[SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 UPDATE: “The Hill” today picked up on the upcoming House Oversight Committee hearings on FATCA. Obviously the fight will be challenging and there are lots of reasons to complain and be skeptical about an attempt by some U.S. Congresspeople to kill FATCA — note the tax compliance pundit in the Hill article who justifies FATCA because Treasury has spent a lot of money on it — but the FATCA hearing will happen despite the naysayers.]
Recently, Representative Mark Meadows introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress (complementary to a similar bill in the U.S. Senate) to repeal FATCA.
Witnesses are now being sought who have been significantly harmed by FATCA and are willing to testify at the Congressional hearing on FATCA in Washington D.C. Details on timings, length of testimony etc. are to be worked out. If you are interested in testifying please send Keith Redmond an email at: FATCA_Testimonials@outlook.com
Although a focus is FATCA, if you have been significantly harmed by U.S.-imposed citizenship-based taxation, which is enforced by FATCA, please also consider testifying at the hearing.
Seeking witnesses for U.S. Congressional hearing on FATCA repeal
Umm, I do believe that’s Keith Redmond, not Keith Richards.
If people think it’s Keith Richards, there will likely be more signing up to testify.
I just sent this :
Hello Keith Redmond
Just discovered this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsYD7XqWAAAuSyp.jpg:large on the citizenship taxation Facebook page.
As you know, we’re all angry because of FATCA and show it in various ways. I was very agressif at the beginning as to how angry I was against Obama.
Anyway, here’s my testimonial :
As an american living in France since 1975 (left the US at 7 years old in 1973 and never went back), our bank is in the process of closing all our accounts (me and my french spouse Bénédicte and my company account) because of FATCA.
We moved very fast when we got the letters from our bank on friday the first of July 2016.
Saturday morning I was allready at the buralist opening a buralist account named “Compte Nickel”, an account that is not a bank and thus not subject to FATCA 🙂
Vive la France.
Bénédicte and me de-pacsed immediatly (done in a week), so she could quickly open a personal bank account (ING direct, no charges).
Then, Bénédicte bought my company and I’m becoming an employee so that my company Duo Diff can continue to have a bank account.
Bénédicte is in the process of becoming “gérante majoritaire” because no bank wants to open an account for the company with me as an american as Gérant, even though I own no shares !!!
This situation is absolutely unbeleivable.
We’re being treated as if we we’re gangsters !!!
I’ve allways paid all my taxes to France where I live and work as an ordinary middle class person.
Keith, you can use this as a testimonial for the HR 5935 amendment.
If you want me to make a letter and sign it, just let me know.
Thanks for all the good diplomatic work you’ve done.
Best regards
I feel very sad to say this, but I seriously doubt that anything will come out of this ‘FATCA repeal hearing’. The U.S. Government is not interested in changing or addressing this issue and if they see a way to extort money from a large group of people, without themselves suffering any electoral consequences, then they will keep things just as they are. That is how the entire system there works. it is not based on what is just and fair, what is right and wrong, but rather on how can you get the most, no matter how you go about it, with the least consequences. It is very hard to get a bully to change his ways, so while I think that every effort is worthwhile and it is a noble attempt by those who believe in justice, in the Constitution and for what is fair and just, they all must go into this without the usual naive Americanisms, believing that they are dealing with a democratic system, speaking to “elected” officials who are looking out for their citizens’ interests and who have a sense of fairness. That is clearly not the case of the U.S. anymore and I would be astonished if anything resembling justice came out of this. I have given up any hope that the U.S. will ever function as a democracy, respect the Constitution and look out for the welfare of its people. It doesn’t and it hasn’t for a very long time already. It has only got worse under the Obama administration and I seriously doubt that under Clinton or Trump it will reverse course. The smartest and best thing is to renounce, be grateful to renounce and cherish a new life elsewhere, hopefully in a more democratic, fair, non-extortionist and humane society. I renounced three years ago and have never been more grateful and happy to be removed from such an evil and unjust system.
CEB, thanks! — I corrected my mistake.
I’m sad to say that I agree with Henry. From my viewpoint, better to support the Canadian lawsuit. I’m grateful to no longer be a part of the US system of corruption.
Oops, I said “form” instead of “from”. What an interesting kind of error to make on the subject of FATCA and CBT.
Henry, I fear you may be right but we’ll fight on regardless. Maybe, just maybe, we will eventually reach the ears and hearts of people in power with the courage and common sense to bring this colossal injustice to an end. In the meantime, our anger and our pleas are multiplying in the historical record for everyone to see should they care to look.
As long as there is the possibility, no matter how remote, that we can end the current intransigence on this issue we need to keep trying.
Steven: I’ve just begun the 4th of a series of “Support Documents” for our United Nations Human Rights Complaint (another initiative that has, so far fallen on deaf ears but we’re pressing ahead with it anyway). Your testimonial here is right at the top of this one! It’s beyond shocking what you and your wife are having to endure in your own country because of the bully-boy actions of the land you left when you were seven! Good Gawd – there must be more people in the US government than Congressman Meadows and Senator Paul who can see that this treatment is utterly reprehensible.
Thanks MuzzledNoMore
Almost everything USA has been up to since the creation of the private federal reserve corporation in 1913 is Illegal to international and human rights.
Be sure that I am getting everyone I know and meet to understand how fascist USA has become.
All this is going to cut USA’s head off like a boomerang.
A very sad ending for a once great country.
The father of the tragic suicide in Sweden should be contacted to see if he would be willing to testify. I recall that he lives in California and had written eloquently to his congressional representative.
Mr. A,
Thanks, I have passed on your thought to Keith.
Whether it’s in your decision to renounce or not, “Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”
– Winston Churchill
Another Churchill favourite of mine is, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
This is great!
We just have to keep the momentum going.
@Henry: “they see a way to extort money from a large group of people, without themselves suffering any electoral consequence”
What shocks me is that they can’t see that the long term, negative, financial consequences far outweigh any small amount of revenue from tax and penalties. Less people promoting America, less American directors in big corporations abroad willing to push business America’s way, countries waking up to the burden of the dollar being the reserve currency, etc, etc.
It sounds like they want people in D.C. to testify. Any other information such as date(s), number of those who will testify, etc?
I wouldn’t trust them not to have the “Gestapo” from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting to arrest all those who come forward to testify.
JC,
No, we don’t have information yet on the date of the hearing, number testifying etc. I have revised my post above to make this more clear. At the moment we would like to know those who might be willing to come forward and testify.
@Rise and Fall– My next door neighbour is a US born, now solely Canadian medical doctor. She relinquished last year because FATCA and CBT. Ditto with myself. My buddy is a US born psychiatrist working here in BC– he’s counting his days until he qualifies for Cnd citizenship. He plans on using his naturalization as a Canadian citizen to relinquish his USC. I hear rumours of other local colleagues who aren’t “out” with their USC (duals I believe) who are nuking their USC. I find the sheer stupidity of the present ex-pat law and policy impossible to fathom. How does the US come out ahead here?
The US isn’t even trying to come out ahead. Roger Conklin explained it to them 40 years ago and they didn’t care.
Ordinary homelander = doesn’t understand and doesn’t care.
Congressdroid = understands and still doesn’t care because they need votes from homelanders.
IRS’s taxpayer advocate = understands and cares, but homelanders and congressdroids don’t listen to her because they don’t care.
Oh good grief! I can’t stand the defeatism I’m seeing here. I keep saying over and over, if you present the injustices and career damage we’ve taken because of these nutcase laws as sob stories, so that Congress or whoever will be motivated to help out of pity or a sense of what’s ‘morally right’ (Congress? Morally right? Seems completely incongruous!) then of course very little will be done.
If you phrase it in terms of helping the US out of their economic slump and the directionlessness of the society’s development, then they will. The Congress don’t have a clue about how to get out from under this one; all they really know how to do is ‘win’ (against other Congressmen) by stalling, delay, and tactical end runs. They’re vaguely aware of the looming problems with exploding federal debt and a perpetually negative balance of trade, but many of them are not so strong in math, and besides, in-fighting is just more fun. It makes all the fundraising they have to do just to get reelected somehow more palatable.
Roger Conklin’s stories were good, but they were focused on him personally. His message was there for the people who wanted to get it, but back then, there was an alternative. Knuckling under to the US insanity was a self-inflicted wound at that time — there was no FATCA toxicity to back it up, and State foreign service officers were routinely telling US citizens abroad to just skip the US tax compliance thing ‘because it’s really a pain.’
Congress are enabled to engage in the sort of insanity they practice by whole bevy of pseudo-academic advisors who tell them what they think Congress want to hear in order to further their own academic careers. If you’re going to compete with that, you have to tell them what they want to hear as well, that also gets you what you want.
One critique I would raise about Keith’s past efforts is, he focuses too much on the ‘sob story’ angle. Here’s another chance to paint things as a win-win situation, which hopefully gains more traction.
Mark Meadows has already done us a real solid in framing his legislation in terms of restoring our constitutional rights. The hearing will be organized under inherently friendly auspices. If that aspect of the problem can also be worked into the testimony, then it should be possible to get some real leverage out of the hearing. You’ll know if you do or not by whether the main-stream media pick up the C-SPAN feed and do a story on it. If the hearing happens before the election, so much the better.
Charles
@CEB – “I keep saying over and over, if you present the injustices and career damage we’ve taken because of these nutcase laws as sob stories, so that Congress or whoever will be motivated to help out of pity or a sense of what’s ‘morally right’ … then of course very little will be done.
If you phrase it in terms of helping the US out of their economic slump and the directionlessness of the society’s development, then they will.”
I sort of agree with you, although I would put it differently: if you want to persuade someone to do something, it helps if you can show them what’s in it for them.
So why would it be in the US interest to move to residence-based taxation? Most other countries use RBT, and that’s probably not because they love their expatriates more than America loves his. So why does the world favour RBT? Not being a tax expert, I haven’t a clue, though I sure do know the disadvantages (to taxpayers abroad) of RBT’s opposite, CBT.
[40 years ago when Roger Conklin explained it to Congress]
“State foreign service officers were routinely telling US citizens abroad to just skip the US tax compliance thing ‘because it’s really a pain.’”
IRS publications said the opposite. Furthermore the IRS even had an office in the US Consulate General in Toronto at the time, which didn’t help when their help was needed, but their responses showed they thought minnows should file.
Do you have evidence of State telling people not to file? I never got their message, even when I renewed passports. Maybe because I was a minnow.
“Most other countries use RBT, and that’s probably not because they love their expatriates more than America loves his.”
I think yes it is because other countries love their expatriates more than … uhh … I can’t say more than America loves its expatriates, because America doesn’t love its expatriates, it hates them.
How would America benefit? Maybe so that America can stop calling America’s and Eritrea’s CBT a human rights violation, and start calling only Eritrea’s CBT a human rights violation? But America already does only call Eritrea’s CBT a human rights violation.
Other countries benefit because their expatriates might return some day and contribute to the economies of their homelands. America DOES NOT WANT that.