petrol) … We. are. not. tax. evaders.or.dodgers. in.spite. of .US. media. presentations….
@ Stephen, thanks for the clarification. And can you share with us what you might do more of or less of or differently in 2015? I’m sure we all would appreciate your outstanding on-the-forefront perspective and suggestions as to what more/less/differently we could be doing… 🙂
One way to have it all addressed would be for Treasury or Executive to revise the definition of “US person” to mean what it should mean—someone residing inside the United States of America.
Mark,
Surely Treasury who brought to the world *intergovernmental agreements* without authority of Congress could revise the definition of *US Person* just as readily to *someone residing inside the United States of America*!
@Mark Twain
*someone residing inside the United States of America*
So all immigrants gets chucked under the truck? People forget the immigrants…. they have 1 foot in the US & 1 foot in their home country…. they pay taxes in each country for things in each country but we never knew as a US immigrant… we were suppose to pay the US everything from our home country or other countries we lived in…. family home that was handed down…. retirement schemes… etc… We are also joint holders on accounts with family as a mean of inheritance…. We are expected to pay & be fined like crazy when we were never told all of this when they welcomed us to the US… we are US persons who had no clue that a US citizen means immigrants, we thought we were legal guests… we are truly the group with no vote nor representation… just in case u ask… I have no desire ever to become a US citizen
You are correct, US_Foreign_Person. The immigrants inside the borders of the USA need to be kept in mind — and perhaps should fall under another definition or human rights law. It could start with absolute FULL DISCLOSURE on all consequences as well as the rights of US citizenship or a green card for those looking for the elusive American Dream.
@LM, I have no “outstanding” perspective and my general answer is to continue to do more of the same along the lines of what has been suggested above. It’s pretty amazing what this website, donors and Plaintiffs have already accomplished.
Here’s my own short and ambitious “to do list” for 2015:
— Raise more funds to keep the Canadian lawsuit going.
— Without compromising the Canadian lawsuit, raise a lot more funds to initiate lawsuits in the United States aimed at dismantling citizenship-based taxation and those citizenship/IRS regulations that make it impossible for many to renounce U.S. citizenship and associated IRS “obligations”.
—Convince more U.S. people overseas to go to the Republicans Overseas (RO) FB site and express their viewpoint on the timing of introducing residence-based taxation legislation. At present RO wants to hold off until 2017 and, based on the small number of people complaining, most U.S. people abroad seem to be ok with this. The Republicans are our only hope for RBT legislation.
— Devise no-cost (on our side) approaches to make FATCA enforcement more difficult.
What would I do differently?
— I wish I could have figured out a way in which we could fund the lawsuit without having to ask pensioners like @EmBee for donations. I still don’t know the answer.
@ Mark Twain (RE One way to have it all addressed would be for Treasury or Executive to revise the definition of “US person” to mean what it should mean—someone residing inside the United States of America.)
Can you think of a way to move towards making that happen?
US_Foreign_Person,
Immigrants to the US are indeed being victimized too, which is why I think that the first step should be inserting our issues into the coming immigration debate in Congress.
And it is coming. Soon.
Neutering CBT via a revised immigration act is the real first step to killing it.
@ Stephen
You, like the rest of us, may not know the answer. But we very much appreciate your efforts, observations and ideas. For 2015, I wish you (and all other active Brockers) good heart, continuing strength of character and passion.
@JC
I totally agree, there is a long road ahead. But I firmly believe that this travesty of justice won’t survive too long when exposed to the light of day. It’s encouraging to see some articles and chatter starting to surface, but I’m not sure that even a majority of the intended victims are even aware of their peril yet. Sadly, I think the body count is going to have to rise substantially, with victims being paraded on Today Tonight or the 7:30 report before we get the recognition we require. Until that time, it’s a little too easy to dismiss us as alarmists or conspiracy theorists. When I attempt to inform people of what is going on, I often get this look of sympathy usually reserved for those who have started to lose their grasp of reality.
Anyhow, I guess my first move will be to write a letter to my local member, who is also the deputy PM, and inform him that the U.S. government is intending to remove a few billion from the Australian economy while giving nothing in return. He will, of course, think I’m a nutter, but maybe some of it will stick in his head for future reference as this evil unfolds. It has taken me a lifetime to perfect the art of being irresponsible, but I’m willing to overlook that whenever possible, in order to help on this quest for justice. I’m not fit for any sort of command on this operation, but if you require foot soldiers, I’m in.
@YogaGirl
Something has to be done… I have warned everyone I have come into contact with… do not go to the US… alot of the people I know are big earners who are into internet/database security… they are now heading elsewhere…. the US has gotten a reputation as land of the free until u are legal then its home of the slaves… no one wants to deal with the US tax issues… when u are a residence in another country… when u leave… they don’t hound u to the ends of the earth
@ Stephen Kish
Pensioners often have the most to lose so making ADCS donations is most appropriate for us.
@ Embee –
In relation to you comment about pensioners, I wonder if now that we are in 2015 and FATCA is moving ahead, if publications like CARP might be more receptive to running an article.