http://www.repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&idsubmenu=156&title=repealfatcacom-alert
Stop ‘Backdoor’ Authority for FATCA and OECD Reciprocity!
This is a RepealFATCA.com Alert! Contact your Representative NOW and tell him or her that the House of Representatives must —
- NOT accept Sec. 603 of the Senate-passed version of H.R. 1295 (“Trade Preferences Extension Act”) and
- MUST insist that the Senate recede to the House and DROP Sec. 603 in Conference.
As described in a letter in opposition to Sec. 603 from the financial industry, the Senate language would “change current law to require banks, credit unions and broker/dealers to report to the Internal Revenue Service and our customers on all interest bearing as well as non-interest bearing accounts.”
Even more dangerously, it would do so by what appears to be a new grant of regulatory authority to the Treasury Department:
“SEC. 6049A. RETURNS REGARDING NON-INTEREST BEARING DEPOSITS.
“(a) Requirement Of Reporting.—Every person who holds a reportable deposit during any calendar year shall make a return according to the forms or regulations prescribed by the Secretary, setting forth the name and address of the person for whom such deposit was held.
Even if not intended by Congress, the danger is that any new statutory authority by could be used (or abused) by Treasury to promulgate new regulations on domestic institutions as promised to foreign governments under unauthorized, non-treaty FATCA “intergovernmental agreements” and the OECD’s insidious “Automatic Exchange of Information” scheme, a/k/a global FATCA or “GATCA.”
ACTION ITEM: Right now, go to this link, find your Representative, and write a short email stating:
Dear [Name]:
I am opposed to Sec. 603 of the Senate-passed version of H.R. 1295 (“Trade Preferences Extension Act”), which would open the door to indiscriminate fishing of private financial information and providing it to foreign governments! Please ensure that this odious section is not approved by the House and is dropped from the final bill.
Let’s get this done!
James George Jatras
@Furious_AC, an interesting and scary article…scarier than any FATCA or GATCA article I’ve ever read. However, I find that if you are not at the right blog, even if the topic is important, no one cares.
@WhiteKat:
Canada Free Press is a well respected website and Doug Hagmann is a well respected investigator of many years standing. I am not aware of it being a blog, so to speak.
And you are right about anybody caring depending on where you are on the Net. Yet there are many thousands around the world who DO care about this. Several articles just today about the grassroots push back both in the US and the UK and Europe seems to be making a difference. Not too sure how much of a difference but it might be an indication that in less than a day the Repub House went from “we have the votes to pass the TPA” giving Obama the right to close the deal on the TPP to “the whole thing is falling apart”. Will remain to be seen of course, but that is a glimmer of hope. And it appears the pressure is building with the phone lines being burned up to Washington Reps offices.
The House rules committee is meeting on HR 1295 at 3:00PM today in DC.
http://rules.house.gov/news/announcement/meeting-announcement-senate-amendments-hr-644-senate-amendments-hr-1295-and-senate
Chairman Ryan of W&M intends to make an amendment to the Senate version striking out Section 603(IRS reporting) before the Rules committee
http://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules.house.gov/files/114/PDF/114-SAHR1295-Summ.pdf
@All
I have just heard back from someone with one of the financial industry associations opposing Sec. 603, whom I had asked about likelihood of success in striking the provision in Rules today. He replied:
“We hear that it is looking very positive.”
Fingers crossed! If this succeeds, we’ll really have dodged a bullet on IGA reciprocity.
If this does NOT go through will the US be deemed to have backed out of the IGA agreements?
@Charl
No. Not technically, anyway. The IGAs commit the US (really, the Treasury Dept) to make efforts to achieve legislation to provide for reciprocity. I’m not sure anybody really had the IGAs in mind when they tried to slip this in.
@All
Also keep in mind: *if* we succeed in excising Sec. 603 now in the House, we *still* have to keep on top of the conferees to make sure the House position prevails in Conference and the Senate agrees to drop its provision. We ain’t outta the woods yet, boys and girls.
If only Canada and Mexico would have had more balls and threatened similar sanctions, FATCA might have gone away, or at least carved out to only report on non-residents, like it should have been in the first place.
Canada value more its poultry than Canadians with US taint. Sad.
U.S. lawmakers vote to scrap meat labeling laws
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/11/usa-meat-idUSL1N0YX03N20150611
http://www.cuinsight.com/press-release/house-rules-committee-considers-nafcu-sought-1099-fix-in-vote-slated-for-today#sthash.jqOCc0QW.dpuf
National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt issued the following statement in response to reports that the House Rules Committee today will consider a manager’s amendment to trade legislation that would leave current interest reporting on IRS Form 1099 unchanged but increase penalties for noncompliance. The full trade package is slated for action Friday. “We appreciate the House leadership heeding the serious concerns we expressed regarding this onerous amendment,” said Hunt. “Removing this troublesome measure is a common-sense solution that will help avoid greater regulatory burden on credit unions.”
Please re-post and distribute widely!
Let’s Get Republican Presidential Candidates On the Record for FATCA Repeal!
Source: http://www.repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&idsubmenu=159&title=lets-get-republican-presidential-candidates-uon-the-recordu-for-fatca-repeal
RepealFATCA.com has asked each declared candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination to endorse the 2014 and 2015 Resolutions by the Republican National Committee (RNC) calling for repeal of the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA), and opposing “global FATCA” (a/k/a “GATCA”)!
The full text of the RepealFATCA.com “STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS” can be found here, with the requested endorsement, as follows:
As a candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination for President of the United States, I HEREBY STATE THE FOLLOWING:
I endorse the 2014 and 2015 Resolutions of the Republican National Committee calling for FATCA’s repeal and for the other measures described in such Resolutions to mitigate the damage caused by FATCA pending its repeal; as president I will use my constitutional authority in accordance with such Resolutions.
The RepealFATCA.com request letter to candidates can be found here. As of June 11, 2015, the RepealFATCA.com request has been sent via their public campaign sites to the following candidates, listed here by date of declaration:
Mark Everson (announced March 5, 2015)
Ted Cruz (announced March 23, 2015)
Rand Paul (announced April 7, 2015)
Marco Rubio (announced April 13, 2015)
Ben Carson (announced May 4, 2015)
Carly Fiorina (announced May 4, 2015)
Mike Huckabee (announced May 5, 2015)
Rick Santorum (announced May 27, 2015)
George Pataki (announced May 28, 2015)
Lindsey Graham (announced June 1, 2015)
Rick Perry (announced June 4, 2015)
This list will be kept updated as further candidates declare and as RepealFATCA.com receives word that candidates have endorsed – or rejected – the statement in support of the RNC Resolutions.
You can help! Contact the candidates via their websites, or if you have any personal ties with any of the candidates or his or her staff, donors, or key supporters, please get in touch with them and request:
“Please endorse the RepealFATCA.com “STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS”!
And please help get the word out and fight FATCA by making a contribution to RepealFATCA.com at the “Contribute” button!
James George Jatras
Editor, RepealFATCA.com
202 375-1007
++++++++++++++++
Below please find the texts of the request letter to candidates followed by the statement endorsing the RNC Resolutions:
Request for your endorsement of FATCA repeal in support of 2014 and 2015 RNC Resolutions
Dear Candidate for the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination:
In 2014 the Republican National Committee (RNC) unanimously adopted a Resolution advocating repeal of the so-called “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA). Enacted by a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2010 and signed by President Barack Obama, FATCA has been called “the worst law most Americans have never heard of.”
Supposedly aimed at catching “fat cat” tax cheats who hide their money abroad, FATCA (along with the Treasury Department’s and the IRS’s legally deficient tactics to enforce it via unauthorized “intergovernmental agreements”) instead is indiscriminately violating Americans’ constitutional protections, such as privacy, probable cause, due process, presumption of innocence, and no excessive punishment; circumventing the Senate’s constitutional authority to give or withhold its advice and consent to the ratification of treaties; punishing Americans who work abroad bringing business to the U.S.; and driving foreign investment from the U.S.
Tax evasion at home or abroad is a valid concern, but FATCA is the wrong way to address it. Even the Obama IRS’s own in-house Taxpayer Advocate Service reported to Congress in 2013 that “FATCA-related costs equal or exceed projected FATCA revenue.”
In 2015, the RNC adopted another Resolution opposing “global FATCA,” or “GATCA,” a malign offshoot of FATCA through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). GATCA would saddle American businesses with billions of dollars in invasive reporting mandates to foreign governments, with costs passed on to American consumers and taxpayers.
The full text of the RepealFATCA.com “STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS,” follows below, or can be found here. Please endorse the 2014 and 2015 RNC Resolutions, as follows:
As a candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination for President of the United States, I HEREBY STATE THE FOLLOWING:
I endorse the 2014 and 2015 Resolutions of the Republican National Committee calling for FATCA’s repeal and for the other measures described in such Resolutions to mitigate the damage caused by FATCA pending its repeal; as president I will use my constitutional authority in accordance with such Resolutions.
I am happy to provide any information and answer any questions, at repealfatca@gmail.com or 202 375-1007. Thank you for your help in getting rid of this counterproductive and insidious Obama initiative.
With respect,
James George Jatras
Editor, RepealFATCA.com
The full text of the RepealFATCA.com “STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS,” follows:
STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND
AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS
WHEREAS, in March 2010 a Democrat-controlled Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) without stand-alone floor debate or amendment in either the Senate or the House of Representatives and without a cost/benefit study;
WHEREAS, FATCA requires foreign financial institutions to enter into an agreement with the IRS to identify their U.S. account holders and to disclose the account holders’ names, taxpayer identifications, addresses, and the accounts’ balances, receipts, and withdrawals (very often in violation of foreign privacy laws) without probable cause or any evidence of wrongdoing;
WHEREAS, FATCA’s primary mechanism for enforcing compliance by foreign financial institutions is a punitive withholding levy on U.S.-sourced payments, which creates a strong incentive for foreign financial institutions to divest (or not invest) in U.S. assets, resulting in capital flight that hurts the U.S. economy and costs American jobs;
WHEREAS, FATCA not only violates Constitutional protections, such as privacy, probable cause, due process, presumption of innocence, and no excessive punishment of 7.6 million overseas American citizens and 12.6 million foreign nationals with legal U.S. resident permits (Green Cards), but also presumes they are all “FAT CAT” tax cheats who need to prove their innocence to the IRS in the name of catching tax evaders;
WHEREAS, FATCA has resulted in Americans who are living and working overseas finding themselves, and their companies, shut out from access to banks, insurance, loans, and investment opportunities, as many foreign financial service providers have concluded that doing business with Americans is simply too much trouble, contributing to the record number of Americans who are renouncing their U.S. citizenship;
WHEREAS, the Obama Administration has scorned the U.S. Senate’s constitutional authority to provide or withhold its advice and consent to the ratification of treaties by the use of non-treaty “intergovernmental agreements” between the Treasury Department and foreign governments for the enforcement of FATCA, which agreements are not authorized in FATCA or any other statute; on the 4th Amendment due to FATCA’s requirement of foreign financial institutions to disclose overseas U.S. account holders’ private financial information without probable cause; and on the 8th Amendment due to FATCA’s punitive 30% withholding penalty for non-compliance;
WHEREAS, FATCA’s worldwide implementation has been assisted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to pave the way for OECD’s global FATCA, known as “GATCA,” and what OECD’s central planners call a new “global standard” of indiscriminate financial abrogation of personal privacy by governments, known as “Automatic Exchange of Information” (AEOI) modeled on FATCA;
WHEREAS, because the Obama Administration supports OECD’s GATCA initiative and there is considerable overlap between FATCA and GATCA, the OECD considers unauthorized FATCA intergovernmental agreements a “catalyst” for its AEOI model, so that as early as 2015 American domestic financial institutions may have to start reporting account data to foreign governments pursuant to per OECD’s “AEOI: Status of Commitments” document as well as under “reciprocal exchange” with governments that have signed unauthorized FATCA intergovernmental agreements;
WHEREAS, the implementation of GATCA, whether under the FATCA intergovernmental agreements or OECD’s AEOI, would trample on the constitutional rights and privacy of 320 million Americans, and impose crushing compliance costs on U.S. domestic financial institutions, which would be passed on to American consumers and taxpayers;
WHEREAS, because FATCA includes not a single provision targeting actual tax evasion activity but relies exclusively on indiscriminate “fishing expedition” data collection, the costs and harm inflicted by FATCA cannot be justified as a legitimate tool for combating offshore tax evasion; in 2013 even the IRS’s own in-house Taxpayer Advocate Service reported to Congress that “FATCA-related costs equal or exceed projected FATCA revenue”; and
WHEREAS, in 2014 the Republican National Committee unanimously adopted a Resolution urging FATCA’s repeal; and in 2015 the Republican National Committee unanimously adopted a Resolution calling for (1) an investigation of the U.S. Treasury’s Department’s authority in implementing GATCA in America under FATCA intergovernmental agreements, (2) cutting FATCA enforcement funding, and specifically withhold all funding for negotiation and implementation of OECD’s Common Reporting Standards in FATCA intergovernmental agreements, and (3) reforming the formula for U.S. representation in the OECD:
As a candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination for President of the United States, I HEREBY STATE THE FOLLOWING:
I endorse the 2014 and 2015 Resolutions of the Republican National Committee calling for FATCA’s repeal and for the other measures described in such Resolutions to mitigate the damage caused by FATCA pending its repeal; as president I will use my constitutional authority in accordance with such Resolutions.
Signature and date: ________________________________________________________
Jim Jatras: Have just read your powerful “STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF FATCA REPEAL AND AGAINST UNAUTHORIZED INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS”. What a litany of disasters wrought by the current Democratic administration in one single, thoughtless legislative package called FATCA! You should have all eleven candidates signed up by the end of the day!
Just to provide an update.
As of yesterday the offending IRS provisions(Section 603) of the Trade Preferences Act have been removed. The bill now goes back to the Senate where the House amendments(removing IRS reporting) are “expected” to be accepted. More information will become available over the weekend and into next week. However, at this point it looks like our efforts were SUCESSFUL.
Thanks so much for the update, Tim — and you and James Jatras alerting us to it. Proof that we can NEVER let our guard down.
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