The US Department of Justice has issued a 57-page response to the filing of a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction by the James Bopp FATCA repeal legal team. The DOJ’s argument begins as follows:
Plaintiffs seek an extraordinary order that would halt enforcement of several duly enacted statutory provisions, along with associated regulations and implementing international agreements, aimed at curbing offshore tax evasion. The challenged laws are essential to tax enforcement, and the injuries that plaintiffs allege they have suffered as a result of such laws are self-inflicted, speculative, or even illusory. Plaintiffs’ claims for relief fail for lack of Article III standing, are jurisdictionally barred by the Anti-Injunction Act, and are meritless as a matter of well-established constitutional law. The preliminary injunction should be denied because plaintiffs have no likelihood of success on the merits and have no irreparable injury—certainly none to outweigh the great harm that the Government, and public interest in general, would suffer if enforcement of these laws were enjoined.
Republicans Overseas and others are reacting strongly to DOJ’s victim blaming tactics. Here are links to the original story at Republicans Overseas and to John Richardson’s comments at ADCS.
Here, again, is the complete DOJ document: DEFENDANT’S MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
It is obvious that victim blaming is, and will continue to be, a central tactic of this Administration, as it is finally put on the defensive and forced to justify its outrageously discriminatory and immoral FATCA campaign. Now may be a good time to remind ourselves of the essential characteristics and dynamics of victim blaming, which easily scale from the most primal one-on-one bullying to the systematic targeting and abuse of entire groups by the state. Here are a couple of good references to start with:
http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=glbtc
Victim-blaming is a phenomenon that has been happening since at least the beginning of recorded history but has only recently been identified as a dynamic used to empower the criminal and maintain the status quo. Victim-blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or abuse is held partly or entirely responsible for the actions committed against them. In other words, the victims are held accountable for the maltreatment they have been subjected to. Perpetrators of crimes for which they blame the victim commonly enjoy a privileged social status opposite the victim, and their blame typically involves use of stereotypical negative words. The phenomenon of victim blaming is thus common in hate crimes, discrimination, rape and bullying. The main motivation for people to victim-blame is to justify abuse or social injustice. However, it is not only the perpetrator who engages in the victim-blaming. Perpetrators, bystanders and society and even the victims themselves practice and enforce victim-blaming. Each group of people who blames the victim does so for different reasons based on their power or lack thereof, self-defense and desire to find logical reasons for abuse or social injustice.
William Ryan coined the phrase “blaming the victim” in his book Blaming the Victim in 1971, as a response to years of oppression and the civil rights movement. He describes victim- blaming as a way to preserve the interest of the privileged group in power (Zur). Since then, advocates for crime victims, particularly those of rape, have adopted the phrase. Although Ryan coined the phrase, the phenomenon is well developed in psychology and history. As previously stated, victim-blaming has been happening at least since the beginning of recorded history. There are many examples of victim-blaming in the Old Testament regarding tragedies justified by blaming the victims as sinners (Robinson 141). Unfortunately, victim-blaming is still rampant today and has only recently been identified as problematic.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-love-and-war/201311/why-do-we-blame-victims
Victim blaming is not just about avoiding culpability—it’s also about avoiding vulnerability. The more innocent a victim, the more threatening they are. Victims threaten our sense that the world is a safe and moral place, where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. When bad things happen to good people, it implies that no one is safe, that no matter how good we are, we too could be vulnerable. The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.
In the 1960s, social psychologist Dr. Melvin Lerner conducted a famous serious of studies in which he found that when participants observed another person receiving electric shocks and were unable to intervene, they began to derogate the victims. The more unfair and severe the suffering appeared to be, the greater the derogation. Follow up studies found that a similar phenomenon occurs when people evaluate victims of car accidents, rape, domestic violence, illness, and poverty. Research conducted by Dr. Ronnie Janoff-Bulman suggests that victims sometimes even derogate themselves, locating the cause of their suffering in their own behavior, but not in their enduring characteristics, in an effort to make negative events seem more controllable and therefore more avoidable in the future.Lerner theorized that these victim blaming tendencies are rooted in the belief in a just world, a world where actions have predictable consequences and people can control what happens to them. It is captured in common phrases like “what goes around comes around” and “you reap what you sow.” We want to believe that justice will come to wrongdoers, whereas good, honest people who follow the rules will be rewarded. Research has found, not surprisingly, that people who believe that the world is a just place are happier and less depressed.
But this happiness may come at a cost—it may reduce our empathy for those who are suffering, and we may even contribute to their suffering by increasing stigmatization. So is the only alternative to belief in a just world a sense of helplessness and depression? Not at all. People can believe that the world is full of injustice but also believe that they are capable of making the world a more just place through their own actions. One way to help make the world a better place to fight the impulse to rationalize others’ suffering, and to recognize that it could have just as soon been us in their shoes. This recognition can be unsettling, but it may also be the only way that we can truly open our hearts to others’ suffering and help them feel supported and less alone. What the world may lack in justice we can at least try to make up for in compassion.
Again I’m confused here. Wasn’t the last news we heard that the judge in Ohio, after initially rejecting Bopp’s injunction motion for being more than 20 pages, had likewise denied the DOJ request for a lengthy response. Yet the DOJ lawyers file one anyway? I wish a few more details were coming out about the mechanics of this case.
I wish I could inform the DOJ lawyers that the only self-inflicted harm in this matter is harm to my liver from excess vodka consumption as a consequence of US Government-inflicted FATCA, FBARs and CBT.
Just shows how it always comes down to the same old thing: If you leave the USA then you must be punished.. you evading, cheating traitor scumbag. You will pay for your insolence!
DOJ will be the “tough nut” to crack. Remember they make up any laws for what the US does, so everything justified and backed by laws so thus righteousness for whatever the US does. One example comes to mind the legality of drone attacks in other sovereign countries. Of pertinent example is that quoted above where FATCA issues are the fault of the victims – the laws are already in place so all they were doing was providing the righteousness. I am thinking some similarities to religion here – we are up against a religion.
@pukonz
When I left the Usa a decade ago that was the bin voyage party I was given
For me today fatca is relivin that all over again
Self inflicted illusory and speculative
How does that tie in the Uk where the savings bond company closes out americans
And people in the countries where we live don’t want to help us because it serves us right, American scumbags whose government meddles in our business… Catch-22
USA: creating more and more enemmies day by day like all dictatorship’s have done in the past untill they fall flat on their face.
Like when we won the war for independence against the British empire.
I’m boycotting all american products and telling others to do the same.
US dollar will collapse soon anyway.
Obama has doubled the debt.
BRICS countries are ditching the US dollar.
Glad I’m not in the United States to live the mess to come.
“self-inflicted, speculative, or even illusory.” uh… I can assure them it is not illusory when an expat tax specialists quotes me $5,000 to get complaint and my bank account is in the negative. Yeah I’ll just pull that 5k out of thin air, no problem! I guess this is all my fault though, the least I could do is pimp my wife out, burgle houses or deal drugs to earn the monies required, I’m just not trying hard enough.
“It is obvious that victim blaming is, and will continue to be, a central tactic of this Administration”
It already was, under the previous administration too.
Before ITINs were invented, Form 1040 required me to get my wife a social security number, but the SSA never granted nor rejected the application. After ITINs were invented, Form W-7 instructions said not to apply until she gets a rejection from the SSA. But then 3 times the IRS sent instructions on Form 6401 (from the IRS) telling us to apply for ITINs anyway, so we did. And the IRS rejected our ITIN applications. THEREFORE: On one particular Form 1040, I wrote “SSN: Applied For / ITIN: Rejected”. AND: The DOJ complained to a court that I wrote “SSN: Applied For / ITIN: Rejected” instead of reporting her SSN. AND: The court agreed, ruled that I did not display a genuine endeavor to comply with the law, and overturned the IRS’s acceptance of that return.
So in the future, if anyone ever gets charged with a crime for fabricating a social security number, I hope they will cite my case. The court REQUIRES fabricating a social security number.
Victim-blaming is like blowing off the complaints of a rape victim.
@Normon Diamond: what if you just write “none, application pending” for the SSN?
So I guess I must have just imagined that letter I received from my French bank informing me that they were closing my account because I was an American citizen.
Birthday message from Daniel Kuettel, with comments about DOJ blaming FATCA victims.
https://www.facebook.com/SwissTechie/posts/10153512143521678?pnref=story
When I read statements like this coming from the US govt., I surprise myself by discovering that I am actually capable of feeling even more disgust towards the USA than hitherto.
Are we really surprised? From a country which has a law called “civil forfeiture” and justifies that too? Where hundred of people are killed every year due to gunshot wounds and they can`t unlock that Pandora`s box either? They LOVE their FATCA and hate those tax cheats.
The parallels to WW2 Germany are there too. They justified all of their inhumanity as well.
Well, it is up to the judge to decide whether their arguments have any merit? It was obvious that the DOJ would come out with big guns and even canons. But this is just their argument right? No decision has been made yet?
Yep. Deutsche Bank closed my account when they found my US birthplace. I most certainly did not self-inflict my birthplace. And the account closure was not really illusory. Ok. Time to donate again.
They continue to make an equivalency between resident and nonresident U.S. persons. On pg. 37 they argue that nonresidents are in a similar situation to residents and therefore nonresidents are not discriminated against by F.A.T.C.A.
Actual residence means nothing to them even though it places nonresidents in completely dissimilar situations. The individual is just an extension of U.S. territory. In other words citizens are property of the government.
Thank you for posting this, Deckard. I haven’t delved into the meat and potatoes of the document or the responses yet but what I’ve read so far is shocking. Thank you, too, for balancing the news with the extensive quotes from experts who know *exactly* what to call the defendant’s response to our plaintiffs’ motion.
It must have been written by the Mythster
http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Myth-vs-FATCA.aspx
The DOJ document says ;”………….Nor is the magnitude of the withholding tax grossly disproportional, since it roughly approximates the presumed tax loss from FATCA non-compliance. ….”……
“Roughly” ? Exactly how rough is the “PRESUMED” loss?
We’ll never know because all the numbers have been pulled out of someone’s uh, hat. Or written on a cocktail napkin and never substantiated. A tall tale which continues to grow in the telling.
As you say @Mark Twain, it must have been written by the Mythster – it is so full of unsubstantiated and ‘ROUGH’ ‘PRESUMing’ that it lacks all validity.
And of course, we know that even the GAO has noted that no cost-benefit analysis has ever been done for FATCA. So, where are all those imaginary numbers coming from? Hope the DOJ will be forced to substantiate.
And we keep being told by various people that (1) the negative effects of FATCA being experienced by those living outside the US are “unintended” consequences. yet at the same time we are being told that any such negative effects are also “illusory”, the fault of the individuals themselves, and entirely remediable or avoidable.
Of course the fact that the dual status plaintiffs also pay another layer of FATCA TAXES levied for the implementation and enforcement of FATCA in and by their home country of actual residence – which means that they and we are ALL paying another FATCA tax – one paid by every single non-US taxpayer in a country which has signed an IGA, PLUS the increased costs passed on to ALL accountholders outside the US to pay for its implementation, enforcement and continued existence forever and ever.
That FATCA tax on the universe is NOT remediable or refundable.
@ pukekonz
You are very lucky to pay only 5,000 $ to become compliant. I just got my bill for two family members (not complicated tax returns since we are not rich or invested in pfics ) for 14,000 euros (7,000 each with a discount for two!!….multiply that in Can dollars or US dollars and see how “lucky” I am!! I only make 1,200 euros a month so basically I just spent a whole year’s pay to accountants. Even though I just had this expense I mailed another 100 euros on Monday to ADCS, 10% of my pay, because we’ve got to fight this injustice!!
Narcissistic bullies, and that is exactly what the DOJ Brownshirts are, will always blame the victims.
They are completely unable to recognize that the US government is wrong. In fact, they immediately twist everything around and declare the USG to be the victim. Rapists do the same thing.
This is going to be a tough fight, but there is no going back. It is time to launch a lawsuit against CBT.
As long as there’s FBAR for non -residents, we will always be stigmatized.
The US government is fast becoming totally fascist; they are already socially democratic (or Nazi for short) where corporations control them and their obscene politics. Watch out for the next Hitler.
Other national governments live in fear, thus subordinating their banking institutional sovereignty to them; Canada is no exception; shame on Mr. Harper.
It is the off-shore banking havens they should be going after – not expats contributing the good of the countries they reside in. Despite the fact that I have not “officially” renounced my citizenship, I none-the-less “renounce” it without filling out any of their forms because I choose to be Canadian whereas I wasn’t given that choice at birth as to what country I want to be a citizen of.
I have figuratively hoisted my once-proud US flag up-side-down!
@Dave
Offshore banking havens? What about the inshore banking havens like Delaware? Wyoming? Etc.
What about the reciprocation as well? If FATCA is such a great and noble thing to catch all those tax cheats- then it must also be the right of other nations to demand the same of America, shouldn’t it? Talk about a double standard on top of everything else.
ROTFLMAO!
DOJ wrote: “The FATCA and IGA Reporting Requirements Are Not “Searches”. The reporting of financial account information under FATCA is not a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Bank records are owned by third-party banks, and plaintiffs have no reasonable expectation of privacy in such records.”
OMG, those DOI bozos actually believe their own BS. Who the heck on this planet does not have an expectation of privacy of their banking records?