UPDATE: The initial story by Ralph Z. Hallow, chief political writer at The Washington Times, has been revised and greatly expanded at the same previous link:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/24/sen-rand-paul-sue-irs-us-treasury/
This is stop-the-presses news: Rand Paul has joined forces with Jim Bopp, Solomon Yue and Republicans Overseas and will be one of seven plaintiffs in the upcoming lawsuit against the IRS and the US Treasury Department. The suit will be filed by a new composite organization called Republicans Overseas Action.
Some crucial highlights:
Sen. Rand Paul to sue IRS, U.S. Treasury
Rand Paul is poised to become the first major presidential candidate in memory to sue the government he seeks to lead as president.
The Kentucky senator will take legal action against the U.S. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service for what he says is the denial of his constitutional right to vote on more than 100 tax-information treaties that the Obama administration unilaterally negotiated with foreign governments, The Washington Times has learned.
In what the suit says is a violation of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, President Obama has not consulted the U.S. Senate about the treaties nor given the Senate an opportunity to approve or disapprove of the treaties. The administration calls them “intergovernmental agreements.” They require foreign banks to gather and share private financial information about millions of Americans living and working outside the U.S. — information they would not have to disclose to the U.S. government if they lived and worked in the U.S.
The treaties or agreements are the enforcement mechanisms of the Obama administration’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress in 2010.
The act is despised by many of the estimated 8.7 million Americans living overseas, a record number of whom have — with great anger and reluctance, according to those who have spoken to the foreign and U.S. press — renounced their U.S. citizenship rather than attempt to comply with FATCA.
Mr. Paul, a Republican who announced his presidential bid in early April, will join six other plaintiffs in the suit that a new organization called “Republicans Overseas Action” expects to file in a southern Ohio federal district court the week of June 29. The court’s Republican makeup is considered at least open to the constitutional arguments that the plaintiffs lay out.
The other plaintiffs in the suit Mr. Paul has joined say they have been denied banking and financial services in the foreign countries where they live and work. The foreign banks don’t want to be burdened with the expense and paperwork to comply with FATCA and therefore simply refuse to accept Americans as clients.
The Republican National Committee and the recently formed Republican Overseas Action aim to get as many of those Americans living or working outside their country to register in one or another of the swing states that decide the presidency in close elections. Republicans Overseas Action is paying for the lawsuit Mr. Paul has joined as plaintiff.
The driving force behind the suit is a longtime conservative activist on the Republican National Committee, Solomon Yue of Oregon.
“The best way to defend 8.7 million overseas Americans’ right to privacy and constitutional protections is to cripple the IRS, FATCA and enforcement tools through legal action on constitutional grounds all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Mr. Yue, founder and vice chairman of Republicans Overseas Action Inc
For reference, here was our initial coverage today:
A very significant announcement from Rand Paul today, as reported by The Washington Times:
Sen. Rand Paul to sue IRS, U.S. Treasury
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul will sue the U.S. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service for denying his constitutional right to vote on treaties that the Obama administration unilaterally negotiated with dozens of foreign governments, The Washington Times has learned.
The treaties, which the administration calls “intergovernmental agreements,” require foreign banks to gather and share private financial information about millions of Americans living and working outside the U.S. – information they would not have to disclose to the U.S. government if they lived and worked in the U.S.
Photo credit: Associated Press
@Barbara and Foo
Your “wide benefit of the doubt”for Obama and Hillary makes me cringe! Obama signed the FATCA abomination into law, and his man in the Treasury Dept., Jacob Lew, knows full well what FATCA is doing to honest middle-class expats but does nothing, even though damned by his own taxpayer advocate. As for Hillary, where do I begin? Her email scandal…the crooked Clinton Foundation? I’ll never forgive her for telling the families of Benghazi victims that “we’ll get the man who made that video” knowing as she said it that it was a bald-faced lie…spoken just feet away from the coffins of the slain. God help America if they blindly elect this woman to the highest office in the land! It is bad enough that the country has to suffer 18 more months of Obama. Jim Bopp, please activate those super lawyer skills now!
+1 on what Lake Superior Guy said.
@ George
Not that long ago, some would think the following thought was tin foil hat.
Today I honestly believe that FBAR……FATCA is the foundation work for an expat asset tax that they will entitle the Patriotism Affirmation Act (PAA).
A “one off levy” will be passed on assets overseas that the supreme court will determine constitutional on a 5-4 vote.
The IGAs will be amended to require witholding from all US Persons and those that have CLNs.
I know. I would have been thinking it an idea from the tin foil hat wearers myself if not for the passport renewal application of a couple of years ago.
Scary.
@ KV
A year and a half ago, a British National living near me in Japan was required to fill out a questionaire sent by his British broker in Britain. If he answered “yes” to any of the questions on his US personness, he was told that he would have to file various returns to the US. One question was, “Do you work for an American founded company?”. Failure to submit the completed questionnaire by the deadline would have resulted in all of his shares accounts being frozen.
We may be closer to what you fear than you think.
If 8% of a company’s shares are owned by a US-incorporated hedge fund, and 2% of the company’s employees used to have student visas in the US, does that average out to 5%, so the British national would have to answer “5% yes” and file 5% of various returns to the US?
@ Norm
If 8% of a company’s shares are owned by a US-incorporated hedge fund, and 2% of the company’s employees used to have student visas in the US, does that average out to 5%, so the British national would have to answer “5% yes” and file 5% of various returns to the US?
That would depend upon which party they donated funds to.
@Japan T, @Lake Superior Guy,
What can I say, I am a child of the ’60s, raised by hippies, as a left-wing libertarian. The enemy were the statist Republicans, who were always trying to tell us what (and whom) we could put into our bodies — and whom we should kill. I campaigned for McGovern in 2nd grade, and joined the adult parties to celebrate Nixon’s resignation.
My only disappointment with President Carter was his politicizing of the Olympics (boycotting Moscow 1980), which were supposed to be the one international forum above that sort of thing.
My disappointment with President Clinton was his back-tracking on gay rights issues; he promised in the campaign to issue an executive order integrating gays into the military, and instead settled for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, under pressure from the homophobic Collin Powell. He also signed some bill denying Federal recognition of state-recognized same-sex marriages. As a result, while I voted for him the first time, I abstained from voting in his second election.
My disappointment with President Obama was his backtracking on stopping the endless wars that the US likes to get itself into. Again, I voted for him the first time around, but abstained from voting when he came up for re-election.
As for Hillary, I don’t trust her one bit. She’s more of a hawk than anyone else that I can see. Her tasteless gloating when Khaddafi was killed turned me off forever.
Rand Paul, I don’t know. He tickles the libertarian side of me, but grates against the liberal side (anti-abortion in the 21st century? Please.) If he actually supports RBT, and becomes the Republican candidate for President, and I am still a US citizen (due to circumstances beyond my control), I might vote for him. But it will purely be a vote of convenience, not enthusiasm. To be honest, I’ve been burned too many times to be enthusiastic about any politician, anywhere.
@Lake Superior Guy:
It ain’t me giving these Bozos wide benefit of any doubt, but certain American friends and acquaintances who have lived abroad for decades and should know better–they’ve been personally affected by FATCA and FBARs, yet still aren’t mad enough to withdraw support for the ostensibly liberal candidates.
I’ve never trusted Hillary–all ambition and little substance. I believe she would crack down even harder on us criminal tax-avoiding gazillionaire expats than Obama has, to help pay for her new wars against Iran, Russia, China and god-knows-where (as I interpret the excerpts of her saber-rattling speech I just saw on the evening news). If she wins the election, all of us are well and truly doomed.
@Foo
Clinton…..sub prime mortgages…cause of financial disaster?
@Heidi,
Sub-prime mortgages? Wasn’t that a Bush thing? In any case, long after I stopped living there, so low on my list of things to be outraged about, whomever is to blame.
@foo
Nope, Clinton and Barney Franks bright idea I believe.
I too am a disillusioned ex democrat. But renounced so can’t vote anyway.
@foo
Sub-prime mortgages? Wasn’t that a Bush thing?
No, it was not. Clinton sent his AG, Reno, to bully the banks into giving loens to people whom the banks knew could never pay them back. I have heard on CSPAN Repub senators trying to stop it under Bush when the Dems controlled both houses. The Dems called the Reps scare mongers and said that what ended up happening would never happen.
AND Obama is trying to do the same thing AGAIN!
I think subprime mortgages started with Reagan and deregulation.
@Barbara, I share your fear and am concerned that Hillary might even try to pass legislation that could retroactively punish even former citizens. With Fatca, who’s to say they might not try to reimpose US personhood, and renewed tax citizenship. It would completely ruin my financial planning…but to them, we are loathsome apostates.
Mona. Shake off your fear. You are free.
@ Polly
I think subprime mortgages started with Reagan and deregulation.
Nope. Started with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977, that would be Carter’s first term. Despite what peope may think, banks loath to lend to those who would default. Clinton was not happy with banks lack lustre compliance with the CRA and sent his Attorney General, Janet Reno to threaten the banks with investigation if they did not up their CRA loans.
@JapanT
Boy- America really had some geniuses running the country. Talk about mismanagement.
It’s hard to remember that the US used to be a good country as long as you weren’t black, brown, yellow, or red; or gay; or Spanish speaking.
Now the US is a good country as long as you aren’t black, brown, yellow, red, or white; or non-Christian; or middle class or lower class non-resident; or Spanish speaking; or honest.
“that would be Carter’s first term”
That would be Carter’s last term. The American people couldn’t tolerate a president who told the truth or stayed out of war. They turned to an actor to save them.
@ Norm
You are correct that it was Carter’s first and last term. Don’t know what I was thinking.
+1 more on what Lake Superior Guy said.
Don’t know where to put this, but I received an email from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). I was shocked…my email to him was sent weeks ago. Anyway, he said that he understood the hardships faced by expats living abroad and acknowledged my desire that both FATCA and FBARS be eliminated. He promised nothing, but said he would consider such opinions in future (possible) legislation. I give him some credit since my MP wouldn’t give me the time of day…just Tory talking points. Maybe Grassley can be swayed. Who knows? You busy emailers take note!!
Sorry, should have provided:
Chuck.Grassley@grassley.senate.gov
@Lake Superior Guy,
Wow, that’s real dogs-and-cats-living-together stuff!
Grassley has been one of our worst enemies since forever.
Has he finally sprouted a conscience?
@LAKESUPERIORGUY
He its just looking for that vote, so his answer is ambiguous.