Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 440 Comments

UPDATE: JUNE 14, 2015

from JakDak:

http://blogs.rollcall.com/topic-a-tax-finance/tax-reform-moves-to-back-burner-but-debate-remains-active/

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), has established working groups to study different aspects of the tax system. These working groups are scheduled to report back to the committee by June 26.

http://www.mwcllc.com/updates/articles/2015/6/tax-policy-update-june-9-2015.aspx#Comprehensive_Tax_Reform

Tax Policy Update
June 09, 2015

[Interesting: NUMBER OF THE WEEK: 61. The number of countries that have signed on to implement the OECD’s multilateral agreement for the automatic exchange of tax information, in conjunction with the ongoing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. Although the U.S. has committed to implement the standard, it has not yet signed onto the formal agreement (the “multilateral competent authority agreement”), which lays out in detail what information will be exchanged, the timing and method of exchange, and how signatories will work together to ensure compliance. Signatories to the agreement will begin exchanging information as early as 2017. Additionally, the OECD released on June 8 its “Country-by-Country Reporting Implementation Package” developed under the BEPS Action Plan. Under the plan, which the Treasury Department has said it will implement for the 2016 fiscal year, multinational companies are required to aggregate and report information annually regarding where they do business, the global allocation of income, and amount of taxes paid, along with other information that will allow taxing authorities to more closely examine multinationals’ tax practices. The release of the package coincides with the 2015 OECD International Tax Conference in Washington, D.C., this week where OECD representatives are expected to review and discuss key initiatives under BEPS.]

SPOILER ALERT: Comprehensive Tax Reform Unlikely in 2015. In an interview last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) outlined a busy legislative agenda between June and August recess: passing a highway bill, cybersecurity legislation, No Child Left Behind, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Tax reform, however, is conspicuously missing from the list. “We’re certainly not going to be able to be doing big, comprehensive tax reform with this president,” McConnell said. Tax reform optimists have been eyeing the highway reauthorization bill as a potential vehicle to move a limited set of tax reform measures, but according to McConnell, the bill might instead be better suited to pick up a different legislative passenger—the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. McConnell believes the highway bill would provide the best opportunity to reauthorize the bank, which is set to expire June 30.

The inability of the Senate Finance Committee Tax Reform Working Groups to meet their original May 31 deadline to report recommendations to Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) only adds to the general pessimism. The international tax working group may offer the only glimmer of hope, with reports that it has made the most progress in hammering out detailed recommendations. The working groups are now aiming to deliver their reports before Congress departs for the July 4th recess.

***************

UPDATE: MAY 25, 2015

Em’s comment to JakDak:

I’m not sure of the where for the SFC recommendations but the when has been delayed:

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/242916-senate-tax-reform-groups-get-more-time

The Senate Finance Committee’s leaders are giving tax reform working groups some more time to formulate their recommendations.

Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), had hoped for recommendations by the end of May.

But in a statement Thursday, the two senators said that the working groups made it clear that they needed extra time to do the job right. The panel will set a new deadline after lawmakers return from next week’s recess.

“It is our hope these bipartisan working groups will use this extended time to finalize their recommendations for tax reform and produce in-depth analyses of options and potential legislative solutions,” Wyden and Hatch said in a statement.

etc.

*************************

Shadow Raider says
April 29, 2015 at 6:39 pm

The Senate Finance Committee just released the comments sent by the public on tax reform. As expected, there are lots of comments about CBT and FATCA.

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/chairman/release/?id=3b14e94b-69f9-41e2-9fd3-7d191971b7ee

 

Hatch, Wyden Release Public Input on Bipartisan Tax Reform

Over 1,400 Submissions Made to Working Groups

WASHINGTON – Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today released over 1,400 submissions from stakeholders on how to best to overhaul the nation’s broken tax code.  In March, the Committee sought input from the public in an effort to provide additional data and information to the Committee’s bipartisan tax working groups, which are currently analyzing existing tax law and examining policy trade-offs and available reform options within each group’s designated area.

“We thank the stakeholders and public who provided us with this valuable data and input,” Hatch and Wyden said. “These submissions have equipped us with the ability to better evaluate how reforming the tax code will affect both American families and business of all kinds.  As our bipartisan groups work towards producing substantive recommendations on how to reform the tax code, they will now be able to consider these valuable ideas.”

All comments received by the Committee that met submission requirements were made public.

Submissions can be found below. Total submissions to each bipartisan tax working groups are as follows:

Individual Income Tax – 448

Business Income Tax – 332

Savings & Investment -128

International Tax – 347

Community Development & Infrastructure – 207

Each of the five bipartisan working groups is currently working to produce findings on current tax policy and legislative recommendations within its area, with the goal of having recommendations from each of the five working groups completed by the end of May.

###

Thanks, Shadow Raider, for alerting all here.  There will be many Brockers reading, starting with the submissions (not all by individuals) to International Tax.

440 thoughts on “Senate Finance Committee posts submissions (and Shadow Raider reports to Brock)”

  1. Newest from Democrats Abroad / 10,000 messages / at least messages getting through and getting attention / One can use this push to send their own suggested solutions

    Dear Democrats Abroad Members,

    We are pleased to report that after 2 days our FATCA grassroots campaign has yielded an excellent response! We asked you to message members of Congress asking them to sign the Congressional letter to the Treasury Secretary and IRS Commissioner in support of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Same Country Safe Harbor reform.

    More than 3,000 of you have participated! Nearly 10,000 messages have been sent to your Representatives and Senators asking them to sign the letter and throw their support behind this common sense reform to provide relief to Americans abroad from the burden of FATCA reporting.

    Please help us send that number soaring towards 20,000 messages! We need your help URGENTLY!

    The sponsors of the letter (Rep Maloney and Rep Mulvaney) anticipate “closing it off” to signatures at the end of this legislative session – that’s the end of this week! We need to demonstrate that there is growing momentum in Congressional support for this reform in order to keep the letter open to more signatures. The more signatures on the letter the louder the call coming from Congress for Treasury and the IRS to act.

    If you have not yet participated, please send your message to your Senators and Representative RIGHT NOW, reminding them about the letter and asking them to sign it.

  2. From Jonathan Lachowitz (WSJ Article)

    Maybe invite him to talks with Tony, Tiffany and Eric and stress the point that it changes nothing on taxes?

    Hi Jak, This would unfortunately change nothing on taxes…different laws different subject matter…All the best, Jonathan

    P.S. happy to try and talk on issues…extra travel for a meeting tough at the moment..

  3. From Jonathan Lachowitz (WSJ Article)

    Maybe invite him to talks with Tony, Tiffany and Eric and stress the point that it changes nothing on taxes?

    Hi Jak, This would unfortunately change nothing on taxes…different laws different subject matter…All the best, Jonathan

    P.S. happy to try and talk on issues…extra travel for a meeting tough at the moment

  5. With respect to the meeting next week, here is suggestion for getting some good input from me:

    AT this link you will find the submissions to the senate finance committee for the International Tax working group.

    http://www.finance.senate.gov/legislation/details/?id=34184f67-5056-a032-52c8-0a4960018d92

    A search can be done on my name; my submission is on April 28th, 2015; I have also attached a .pdf here….

    This paper is reasonably well done (I could have done much better with more time but it at least covers most of the major issues affecting overseas Americans in a way that they generally like to see in D.C.; I think….)….I am of course more than happy to write/talk and give more input to working group to improve their next tax proposal.

    Best Wishes,
    Jonathan

  6. This morning there was a comment on the WSJ site that said there was a post at IB, would just like to set the record straight…

    · 3:38 am July 30, 2015

    · Anonymous wrote:

    From post on The Isaac Brock Society

    Jonathan Lachowitz earns his income filing 1040′s for USPs in CH. It is in his interest to NOT abolish CBT. Otherwise he’d be out of a job. He’s proposing SCE merely to maintain the status quo for himself.

    If you want to try and set the record straight. I am a small business owner; financial planner and investment advisor working with a lot of Americans overseas. Almost none of my income comes from tax work and certainly none from tax filing. I hired someone recently who worked mostly with low income people on tax filing; she is great…but migrating away from that business….I have probably put in 3-4000 hours in the past decade working for Overseas American issues…including being a key contributor to the Americans Abroad RBT proposal….When I have spoken in Washington on the subject I normally say that I am one of the few people who really understand the issues who don’t actually earn any money from it…In addition to ACA work I spend tons of time prop bono with people who are affected by these issues…mostly students, lower income etc…

    With respect to SCE…this will be a minor step…but personally I have no plans to stop fighting for RBT and other improvements for Overseas Americans….My views and tactics on some things may differ with respect to various groups. ….but the goals are largely the same. SCE is a totally different issue to RBT…I am happy IB is there doing what they are; far too many people complain loudly and naively about the issues…far too few actually try to make changes…keep up the fight!

    There are lots of uninformed comments out there…especially people who half understand what they are reading…not sure where this contributor came to such a conclusion about my work; maybe he or she should read my recent submission to the Senate and other writings….no vested interest for me personally, for my clients and friends overseas as the whole OA community in CBT….good riddance if possible…Also; I don’t get paid by the WSJ, I do this for fun…though it is a great platform to raise the profile of issues affecting overseas Americans…and it gets noticed in D.C.

    Best Wishes,
    Jonathan

  7. http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/07/28/fatca-relief-coming-for-u-s-expats-via-same-country-exception-opinion/tab/comments/?sort_order=desc

    I quote Jackie Bugnion of American Citizens Abroad in her submission to the House Ways and Means Committee on Tax Reform. She said:

    “In 1776, the United States declared independence because the mother country on the other side of the ocean was imposing taxes on the colonies for the benefit of England. Resentment started when Britain tried to enforce the Navigation Act after 1763. Resentment increased with the Stamp Act in 1765, a way for Britain to tax the colonies. The British Tea Act of 1773 led to the Tea Party and we all know the outcome – the American Revolution and independence crying out “no taxation without representation”.

  10. 8.7 million strong / Expats and homelanders PLEASE help remember the Revolutionary War ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZzi7N4so4

    ShadowRaider
    Thank you all for your comments, I incorporated many of them in my presentation (updated in the same link). Here is my meeting report.
    After a subway trip and walking in DC, I arrived at the Senate Finance Committee at 4:45pm. I talked to the receptionist and soon Tiffany Smith came in. She is a senior staff member of the committee and the only Democrat in the meeting today. We went to the meeting room, and soon Tony Coughlan came in with Eric Oman and three other staff members, and said something funny like “the Republicans have arrived”. Tony is also a senior staff member and the one who set up the meeting. I had printed five cards with my contact information and websites of these Facebook groups, and distributed the cards to them. I introduced myself, thanked them for the opportunity, opened my laptop and started the presentation.
    Tony Coughlan really liked the map, and said that he thought there were more countries with CBT. I mentioned all the countries that had CBT but abolished it. Then I summarized the problems of CBT (I know that some of you wanted me to cover more aspects, but sorry, I didn’t have time for everything).
    Eric Oman asked what people are doing after being refused banking services due to FATCA. I said that they are either renouncing US citizenship, or finding a bank that will serve them with only checking and savings but without investments. Tony turned to Tiffany and told her that even Democrats are contacting them and saying how desperate they are with FATCA. Tiffany said that she also met Americans abroad, including a woman from Canada who was afraid of FBAR penalties on her pension. The others asked if she had moved to Canada for retirement, and she clarified that she had been living there for over 20 years. At that point they realized the magnitude of the problem, that we were talking about people who really live permanently in other countries.
    I mentioned that last week Congress changed the due date of the FBAR only to charge penalties on people who won’t know about it. Tiffany and Eric explained that they the goal was to harmonize the due date of various forms with the tax return and to allow extensions, not to charge penalties, and they did think about Americans abroad. I apologized for the precipitated conclusion and if I sounded too harsh. They said that I was fine, but that others who contacted them seemed aggressive (folks, please be polite, these people are trying to help).
    I had downloaded one of the video submissions and offered to show it, but they asked me to send them a link later.
    When I showed the quotes from the committee reports supporting RBT, things got interesting. They seemed kind of surprised that the text was so favorable, and jokingly accused each other of writing it. Tony pulled a written copy of the report, found the section and read it out loud. Then he confirmed that yes, the Republican side of the committee agrees with RBT, and that some Democrats also agree individually. Tiffany didn’t comment.
    I asked if there was any timeline for tax reform, or when they would propose something for individuals and not just corporations. They said that they frankly don’t know, congressmen are the ones who make the decisions. So I asked what we could do for congressmen to see this with a higher priority, but they didn’t really gave an answer. But Tony said that there is a real possibility for international tax reform on its own, perhaps even this year, and that individuals could be included. Again, no promise, but a possibility.
    Eric asked Tiffany if the president’s budget proposal had anything for Americans abroad, and she wasn’t aware. I answered that there was indeed a section, proposing to exempt from the exit tax people who haven’t lived in the US as adults and renounce US citizenship. I also mentioned renunciation and the exit tax a few other times during the meeting, but no one commented.
    At the end, they asked me to send them my files, and we thanked each other. Tony remained for a little longer, we had a brief friendly conversation, and he said that we can keep in touch. I thanked him again and left, around 5:30pm.

  11. I don’t know where to place this announcement, so please forgive the multiple posts.

    At long last I can share with you the Complete Collection of Senate Finance Committee Submissions, available at this website:

    http://fatca.eu.pn

    This is a free hosting site, hence it can be slow to load some of the larger documents.

    I downloaded and curated the entire set of submissions to both the Individual and International Tax Working Groups, saved only those having to do with CBT/FATCA/FBARs, deleted duplicates, and renamed files appropriately (some people used their names to submit either articles or letters from organizations; those files were renamed to reflect the actual content).

    I put this together in a site which enables the viewer to read each and every submission without having to separately download and open each one. This is meant to be more than simply an archive. I’m hoping that others will use this as a resource to help in our fights against US tax tyranny. This is an easy and ergonomic way to encourage others to read through the hundreds of intelligent, heartfelt letters sent to the Senate Finance Committee. Don’t let the effort of all those writers be in vain! Encourage others to read this!

    I thought this would take me a full day to do. Instead it consumed me for the past two weeks. I was moved to tears many times upon reading these heartfelt letters more than once, and moved to tears some more by coding issues. I’m no programmer, but the technical issues I encountered were almost as convoluted and enraging as trying to make sense of US tax forms (I said “almost”). There are still some problems. In some browsers, you have to negotiate several scrollbars, like curtain strings, to read down a page. But I can’t do any more to fix it. If you encounter any problems in viewing this site, or find any problems or broken links, please leave a response in this thread.

    Hope y’all find this useful. Please pass it along.

  12. Barbara,

    Thanks so much for all of your good work. It is good to have these and other important documents archived should we need to refer to them again and find them gone in the original place. We appreciate your efforts and your expertise in being able to accomplish this.

  13. What an incredible amount of work, Barbara, and how incredibly valuable…
    Hats off for your dedication and perseverance – your site looks great (I found, BTW, that it works much better using Firefox than Safari, on Apple – not unusual, but worth noting for other readers…)!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.

%d bloggers like this: