Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 75 Comments

Note: Updated June 12/15 – Now includes Part 2 – Vatican II

Part 1 – Initial impressions

This extreme distortion of reality leads to one of two conclusions:

1. The Vatican clearly does NOT understand what FATCA is actually about.

2. The Vatican has moral standards that are equivalent to those of the Obama administration.

Regardless of what you think of the Vatican, it’s unlikely that any person or country could have standards of morality that are equivalent to those demonstrated by the U.S. Government.

Therefore, we must assume that the Vatican signed the agreement out of ignorance. This also provides an opportunity to provide education, where it is sorely needed. I suggest that a Americans abroad should create a “coalition of the willing” to provide the appropriate education. All you need do is read this extraordinary news release from @CNALive and you will see what I mean.

In the first accord of its kind between the U.S. and the Holy See, the two States agreed to share tax information per the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). One high-ranking Vatican official said that with the agreement, the friendships and cooperation between the two has reached “an even higher level.”

“Signing the present agreement is thus a further step in the Holy See’s long-term strategy to ensure and promote legality, transparency and ethical behavior in the economic and financial fields,” said the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

According to a June 10 joint press release, the archbishop spoke of the Holy See’s commitment over the past five years to promote “transparency and legality in the financial sector,” all the while keeping man’s economic and social life in sight.

The prelate made these remarks to U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Kenneth F. Hackett, with whom he signed the agreement on Wednesday.

The aim of the measure is to improve international tax compliance and the exchange of tax information between the Holy See and the U.S.

“Every person has in fact the duty to contribute, in charity and justice, to the common good, according to his own abilities and the needs of others, by promoting and assisting the public institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

As part of the agreement, the Holy See will be required to report the fiscal activities of American citizens who have Vatican bank accounts to the U.S. Treasury.

FATCA is a 2010 U.S. Federal law which requires American citizens living abroad to report their assets yearly to the U.S. Treasury department.

“We welcome the Holy See’s commitment to intensifying our cooperation to promote global financial transparency through improving international tax compliance,” said Ambassador Hackett at the signing ceremony.

The. U.S. is the 63rd country to enter into such an agreement with the Holy See.

The agreement comes amid widespread curial reforms being pushed forward by Pope Francis. In 2014, the pontiff called for the establishment of the Secretariat for the Economy, a dicastery which oversees financial activities throughout the Vatican and the Holy See.

 

Part 2 – Vatican II (Added June 12/15)

The above tweet references my comment about the consequence about the legality of the U.S. Vatican FATCA IGA.

 

@All

I am going to include the following comment in an update to the post. In my haste, I overlooked an extremely important aspect of this – sometimes the obvious is the hardest to see. Let’s call this addition to this post, which is about the Vatican:

Vatican II

As you are aware, the FATCA legislation provides NO authority for the U.S. Treasury to enter into Intergovernmental Agreements (the IGAs). Professor Allison Christians, Jim Jatras, Congressman Bill Posey and others have repeatedly made this point. What Treasury appears to have done, is to “add on” to or “extend” EXISTING tax treaties, to include what eventually becomes the FATCA IGA.

My understanding has always been that:

If a country doesn’t have a pre-existing tax treaty or tax sharing agreement then no FATCA IGA is possible. This allows Treasury to claim that they are NOT entering into a new treaty without statutory authority, but rather that they are simply extending a pre-existing authority.

Now, with this background, lets compare the Canadian FATCA IGA with the Vatican FATCA IGA.

You will note that in the preamble of the Canada FATCA IGA it says:

Whereas, Article XXVII of the Convention Between the United States and Canada with Respect to Taxes
on Income and on Capital done at Washington on September 26, 1980, as amended by the Protocols done on June 14, 1983, March 28, 1984, March 17, 1995, July 29, 1997, and September 21, 2007 (the “Convention”) authorizes the exchange of information for tax purposes, including on an automatic basis;

You will note that the Vatican FATCA IGA contains no such provision – presumably because the U.S. has no comparable treaty with the Vatican (assuming that I am correct on this).

The effect of there being on comparable pre-existing treaty with the Vatican is that there is absolutely NO U.S. statutory authority for the Vatican FATCA IGA. (If I am wrong in this, then please explain why.)

The Vatican FATCA IGA is a public relations gesture to suggest that FATCA is truly the will of God

Assuming the correctness of this reasoning, then the Vatican FATCA IGA is nothing more than a symbolic measure. It exists only so that the Treasury can claim that even the Pope supports the United States in imposing FATCA on the world. In fact, if the Vatican supports FATCA, then the Obama administration is doing nothing more and nothing less than the work of God. FATCA is God’s will. Those who oppose FATCA are opposing the will of God.

That’s the only significance of this “so called” called agreement with the Vatican which Treasury has entered into with no statutory authority.

 

75 thoughts on “UPDATED: Holy See acknowledges subservience of Catholic Church to US Government – signs #FATCA IGA”

  1. What I do NOT understand is how could anyone sign an agreement that they do NOT understand. I would assume Pope Francis has teams of advisors that could have easily found information regarding this abomination called FATCA. I would think a 30% penalty for errors is right off the top, clearly stated, extortion.

    If anyone on this planet has a moral imperative to take a stance on this it is Pope Francis. What is he afraid of?

    Note to Pope: JC would have the courage to do the right thing here. Please find your courage.

  2. Laura Wilson is hanging out there alone in the comments section sounding like a lone crazy person. PLEASE join her! You can comment with FB or twitter. (Seeing many comment sections will allow commenting only by either of these two vehicles setting up a FB account under an assumed name and asking a few Brockers to be your friends is no different than commenting here. If they want you they are going to find you.)

  3. @ Charl
    Sometimes one lone voice of reason is enough … especially when it is that well written. I vowed many years ago to never get involved with FB and Twitter. It’s mostly an energy thing — don’t have enough to keep up there. I also vowed to donate my pension to ADCS for a year. I’ve kept my vows but I wonder what vows the Pope made, to whom and how well is he keeping his. I wonder if he said, “By the way God, if the USA ever wants to punish its own citizens I vow to do my best to help.” So I can’t help with a comment there (I’d be inflammatory anyway) but if anyone else can please do!

  4. Ok Charl, here you go….

    While all citizens should pay their taxes, the fact is that FATCA is not at all about tax. Most countries clearly do not understand what they are signing. This is due to the fact that the U.S practices citizenship-based taxation (CBT). Most countries practice a residence-based system with some applying a territorial-based system. The law was meant to apply to resident Americans who are evading tax via foreign bank accounts. Unfortunately, Americans abroad have been caught in this net as they naturally have “foreign accounts.” It is utterly reprehensible that the Treasury Department is completely aware of this and has taken few steps to offer real relief to those abroad who are not tax-cheats or traitors. From 2009 – 2012, the US engaged in a vicious set of programs and actions that cost people their retirement savings; all the while having done no notification of any kind to indicate they would now enforce programs no one knew anything about. The fact that the majority of persons abroad are tax-compliant and law abiding where they live, counts for nothing in the eyes of the Americans.
    I am one who had to renounce my citizenship due to this outrageous situation due to the fact I am married to an “alien” (Canadian). The US demands all of his personal financial information be communicated to the IRS simply because my name is on his accounts. It does not matter to them that this is Canadian-earned money. If we sold our house, the US would demand capital gains tax which amounts to a direct drain of funds from the Canadian economy. This is clearly wrong. And is by no means the only example of how the US engages in immoral procedures by using its citizens as chattel.
    My mother and father married in 1954. At that time, it was necessary for my parents to obtain special dispensation from the bishop as my father was not Catholic. He was a good and deeply moral man, though he never chose to change his faith. Imagine if the Protestant Church demanded that my mother choose between complete acceptance of their tenets (which would have included non-recognition of the supremacy of the Pope) or her Catholic faith. Would she have been excommunicated if she chose her husband? Would the Catholic Church not recognize the impossible position imposed upon her?
    This is very similar to the position many Americans abroad find themselves in and it is completely repugnant. Please Pope Francis, look at what is really happening here and use your influence to put a stop to this.

  5. Isn’t there an international law covering the principal of dominent citizenship in the case of individuals with more than one citizenship?

    The idea being that one citizenship is considered to be dominent at any one time.

    And isn’t this one of the laws that the Obama administration cited when having to defend their decision to assassinate that Yemeni American bloke with a drone strike in the Yemen? The idea being that since his Yemeni citizenship was dominent, that he did not have the protection of the US constitution.

    What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

    So why can’t we simply say that our non American citizenship is dominent and therefore the IRS has to consider us non us nationals for tax purposes?

  6. @Tricia
    Thank you. Now poor Laura feels better.

    But what would make her feel even better is the US penalizing the Catholic Church 30% for not discriminating against and financially destroying an entire group of people…..they would certainly have to answer to JC for that one! This would make a perfect test case to bring this mess out in the open. Unfortunately the sum total of Americans living in the Vatican City may be minuscule.

  8. @All:
    Things are not as they seem. The Vatican intends to publish an Encyclical later this year. Meaning that it is an edict to all Catholics worldwide that they must embrace that Global Warming is REAL and get on board worldwide to eliminate it.Among other edicts that apparently will be in the Encyclical
    ( NO matter how much it costs or how ruinous these false efforts are to countries worldwide) Except China who refuse any and all calls to end Global Warming with over 60 coal fired plants coming online per month.
    You can make of that what you will.
    It IS well known that the US, UN and the Vatican are working together to bring a NWO into fruition. An ironclad law that will enslave all countries worldwide into THEIR idea of world order.
    The assault is on all fronts. Financial with FATCA, OECD, GATCA, et al. AS well as TPP and the Atlantic EU equivalent
    Wondering why the Pope is on board with this is akin to wondering why Canada is on board with TPP , which, if signed, will ensure the end of Canada as a sovereign nation.
    Never mind the untold damage FATCA is already doing to kill sovereignty in Canada.
    The 7 million American expats worldwide has been updated to be 8.7 million worldwide.
    As for FATCA’s impact anywhere, it must be realized that of those 8.7 million people they have connections in their countries of residence. Husbands, Wives, Children, Brothers, Sisters, etc. Corporate connections.
    When we say the estimate in Canada is about a million , it seems that is a gross understatement of the number of people in Canada directly and indirectly hurt by these evil regulations. Even if you double the number it is not adequate to realize the harm that is being done and will be done.
    The Vatican notice puts US on notice that the powers that be INTEND to take this worldwide and the vehicle they will use will be varied and subversive in order to kill individual rights and sovereignty worldwide.
    Canada has vast resources and our land mass is large, yet our population is small in comparison. Yet this country along with the even smaller Liechtenstein are the ONLY countries who have mounted a challenge!
    The US believe they have FATCA successfully implemented and from there they will move to OECD. In the meantime, TPP will ENSURE the sovereignty of OUR COURTS will be overridden in favour of Corporations and their profit margin with NO recourse for the people of Canada or any other nation under the auspices of this abhorrent “trade agreement” Courts can and will be challenged as to their jurisdiction and a tribunal of lawyers will make decisions that affect everyone in the country with NO recourse whatsoever!
    Why is Canada on board with this? Why is the US Congress so anxious to put the authority through for Obama to sign quickly the TPP.
    While you are all asking yourselves these very pertinent and important questions, write a cheque or put some cash in the mail for our lawsuit.
    ADCS ensures we at least get a voice before a court ( with our own government fighting us with our money every step of the way) earlier than anyone else! And perhaps in time to thwart some of this madness that has taken hold worldwide.

  9. @EmBee Indeed I am talking about the big guy! I learned early in life from an Italian Catholic mother (that is truly scary), when all else fails you pull out the Italian Catholic guilt trip. It CANNOT be argued against, no room for debate and my mother elevated it to an art form. I’m just trying to remember her lines.

  10. @ FuriousAC
    Once again my head is bobbing up and down … yes, yes, you really get it. Some say it takes an awakening of 10% to change the course of tyranny and one estimate I’ve heard recently is that we are at 8%. This is close but not close enough and TPTB have gone into overdrive the past few years. And there came forth a decree from the Lords of the GWA and the Pope that all the world should be carbon taxed … and nobody realized that you can’t edict the climate.

  13. I remember ADCS once got a donation from someone at the Vatican. Obviously it wasn’t Pope Francis.

  14. Contrast what has happened with this news/commentary re/published? in Catholic Online in 2013:
    LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online)

    ‘Want to irritate people to the point where they want to leave the United States and live abroad? Voila! The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA is forcing millions of Americans living abroad to reconsider their U.S. citizenship.’

    ……” Attorney Colleen Graffy makes her displeasure clear in the latest issue of the Wall Street Journal.
    “……”A particularly alarming aspect of FATCA is that it seeks to co-opt foreign banks as long-arm enforcement agencies of the Internal Revenue Service-even when it might contravene that country’s own privacy or data-protection laws. If financial institutions don’t report U.S. citizens holding accounts with them, these institutions face a 30% withholding tax on securities transactions that originate in the U.S.” Graffy writes.

    Henceforth, it is simply easier and more attractive for Americans abroad to simply renounce their U.S. citizenship. “Given this threat, why allow an American, or even suspected American, to bank with you? The reporting costs, and the consequences of a mistake, are too onerous.”

    The scenario, Graffy says, now living and working in London, is grim. “Foreign financial institutions trying to avoid these new requirements have two alternatives: to drop American clients, or don’t invest in the U.S. Neither scenario benefits America.” ”

    http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=51770
    By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)

    Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

    7/18/2013 (1 year ago)

    Published in U.S.

  15. How is participating in an agreement with the US that is assisting it to actively discriminate against those deemed UStaxablepersons/citizens ‘abroad’ in line with the values the Vatican espouses? How is assisting (in any way) the US to tax and penalize the legal local education savings of children and the disability benefits and savings of minors and adults with disabilities in line with those values? How is forcing married couples to consider divorce in order to safeguard family accounts from the US FBAR ‘n FATCA fundraiser when one is a US taxable person and the other is not in accordance with Vatican values?

  16. As God is omnipresent, He has always been resident in the United States, thereby meeting the IRS definition of a “U.S. Person”. Seriously, at this point in the FATCA saga, anything is possible with the IRS…

  17. What else is there to say – when the US government can literally move Heaven and Earth under threat of 30% sanction. The World has completely rolled over to the US demands. Hard to believe but we saw it right before all of our collective eyes.

  18. Part of the why, thinking this is *the way*, AGAIN signing an IGA not aware of the deep collateral damage of some of the Church’s *US Person* followers resident in that part of this big world?

    …and illuminates the extraordinary challenges facing Pope Francis as he tries to reform the powerful Vatican bureaucracy, root out corruption, and chart a new course for the troubled Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/religion/secrets-of-the-vatican/pope-francis-appoints-new-watchdog-for-vatican-finances/

    (Part of PBS Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secrets-of-the-vatican/)

  20. This IGA doesn’t surprise me in the least. What better partner than the Catholic Church to offer advice on managing an Inquisition?

  21. Who is the author of this article – hiding behind the title uscitizenabroad – gaining exposure on the Issac Brock Society website? His heavily-partisan disingenuous opinions are obnoxious to me.

  22. Who is the author of this article – hiding behind the title uscitizenabroad – gaining exposure on the Issac Brock Society website? His heavily-partisan disingenuous opinions are obnoxious to me.

    Partisan toward what? I see nothing “partisan” in this or any other of his articles, other than partisanship toward American citizens living outside the USA.

    And if someone is “hiding behind a title”, then how is he “gaining exposure”?

    Your comments make no sense. Perhaps you should add to the discussion at hand, regarding the Vatican and FATCA.

  23. @US_Foreign_Person, re:
    “It IS well known that the US, UN and the Vatican are working together to bring a NWO into fruition. An ironclad law that will enslave all countries worldwide into THEIR idea of world order.
    The assault is on all fronts. Financial with FATCA, OECD, GATCA, et al. AS well as TPP and the Atlantic EU equivalent. Wondering why the Pope is on board with this is akin to wondering why Canada is on board with TPP , which, if signed, will ensure the end of Canada as a sovereign nation.”

    And Harper, with his psychopathic bent (check out the link below) is particularly well suited for his unconscionable role in establishment of the NWO, as “all leaders of all governments around the world are mere puppets on display, the front stage actors in a grand global chess game. They serve the purpose of distracting regular people from the real controllers, those behind the scenes who pull the strings of war, suffering opposition, and discontent.”
    http://www.sott.net/article/227547-Psychopathology-in-Canadian-Politics-Stephen-Harpers-Ruthless-Drive-for-Power

  24. @US_Foreign_Person, again, with regard to your words I referenced above, I wonder if this has anything to do with why it is taking so long to receive a response to the UN submission from a group of Brockers.

  25. The Vatican has been trying to clean up its bank and bring it into compliance with modern standards of anti-laundering and greater transparency etc. So this may be a part of that push to fix their bank’s image of being a constant source of scandal and fraud.

    I would guess that they don’t fully understand the issues involved with citizenship because it’s not your typical state – there are not that many people who are citizens of the Vatican and those that are most likely not married either.

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