The following is posted by me (calgary411) on behalf of its author, JCDoubleTaxed:
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Most people do not have a twitter account. Twitter users tend to be politicians, press, opinion leaders, and celebrities. Joining Twitter will be a perfect New Year’s Resolution. It is easy and once accomplished you may enjoy the gratification of a resolution accomplished.
I shared the plan for this post with @wisecroneknows who commented:
“Just posting comments on IBS/FB isn’t screaming at the world to fix this…. they should not be frightened…. legislation is being drawn up now… shouldn’t wait for the inauguration. Even if they don’t actually tweet they can just simply like and RT. (AND…If I can do it anyone can).”
Twitter allows account names different from your real name. You might choose a Twitter name and profile picture related to highlighting the injustices of CBT and FATCA.
Twitter should be viewed as part of a range of means to communicate with politicians, press, opinion leaders and other US Persons overseas. Twitter is also useful for early notice on articles related to CBT so as to better get in early on comment sections.
On Twitter, hasthtag “#FATCA” is popular among Brockers. If you are new to Twitter you might search #FATCA to see what others are tweeting. People include hashtags when they want to send a tweet to a topic that others search for, such as #FATCA.
Addresses are included to send a tweet to particular people or groups. For example, a tweet with @SenWarren @RonWyden @SenSchumer will send the tweet to these three.
Some question if people really read tweets to them. Some politicians have staff manage their tweets for them. Some get so many tweets that “cut through” is a very slight possibility. So if one tweets @POTUS, for example, they may also include a hashtag or another address to increase the possibilities of getting noticed.
If you like what someone is tweeting then click on their address in a tweet and click follow. Their tweets will then show on your Twitter Home page. You might search a Twitter address for tweets to “retweet” (RT). Retweeting, or clicking on the arrows icon at the bottom of a tweet, is the same as sending the tweet from your account. Clicking on the heart icon or “liking” a tweet boosts the tweet further, as does both retweeting and liking other tweets and your own tweets. If two Twitter users follow each other they may send private messages to each other.
When others retweet or like a Tweet then this helps the tweets stay noticeable longer. Usually the more retweets and likes in the shortest time frame the better. Based on this information, we might create an amplified voice if we gathered at a particular day and time each week for tweeting about CBT injustices. How about:
each Wednesday @ 10 a.m., or earlier that day, (Ottawa/Washington D.C./ EST) from Wednesday 18 January. A program called TweetDeck may be used to schedule tweets.
If you search for a person or organisation then the first page that shows is the tweets, retweets, and likes by that person/organisation. Search again on that page and a “Top” tab and page appears of the most popular tweets to that person/organisation. The “Latest” tab and page is the most recent tweets to that person/organisation and those tweets with relatively fewer retweets/likes.
Good news is that for the hashtag #FATCA those in opposition to FATCA are crowding out the compliance organisations and those favouring FATCA. Usually the #FATCA “Top” page is full of tweets in opposition to FATCA and tweets against CBT that include “#FATCA.” Anyone wanting to use Twitter to do some research on #FATCA will mainly see tweets from US persons overseas in opposition to FATCA/CBT.
While Twitter only allows 140 characters there are a few tricks to expand on your message and give your tweet more impact. You may include in your tweet the URL of a news article and then such a tweet usually highlights a picture from that article and a snippet of what the article is about. Tweeting a jpg picture that you have added text to can amplify your message (I use the free software Gimp for that). An easier way is to use Word to type a message, and bold and enlarge it, then use a screen capture tool to draw a rectangle around your message and cut it into a jpg that may be attached to your tweet as a photo.
You may create your own collection of twitter images and urls of articles that you may tweet in future. You may click on a twitter image you like in a tweet and drag the picture to your desktop while holding down the mouse button.
More Brockers on Twitter and tweeting will mean greater highlighting of CBT injustices.
Don’t forget an important objective is to grow our community. Include urls of Isaac Brock Society posts, CitizenshipTaxation.ca posts, and related Facebook Groups in tweets and comments on articles.
Happy New Years!
@JCDoubleTaxed
I like this:
https://twitter.com/CrossBriton/status/896015103463763968
” CrossBrit @CrossBriton Aug 11
Replying to @JoSchatzabel @wisecroneknows and
Do you pay tax where I live? No? Then by your own logic you do not pay #fairshare and should be in jail. #WePayWhereWeLive #FATCA #TaxReform. ”
A great conversation starter idea from the tweet above;
Demand that US homeland residents pay their “FAIR share” of our Canadian, British, etc. taxes since they don’t pay taxes where WE live, and they hold ‘foreign’ US sited bank accounts!! No economic connection? the IRS says that doesn’t matter when it comes to US extraterritorial birthplace or parentage taxation.
@Badger – I’ll pass on the like.
Would be great if a focus of tomorrow’s rally is against the possible application of 12% tax on retained earnings of small corporations
#NotPayingThis
You probably are not using twitter currently. You may pick a twitter address and name dedicated to the cause. All you need is an e-mail address for verification. You may setup a gmail or other address just for this purpose.
For those new to twitter, search the hashtag #FATCA within Twitter. You may help even if you do not tweet yourself by RETWEETINGand LIKINGtweets. For my first month or two I was just watching.
The more retweets and likes, especially within a short period of time, then the tweet will show higher and longer under TOP for an address or hashtag. To get to TOP and LATEST for an address the address needs to be searched for a second time within twitter (to get beyond Tweets and Tweets and Replies).
We have continued to crowd out the compliance industry for the hashtag #FATCA. The hashtag #TaxReform was more challenging especially around the times of legislative activity in regards to tax reform when there were many tweets, retweets, and likes for homeland based tax reform issues.
We have engaged with @GroverNorquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, and an acknowledged opinion leader on taxation. He seems to be interviewed frequently by the press. He has tweeted several times in support of repeal of FATCA and shift to territorial for individuals (which is suspected to resemble Residence Based Taxation like all other countries).
There are others who like twitter who we have encouraged including:
@SolomonYue, Vice Chairman and CEO at Republicans Overseas
@RepealFatca, Official site of Campaign to #RepealFATCA! Co-Leaders @nigeljgreen & @jimjatras
Anthony Parent @IRSMedic, a compliance firm supportive of the cause with numerous videos.
We have encouraged @williambyrnes who has published on the dismal cost/benefit of FATCA.
We have encouraged John Richardson – Citizenship Lawyer
@ExpatriationLaw, and @USCitizenAbroad.
And many others of official groups and people just on their own.
No luck interesting press or politicians. Some say Twitter may not be best for this and it is better to call or write. We will see what we may do in 2018.
There have been some great memes in 2017. As is said a picture is worth 1,000 words.
I have pestered the Australian Government in regards to the flawed tax treaty. This will continue in 2018. The American Chamber of Commerce is another target. They seem to be in denial about their American connection and position where they may be more supportive of Australian business and persons with business/jobs in Australia who are also U.S. Persons.
There are too many tweets just to ourselves. These are ones without an ADDRESS or HASHTAG so they just go to followers (those already in agreement in shift to RBT). Other tweets include a URL of another tweet – so that tweet shows – and the body of the tweet is in response to the embedded tweet. YET REPLY was not clicked on first, so the originator of the embedded Tweet will likely never see it. It just goes to ourselves. !
To help get retweets and likes from followers, if a Tweet only has an address (then that tweet will not be seen by followers unless they follow the same address as well, UNLESS a “.” Is put before the @ such as .@
Another way of making one’s tweets more visible to followers (to attract Retweets and Likes) is to RETWEET and LIKE your own tweets. You might Retweet a tweet right away and Like it later. Each time this is done this puts your tweet on the home page of your followers.
Over the year we have used the hashtag #FATCA to attract extra attention from followers.
Replying to a Tweet that already has a number of addresses in it means that all those addresses get the reply as well, in addition to any addresses included in your tweet.
Attaching a MEME or picture with text to a tweet costs 0 characters. I have a collection of memes that I have dragged and dropped from tweets to my computer. I have also created a few.
The program TweetDeck may help schedule tweets for particular times and days. This is useful if you are normally asleep prime time D.C. time.
Please include your comments below:
Some tags that I enjoy using:
#FairTaxation – Often used by the European Commission who worked together with the US to create FATCA and IGA’s which override local civil protections. Also: #EUdialogues, #FutureofEurope #EUHaveYourSay
#TaxJustice – Tax Justice Network, which is a lobby for left wing groups and the compliance industry in favor of FATCA
#SocialRights is commonly used by tax transparency advocates, along with #TaxTransparency
#AEOI #CRS #OECD #AIA, #Bankgeheimnis are tags for the automatic exchange of information
#GlobalTaxBody – a UN organization created in response to the #PanamaPapers. Also #MNCsPayYourShare
#TaxReform – targets #GOP, #TTFC (territorial taxation for corporations)
Renaming from FATCA Twitter Rally to Rally for Territorial Taxation for Individuals, or Rally for TTFI.
I think it better marketing to focus on what is wanted not what is not wanted.
Please RT/Like on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JCDoubleTaxed/status/1011582467776450560
**One new and improved aspect of the Rally for TTFI: the twitter rally participants have figured some things out along the way as to how Twitter works. Twitter strings of addresses have been developed for the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia. Each represent a maximum allowable 48 Twitter addresses of politicians, press, and opinion leaders. A reply to a tweet on one string means that the reply goes to all addresses, so greater possibility of spreading the message. The tweet above is on the U.S. string. So please feel free to reply to that one thus sending your reply to all addresses.
Twitter allows the tailoring of addresses of who gets the replies. Some or all addresses may be unticked so the reply does not go to them. This is useful in dropping some addresses to make space for others. It appears to work last addresses in the string are the first to be excluded if one adds more addresses in a reply. For awhile the U.S. string was filling with Twitter Rally addresses as we were doing all the replies. For the tweet above most of these have been removed and replaced with house Ways and Means Committee members.
My one thought on the tweet and meme linked above is that TTFI does not really help Accidentals. However, TTFI would be an unprecedented and first step hopefully of several to alleviate/remove the injustices of U.S. government over-regulation of US persons overseas, including of Accidentals.
Solomon Yue says to help chances of TTFI legislation passing that it is more geared toward helping U.S. persons overseas retain their U.S. citizenship.
News is that TTFI legislation is with The Joint Committee on Taxation for scoring purposes. Solomon Yue has said that the legislation will be like the tax reform bill with actual text out a week or two before voting. Fingers crossed as they say. It is kind of quiet right now in regards to the goings on about moving this legislation forward. In the meantime let’s try to highlight it and the remedy it represents.
Please RT/Like on Twitter. If you don’t already have a Twitter account it is easy to setup and there is no requirement for your exact name, so you may pick a name highlighting what you wish to remedy. Then you may Retweet and Like the above tweet and others. It does not matter if you have not established a list of followers. All retweets and likes help in the ranking of the tweets.
The above tweet went to 48 twitter addresses, mostly in Congress but also press and opinion leaders. Any replies to this tweet also go to 48 addresses.
JC: “Renaming from FATCA Twitter Rally to Rally for Territorial Taxation for Individuals, or Rally for TTFI.
I think it better marketing to focus on what is wanted not what is not wanted.”
Good idea. It defines the target audience more accurately.
Those whose want or need to retain US nationality may be helped by changes to US tax law.
Those who don’t want US nationality need other remedies, such as changes to US nationality law or changes to AEOI rules.
“Those who don’t want US nationality need other remedies, such as changes to US nationality law or changes to AEOI rules.”
Those who don’t want US nationality don’t need changes to US nationality law. They need enforcement of an existing law, the Expatriation Act of 1868.
I’ll rephrase:
Those who don’t want US nationality aren’t likely to benefit from changes to US tax law, though changes to US nationality law or changes to AEOI rules could (no doubt unintentionally) turn out to be beneficial to those who don’t want to be American.
I agree in advance it’s extremely unlikely that the US would ever decide to adopt such a policy. My point was simply that the two different problems
* wanting to be able to remain a US citizen while not being double-taxed into bankruptcy
* wanting to be able to renounce and not keep having to prove it
need different solutions.