Please submit to Ways Means. One line. One paragraph. One page. One dissertation. Whatever.
ADDTIONAL NOTE: THE HEARING IS BASED UPON REDUCING IRS PAPERWORK and gives 2 means to potentially achieve that end. FOCUS YOUR COMMENTS UPON REDUCTION OF COMPLEXITY and cost savings in eliminating paperwork. Also, payment for services rendered such as the consumption tax they mention.
EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR CONSUMPTION TAXES and disgust for flat taxes which would devastate us.
Quantity of Responses should overwhelm the discussion. There should be no excuses for Ways Means to not address it.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/boustany-announces-hearing-on-fundamental-tax-reform-proposals/
Public Submissions For Record
Please click here to submit a statement or letter for the record
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Ways and Means Tax Policy Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany (R-LA) announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled “Fundamental Tax Reform Proposals” on Tuesday, March 22nd at 2:30 PM in room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building. This will be the first in a series of hearings where members of both parties will have the opportunity to share, discuss, and promote their proposals for tax reform. The particular focus of this hearing will be legislative proposals presenting cash-flow and consumption-based approaches to taxation.
Upon announcing the hearing, Chairman Boustany said:
“Chairman Brady has laid out a strong vision and set of policy goals for making our broken tax code simpler, flatter, and fairer. Tax reform represents a crucial part of our party’s pro-growth agenda, and I am committed to accomplishing these goals by considering bold, new ideas and building consensus among our members. Next week’s discussion will give my Ways and Means colleagues and me the opportunity to take a closer look at the forward-thinking proposals for tax reform that our members have developed.”
Let’s recognize in advance that there are many on this site who are not willful U.S. citizens, but let’s hope that the repeal segment of readers can step up to the plate.
remember FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS: All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. The name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness must be included in the body of the email. Please exclude any personal identifiable information in the attached submission.
If not, submission is dismissed.
@bubble…, thanks.
We have a couple of problematic accounts. For the most part we get one or two statements for each of our accounts each year. Some we have electronic access to. All but one of these accounts we can’t do anything with since we are two young to withdraw (pensions, endowment etc).
Two accounts give us problems by either not sending a statement or sending say the 2015 statement in Jul of 2016! Each year we have to ring them up and of course it takes weeks to get the info back.
This year one of these accounts sent us a letter in place of our balance telling us that they don’t as a general rule send out prio balances! So now we have to restart the process.
Of course some of the accounts if you ring them up know your a US person and won’t help with many questions. You would think it couldn’t get any worse but of course it can.
I am so cheesed off at the moment.
Mark Twain,
I wonder if it took some courage for you to post your request to send yet another submission to the House W&M?
I am still a U.S. citizen (have not yet renounced) and will send in a letter this weekend, but without high hopes of success in my lifetime.
The letter will be very short. It will mention the hundreds of previous not acted upon submissions to House W&M and SFC, focus on what I feel is the best way to “influence” Congress (successful litigation on unconstitutionality of CBT laws), and will be submitted on behalf of the Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation.
Stephen,
I am sending in a letter as well even though I have little hope it will do much. Anyone who has been reading my posts on here know that I believe our best, and maybe only chance at relief is through the courts. Will we see requests for donations on this site for the anti CBT law suit that is waiting to be filed? I can understand maybe taking a short break to give people a little bit time off of the fundraising, but it wouldn’t hurt to try and use this platform to fund raise. I think the anti CBT law suit is of immense importance for two reasons. 1) Its best to have more then one plan of attack in case our FATCA suit loses in Canadian courts. 2) Winning a CBT law suit wipes out CBT and FATCA at once.
It was amazing to see the international interest and financial support for the FATCA law suit as time went on and word spread. If a credible organization, like the one run by the people that operate the ADCS and the new group. can get the ball rolling on the CBT suit, I think word would spread around the world like wildfire. The expat community internationally is looking for a credible group to take this on. I know Tricia and others are doing their best to make the new law suit known, and I am helping as well, but it appears it needs a bigger and better platform. A platform like this one that did such a great job of fund raising and making the FATCA suit known to many.
The hubster and I sent in our letters to the Ways and Means Committee, with our usual reminders at the end that absentee ballots have in the past determined elections for such offices as House and Senate races. Not that I have even half a dust grain of hope that anything will come of it.
On the other hand, we can’t not keep the pressure up.
I recently had a furious argument with a gay Homelander friend I’ve known for decades, who adamantly supports Clinton for president. He lived and worked overseas for many years (though re-Homelanded himself 15 years ago, the fool), so I thought he’d at least listen to reason. He suggested I set aside my anger over CBT, FATCA, etc., and support Clinton “for the common good”. I reminded him that it took decades of focused activism before gay issues were even paid attention to in Washington. Of course he bristled at my comparing “tax issues” with gay “human rights issues”. I tried to set him right about the “tax issues” but I think he closed his ears.
I may have lost an old friend. On the other hand, his bringing up gay rights reminded me: nobody but nobody took gay issues seriously in America for decades–for centuries. Gays were such a tiny minority, their votes were too thinly spread out to have any effect on elected politicians. Sound familiar?
If we don’t keep the pressure up, we’ll achieve nothing. But if we keep turning it up–with write-in campaigns, social media postings, haranguing journalists, and especially the lawsuits–one day the USA itself may have its own OMG moment like it did with gay rights. Once day we could finally find ourselves in the mainstream discussion.
@Stephen,
If things go according to the plans of Ways/Means and SenateFinance, we will give up before they do anything.
They keep calling meetings for their overall tax reform and they keep getting too many submissions from expats. One day they might decide to stop with diversion tactics so as to stop getting letters.
@Barbara
Those at the receiving end of persecution often put their issues above all others, therefore risk becoming less than sensitive to the issues of others. In my mind all injustices need to be fought and overcome, but it’s more often than not left up to those affected to do something about it. Your friend repatriated himself back to the US – could his insensitivity have something to do with that? You can take the homelander out of the homeland, but you can’t take the homeland out of the homelander.
@Mark Twain
I can’t wait until they laugh at us – then at least we’ll know we’ve made some progress:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
Here is the submission from Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation:
ADCT Submission to House Ways & Means Committee March 21, 2016
Working on a special day, Tricia? Thanks for posting the ADCT submission!
@ Tricia
Happy Birthday and thanks to you, Stephen, John and Carol for coming up with such a succinct submission for the Ways & Means Committee of 2016. I dearly hope their plan isn’t to just ask for submissions year after year until people give up and then they can say that nobody has any objections to the status quo … mission accomplished … now let’s all go golfing. Our mission is to make sure they never get to that golf game with a clear conscience. We can’t let attrition and apathy stop us from trying to persuade Congress to end the tyranny of CBT.
“nobody but nobody took gay issues seriously in America for decades–for centuries”
Homelanders finally noticed that gays can’t “just renounce” their biology like we can renounce citizenship[*]. We’re lucky they temporarily noticed us enough to make token moves with foreign tax credits[**] and foreign earned income exclusion.
[* Except of course for those who can’t afford the cost of renouncing.]
[** Oops wait, those were for the benefit of homelanders who traitorously invest in the rest of the world, not for us.]
‘I can’t wait until they laugh at us – then at least we’ll know we’ve made some progress:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
– Mahatma Gandhi’
It won’t work for us. Homelanders already laugh at us, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”, and fight us, like defeating Rand Paul’s lawsuit. The only way we win is by not letting the door hit us on the way out, like Gandhi almost managed for India. And like some other obscure country did in 1776, I forgot its name now.
@Calgary andEmBee
This has been one of the best birthdays ever! Thanks so much for being part of it!!!
Great submission from ADCT! As I just said on Mark Twain’s post, I hope this reaches more receptive ears in 2016 than similar pleas did in 2013. I agree with EmBee; we have to be in their face until they sit up and listen.
@Trish
The ADCT submission may not be accepted if it contains any “personal identifiable information” in the body of the submission.
@ Bubblebustin
Last time they assigned someone the task of redacting addresses, phone numbers, etc. (left the names though). I guess this time they didn’t budget for a redactor. Seems pretty typical of a government which loves to create laws, rules & regs and then watch smuggly as the plebs scramble to perfectly comply.
@EmBee
So true, but I would just hate to see ADCT ‘s valuable contribution get tossed on a technicality!
hearing going on now. Don’t get your hopes up. Obviously it cannot discuss submissions now.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/live/
Thanks, Mark. Discussion on Flat and Fair taxes in a few minutes. My ears will be listening for the important “on income earned in the US”.
‘My ears will be listening for the important “on income earned in the US”’
And/or earned by residents of the US. Both SBT and RBT are reasonable. The US didn’t even call those human rights abuses when the US supported a UN resolution against Eritrea.
“I guess this time they didn’t budget for a redactor.”
You bet. The US Department of Justice doesn’t even have a budget to comply with court rules requiring redaction, even in US courts whose rules only require redacting the first five digits of a social security number. (Not all courts are like that; US Tax Court’s rules comply with the Privacy Act of 1974 and require complete redaction.)
Submission from Republicans Overseas. Where is the submission from Democrats Abroad?
https://www.facebook.com/republicansoverseas/photos/pcb.479452248905242/479451932238607/?type=3&theater
That’s what I was wondering, JC.
Excellent submission from RO. I don’t know of any American living abroad who’d disagree with their assessment.
Thanks for posting the RO letter, JC. Very comprehensive package. I hope the considerable time spent writing it will not go to waste this time.
ACA Submission to House Ways And Means.
https://www.americansabroad.org/media/files/files/0fd16f54/Tax_submission_House_Ways_and_Means_Apr_2016_JMS_RL.pdf