“In this Essay, Professor Patrick Weil reexamines the constitutional function of the passport in relation to American citizenship. The State Department recently developed a policy of passport revocation whereby some Americans are transformed into de facto stateless persons….
……”
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/citizenship-passports-and-the-legal-identity-of-americans
The article approaches the issue of revoking passports for any reason. Revoking passports of unsuspecting U.S. citizens overseas was enacted in the 2015 FAST Act. If a person owes $50,000 in taxes, a passport may be revoked. In the propoganda that was released with the passing of the bill, it was said that this bill was written to catch people in America who had not paid their taxes and who may want to flee the country. However, the bill has lots of text relating to the revocation of the passport for all purposes except for the expat to return to the Homeland. This bill was written to enforce the FATCA dragnet.
The paper:
Conclusion
“The State Department seems to be abusing its power with passport revocation—unknowingly in the case of Snowden, as the Department could at first glance rely on a jurisprudence that seemed until recently to favor executive power, and willfully in the case of the Yemeni Americans. It therefore seems that it is time for courts confronted with passport revocations to reexamine the constitutional function of the passport and its status in relation to American citizens who, since Afroyim, have gained more protection over their citizenship in relation to the state—including in relation to the Secretary of State. Today it is commonplace to say that new technologies infringe upon civil liberties—they often do. However, in the case of passports and the essential right of Americans to maintain a legal identity, new technologies offer an avenue to protect that very right. By affirming both that a passport belongs among the privileges and immunities of an American abroad and that the Secretary of State cannot revoke a passport as a matter of administrative routine, courts could make the passport an almost inalienable auxiliary of the American citizen abroad: the symbol and substance of an irreducible citizenship which the Supreme Court has already proclaimed.”
Good for them… We’ll consider it a “unilateral renunciation” then! Hello…Canadian Citizenship for my wife.
“Open Response to US Gov”
Why should my wife pay taxes in the United States when she resides in Canada; utilizes Canadian roads and services? Oh, you say she’s a USC Abroad? Let me tell you three words: Boston Tea Party. Remember that? Oh, two more words: Selective Service. Same thing as the British hijacking US ships to dragoon so-called “former British subjects” into British military service. Oh…and didn’t you cite: Eritrea for asking 2% CBT on their citizens abroad, but I guess because they’re not as powerful as you; well…that’s NOT OK. But since you’re the most powerful country in the world, Yeah…that’s just fine. You can do it. The US is a hypocritical steaming mass of SHIT. You’re welcome.
“It is not as convincing, however, that, for security reasons, an American citizen should be deprived of her right to a legal identity as an American citizen, the second function of a passport.”
I would think that the same would go “for tax reasons”.
@The Animal
The US’s perspective is that a USC’s primary obligation is to the US, therefore the host country where we live is double taxing us.
Or worse, not taxing us – for instance by offering tax-free savings accounts, or by failing to tax benefits received by disabled people, those on low income, etc.
The US corrects such reprehensible foreign slackness by taxing everything.
@iota
…and our single biggest investment – our principal residences in Canada.
“The US’s perspective is that a USC’s primary obligation is to the US, therefore the host country where we live is double taxing us.”
And frankly…I really couldn’t give a shit what the US’s perspective is…
As a now defunct show (which just aired its final episode) ‘s host stated: “I reject your reality and SUBSTITUTE MY OWN.” Now they can choose to accept my viewpoint or they can “go to h-e-double hockey sticks”, eh. My kids are Canadian…and so will my wife be.
@Bubblebustin – absolutely. And our pensions.
Canada agrees as our description is, until someone from the new government disagrees with that description the Conservatives gave us — *US citizens who happen to abide in Canada*, taxed by US CBT — and we are also being taxed as this country’s residents in RBT Canada.
Bubblebustin: I couldn’t agree more with your comment on this statement: “It is not as convincing, however, that, for security reasons, an American citizen should be deprived of her right to a legal identity as an American citizen, the second function of a passport.” (Your response: “I would think that the same would go “for tax reasons”.)
As a person who is about to be “voluntarily” deprived, for “tax reasons”, of her right to enter her native land, I second your response whole-heartedly.
Mark Twain: Thank you for posting this very informative paper.
It would seem to me now that US lawmakers have given the State Department the ability to revoke my passport for tax liabilities, my tax obligations supersede my rights as citizen. I am now primarily a US taxpayer in the eyes of the US government in this new era of Taxation Based Citizenship.
No longer having a passport as proof one is a US citizen, aren’t they in fact revoking one’s citizenship at the same time?
@MuzzledNoMore
Thanks for the support!
@Bubblebustin – “Taxation Based Citizenship”
Like it. 🙂