via Keith Redmond:
It is not about being Republican, Democrat, or unaffiliated, it is about OUR RIGHTS as US citizens living overseas!
“Republicans Overseas Action just filed FATCA/FBAR Complaint and Motion for preliminary injunction against Obama regime and the IRS with eight counts constitutional violations in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Dayton on behalf of 8.7 million overseas Americans. In addition, we want the federal court to stop Obama’s IRS by immediately issuing a preliminary injunction that will protect Americans overseas from FATCA and FBAR until a trial can be held by the court. Please see ROA Press Release, Ten Detailed Points, and Description of Each Plaintiff below.”
This is SO exciting! And incredibly satisfying for me personally as the suit will be heard in my hometown! Shared with non other than Douglas Shulman…the Gem City’s own favourite son…..Ironically enough, a statement by Mrs. Obama describes our situation very well:
Washington Times
“Rand Paul sues Obama over foreign banking law
FACTA blamed for causing overseas Americans to renounce citizenship
UPDATED: Complaint, Exhibit, Memo, & Motion
D. 1 – Complaint
D.1-1 – Exhbit 1
D.2-1 – PI Memo
D.2 – Motion for PI
Response of Democrats Abroad:
@JC
There are many “bread and butter” reasons for a US resident to honestly maintain an account in a foreign (ie non-US) country without them being a “fat cat” investor. The “bread and butter” needs for such accounts are by no means limited to US “persons” living outside the US. Possible reasons for a US resident to maintain a non-US account for “bread and butter” reasons include:
Power of Attorney
It is quite common for US residents to have power of attorney on the accounts of family members located in another city. If that city happens to be outside the US it triggers FATCA reporting requirements even though the family member may not be a “US person” and the account is simply needed to meet the bread and butter needs of the family member living outside the US.
Financial Obligations Denominated in a non-US Currency
An example of this would be someone who has student loans in a non-US country denominated in that country’s currency. They move to the US to accept an ordinary middle class job and, indeed, are not in a position to pay off their student loan in full. So they keep a bank account in their original country in order to facilitate paying that bill, even though the majority of their day to day transactions are stateside.
Financially Supporting a Family Member in Another Country
Perhaps similar to power of attorney, but in this case the US resident may actually be paying the bills of another family member in another country–but wishes to pay those bills directly, rather than sending the money through the family member. Again–an account in the other country will be needed here.
Wish to Retire in Another Country
A US resident wishing for an ordinary middle class retirement in another country may want to begin transferring some of those assets to that other country as part of their retirement planning without “fat cat” sums of money being involved. Again, FATCA makes this very difficult.
Snowbirds
Someone may spend enough time in the US on a seasonal basis to legally be considered a US “resident” for tax purposes and trigger FATCA reporting–even though they take absolutely zero steps towards a green card or US citizenship and of course keep a non-US bank account as they continue to spend much of each year in another country.
@Dash1729 and calgary411: Southern District of Ohio, General Order No. 12-01, Pretrial and Trial Procedures (Dayton), Discovery and Motion Practice § 2.2:
http://www.ohsd.uscourts.gov/sites/ohsd/files/General%20Order%20No.%201%20%282012-1%20rev.%29%2011192012.pdf#page=11
Doesn’t sound like anything fatal. On the other hand, not a good start either: some judges get annoyed when users of the court system (especially “big city boys” who think they’re gonna come in and awe all the “local yokels” off their feet) can’t be bothered to RTFM.
@Dash1729 Good extra case examples. There are probably more.
Dash
Thanks!
I was surprised to see that Swiss TV has not picked this news up yet. I just tweeted to SRF (German Speaking) and Swissinfo (English) and sent an email to RTS (French). “@srfnews ***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST FATCA IN US DISTRICT COURT IN OHIO http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/07/14/finally-the-bopp-suit-has-arrived/#more-41432”
Everybody should do the same please in their countries.
I just wrote the same to LE MATIN, TRIBUNE DE GENEVE and LE TEMPS (Swiss French newspapers) and NZZ (German) via email on their webpages and / or tweets.
RTFM, Got it — interesting. Thanks for this, Eric. Instructions; the rules of the road.
Yep- amazing that all the countries who are complying with FATCA through clenched teeth and with twisted arms at their own horrendous cost don`t support something like this vehemently, financially, politically and vocally. It is one thing to succumb when one is without choice, but it is another not even to complain about it.
@Jefferson D Thomas
You might want to contact Nina Brissot at Le Regional, the free newspaper of the Geneva, Lausanne area.
She has written some very pertinent, anti American hegemony articles in her editorials. She may be interested in hearing about the Bopp lawsuit.
n.brissot@leregional.ch
Norman: your line
“If I’d been a lawyer, you wouldn’t have found me doing anything stupid like writing honest declarations on a US tax return. The experts know that the IRS needs returns to be processable not truthful.”
should be pondered by everybody contemplating compliance. “Processable, not truthful.”
I would have expected a bit more media attention. Rand Paul himself did not have a press release on it, his twitter account while tweeting other issues did not tweet this. Perhaps he wants this low key. Otherwise just a few articles. Democrats Abroad seemed to go hyper on Twitter.
There is another article in Bloomberg titled “Rand Paul sues Irs over foreign account taxes, disclosures
2 days ago: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-14/rand-paul-sues-irs-over-foreign-account-taxes-bank-disclosures
@Norman
Was the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service unwilling/unable to assist you?
@Norman, Thank you for the explanation, I didn’t realize that the requirement to pay before a lawsuit only applied to taxes and not penalties. I see that Bopp is trying to identify the FATCA taxes as penalties, which I think is a stretch but it’s a valid question for the courts to decide. At least the FBAR penalties are clearly not taxes. So why didn’t anyone challenge the FBAR penalties before?
@badger, Thanks for the links. Allison Christians confirms that section 274 is used (abused) by the Treasury to justify the authority to sign tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs). However, she shows that the Treasury does not cite this section as authority for the IGAs. I wonder why. In this case, it’s a valid question to include in the lawsuit. The government will have to present a justification and the court will decide whether to accept it.
I still disagree with the venue, counts 2 and 3, but that’s OK. I’m more hopeful now.
Comments are open at AccountingToday: http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/tax-practice/rand-paul-sues-irs-over-foreign-account-taxes-disclosures-75196-1.html?utm_campaign=daily-jul%2016%202015&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ET=webcpa%3Ae4762339%3A2531408a%3A&st=email.
(There was also an AccountingToday piece on Nina Olson’s report — but nary a mention of anything international in that, http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/tax-practice/taxpayer-advocate-finds-300000-taxpayers-overpaid-irs-for-obamacare-75199-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1.)
WOW! So-called “Citizens for Tax Justice” posted an article on their Facebook page, condemning Rand Paul for suing the government over FATCA and accusing him of supporting tax cheats. That’s bad enough, but when a bunch of us responded in defence of him and Americans Abroad, they deleted our comments and blocked us from commenting further!!!
The trouble with the CTJ blog is not everyone agrees with them and usually is divided along party lines. With FATCA, 95% of ex-pats are in agreement that FATCA reporting must stop whether they’re Republican, Democratic or some other party. The only odd ones in the room is DA and the ACA. DA is just the mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and ACA is afraid of offending politicians.
@Eric
Thanks for that. I have no idea for sure what Bopp’s strategy here might be but I wonder if he wants to get the entire injunction request on the record even if the first step might be a rejection. In a case expected to eventually make it to the Supreme Court, pissing off the first judge might be a necessary strategic price to pay.
@Bubblebustin
Yes, the reaction of “Citizens for Tax Justice” is very disappointing. At least some comments on that FB page supportive of our side do seem to have survived, though, although it sounds like many were deleted.
Re: Citizens for Tax Justice
I used to read Mad Magazine or National Lampoon for some good cartoonish guffaws but now I just need to read the comments at CTJ (well done, btw, Herald):
Herald Gjura
I stumbled by accident in this post, and bam I had one of the moments. I finally found someone that thinks like me!
I can’t believe this is happening! For years we keep struggling to fund our welfare programs and debt and here they are 8.7 million of filthy rich Americans abroad ready for the taking. We should double tax them and triple tax them to fund our programs. If they are as rich as you and everyone is saying, we should even demolish our income tax all together, and should live off the taxes we collect form them. They act as if they are real Americans, but they are not, how can they be? they speak foreign languages instead of speaking American and live in enemy countries. I agree with you, they are all tax cheats and non-Americans! It is as if solders that fight out of America are real solders. You wish! Of course they are mercenaries. They go fight and work in foreign countries, just like the expats, and get contaminated with all sort of foreign stuff. I am certain that when they take off on their military plains, they have their duffle bags filled with cash that they smuggle for all the tax cheats of American expats around the world.
I always knew this was happening, I was just not sure, and now that I read this I realized that it was true all along.
Paul Rand. This guy is not an American. He is just one of those 8.7 million American expat tax cheats. Actually, he is an expat like the rest of them. He just shows in America once in a while for you to believe he is not an expat. He is an expat in disguise. That is why he is protecting them.
I am glad I run into this. I can feel you and I are and think alike. We are like soul twins. I would like to read more of your stuff. Can you write something about Affordable Care Act? See I always thought that that piece of legislations was really meant to help all those whining foreigners that come to America and are used of their governments in their countries paying for hospitals and medications, so now want for America to do the same. I am telling you, it is the influence of those filthy rich tax cheat American expats! They want to turn America in one of those countries they live in and contaminate us with their foreign arts and ways. See, I think that Affordable Care Act is the subtle way for Canada to take over America, what do you think? I knew it. They have this implemented for years, and with their filthy rich oil, have been pressuring us for years and finally they infiltrated our government and there you have it, suddenly, free health care for everyone. And this is the beginning, next, they will force us to start being nice and polite like they are, and give away our guns, can you believe that?
Anyways, this took too long, but God am I glad to have read your stuff! We are so alike, like sisters or brothers or brother and sister.
All I can say is, Deckard (you fellow dirty filty rich American abroad) – thanks for sharing! Unbelievable!
“@Norman
Was the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service unwilling/unable to assist you?”
Unwilling. They closed my inquiries several times. Approximately two of those times, they alleged that they hadn’t received letters from me, including two registered letters.[*]
One letter from the Taxpayer Advocate office said they were closing a case because all problems between me and the IRS had been resolved, but it didn’t say what the alleged terms of resolution were. I proposed terms, they didn’t reply, and I relied on that letter in the next tax return I submitted. I relied on it in some court cases too, but courts don’t care about stuff like that, they’ll ignore any facts they need to ignore in order to screw honest people.
One letter from the Taxpayer Advocate office said that my returns were frivolous because they contained information that had no basis in tax law. By the time of that letter, the IRS had already informed me that honesty on tax returns is automatically considered frivolous, so I was not surprised to see that honesty has no basis in tax law. “I declare under penalty of perjury” blah blah blah, well, tax law requires you to declare even when you know that it’s false, even when you know that an employer falsified the annual salary report (W-2 in the US), even when you know that the amount of Canadian tax estimated on US form 1116 is an estimate not likely to be correct[**], even when you know that one estimate of interest is estimated because no one knows where the passbook is and you know that you plan to amend the return[***], etc.
Later, in US Tax Court, an IRS exhibit showed one IRS employee telling another IRS employee that my returns declared large foreign tax credits which have no basis. The exhibit did not show anyone complaining about my illegal honesty. So, despite the illegality of my stupid honesty, I now doubt very much that that was the IRS’s reason for complaining that my information had no basis in tax law. I think the IRS’s altered records, fraudulently altered by IRS data entry clerk Monica Hernandez and I think by other IRS employees collaborating wih her, were the IRS’s reason for complaining that my information had no basis in tax law. Other IRS exhibits were the returns themselves, which declared $0.00 in foreign tax credits. Despite IRS exhibits proving that IRS employees fraudulently altered records, courts ignore whatever facts they need to ignore in order to screw honest people. Well, back to your question, no the Taxpayer Advocate did not inform me of the IRS’s altered records and I had no inkling at the time.
[* In fact the US post office informed the Japanese post office that three of my registered letters to the IRS did not arrive. They also were not returned. But those three are different from the two that I’m talking about here. For the two that I’m talking about here, advice of receipt cards came back with the IRS’s imprint on them. The other three are likely among mail stolen from IRS mail rooms by IRS employees, as described in some of the reports published by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.]
[** I still don’t know how much my Canadian taxes were for 1985 and 1987. The former Revenue Canada wrote Consents to Judgement, Tax Court of Canada approved them, and the former Revenue Canada and its successors still haven’t issued reassessments. There was confusion whether some transactions should go on capital account or income account, and everyone finally agreed that they have to be income account because no election is available for them, but I’m still waiting for my refunds.]
[*** The passbook was later found in the bank branch because the bank didn’t return the passbook when the account was closed.]
Thanks Deckard, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time! Is this person for real? Now he’s dragging Keith Redmond through the mud saying he’s hiding billions!
Would you request CTJ unblock those they block earlier today, who have similar complaints to the ones they’ve allowed to post now?
“I didn’t realize that the requirement to pay before a lawsuit only applied to taxes and not penalties.”
I’m not sure if that’s actually correct or not. In some past cases and in a scholarly article that I read it seems to be true. In two of my cases it seems not to be true, but I couldn’t find any other cases that match my situation.
In all of the tax years where the IRS and I have disputes, my US taxes were overpaid by withholding (reported on Form 1099, the one Monica Hernandez stole from). My US taxes were zeroes in all those years. But as at least one judge pointed out, I didn’t prove that my US taxes were fully paid in those years. The IRS never issued any Notice of Deficiency or assessment of tax. In at least one of my cases the judge said that penalties also have to be paid before they can be litigated, but in at least one of my cases it’s still ambiguous.
The Supreme Court did recognize that prepayment can cause hardship, in Flora v. US. Now, the IRS could assess a million penalties against me and I’d never be able to prepay them. The Supreme Court said in Flora that Tax Court should be used in such cases because prepayment isn’t required. However, Tax Court doesn’t gain jurisdiction until the IRS files a lien or a notice of intent to levy. So during the time that no court at all has jurisdiction, the IRS can use other means to partially collect, and I just get screwed. One might think that the 5th amendment prohibits that because no person shall be deprived of property without due process, but in fact the 5th amendment has no power at all. The IRS and courts can use bailiffs and various processes to grab money. How many brigades does the 5th amendment have?
@calgary and bubblebustin
On second, sober thought, I felt that this seemed too “good” to be true. I checked Herald’s credentials and I think he’s actually one of “us”. Some very well done satire, in the best tradition of Swift.